It’s National Pi Day, so I’m making pie! I used to shy away from pie crusts citing them as just too difficult and time consuming to spend my time on them, when a simple “fruit crisp” with a crumb topping would do just fine. But within the last year, I have been inspired to practice and perfect various fruit pies, using my grandmother’s pie crust recipe. In the summer, I have a lot of rhubarb on hand, and usually combine it with blueberry, raspberry, strawberry or apple. Occasionally, I’ll make a plain rhubarb pie. When our 3 year old Honeycrisp apple tree produced more than a hundred apples this past fall, I knew I had to come up with a plan to also enjoy those sweet treats all year long. I selected an Apple Pie Filling from Allrecipes.com specifically designed for freezing and packaged pie quantities in quart freezer containers. Now I can use them in turnovers, pie, crisp, or as a breakfast topping on pancakes or waffles.
When I decided at about 3:00 to make a pie for dinner and acknowledge 3.14, I could have chosen from the diced rhubarb, peach slices or the apples, all in the freezer. But would I rather have a fruit duo? I came home from the grocery store with strawberries, blueberries and two cans of tart cherries. As I studied the vast collection of fruit in the door of the freezer, a quick decision came to mind – cherries and apples! After all, who doesn’t love cherry pie and/or apple pie? Let’s make it a bit of both.
Pie Filling
1 quart frozen apple pie filling, thawed
1 can tart cherries, canned with water, drained
2 tbls. cornstarch
1/8 cup cold water
Combine thawed frozen apple pie filling with one can drained cherries in a saucepan. Bring to a light boil. Mix cornstarch and water in a small plastic or glass container with a lid that can be shaken. Mix thoroughly and then add to the fruit. Bring to another boil, stir while thickening. Within 1-2 minutes, the fruit mixture should be thick and ready to add to your pie shell. Set aside until you are ready to build the pie.
