A Tale of Two Pies

Hello everyone!

When I last wrote, we had just finished freezing corn, which you can read about here.

The next day, I took Ellie to the garden to pick flowers to make arrangements to sell. Last year, she had mentioned that she wanted to sell flower arrangements, and since I was planning to attend some craft fairs this year, I was going to take her with me to sell her flower arrangements this summer. Obviously, that did not happen. Early last week, the thought came to me that I could deliver the flowers and do porch drop-offs. I asked some friends if anyone would be interested in ordering an arrangement from her, and I got enough orders that I thought we could make it happen in one day. And so, Friday morning, we went over to the garden to pick and arrange flowers. (You can read about Ellie’s love of arranging flowers in this blog post.)

Friday afternoon, while Emma was napping, we made the deliveries. (Ryan currently works from home and was getting off of work early so he could take care of her when she woke up.) It was a lot of work and a long day for both of us, but she was beaming when she made her first deposit of earned money in the bank.

On Monday, I stayed up late getting the playroom ready for our school to start the next day. Ellie will be turning six in December so we started kindergarten this year! And Emma started preschool. When I was in my early 20s, I wanted to teach in a one-room schoolhouse so I am now fulfilling that dream, except that my students call me Mom…well, Ellie sometimes refers to me as “Teacher,” which makes Emma cry because she says that I am her Mommy, not her teacher.

The desk on the left in this photo was actually Ryan’s desk when he was a little boy. A few years ago, my brother Sherman refinished it for us so that it would be in better condition for the girls to use. He did a great job! The other desk we ordered from Amazon, mainly because Sherman was busy when we asked about having him build one. The desk is okay, but it isn’t heirloom quality, unfortunately. And my fancy desk is actually the piano bench. :-)

On the first day of school, I decided to bake a peach pie. This decision was not necessarily correlated to the first day of school—I just had peaches that I needed to use! While Emma was napping and Ellie played in the playroom, I looked up a new crust recipe and peach pie recipes. I had started making the crust, but I had not finished before Emma woke up from her nap, and she needed some mommy TLC for a bit. Because I didn’t want the butter to get too warm, I just set everything in the refrigerator, which was a big mistake. I had not gotten enough liquid in the dough yet, and when I started working on it again, it was too hard to work liquid into easily, plus I had decided to add more ingredients to double the recipe so that I could make a top crust too. I ended up adding too much liquid, then, and it was a disaster. I finally got the peach pie assembled and into the oven and got dinner on the table much later than normal. Then, the peach pie ran over in the oven. Also, I ended up not using all of the dough and just used the scraps of the bottom crust to cut out some pieces to arrange on the top as a crust. By the time I removed the pie from the oven, I was sincerely regretting all of the time I had spent making that pie! But my family devoured it. We had enough for a treat along with breakfast the next morning, and the entire pie was consumed in less than 24 hours!

I decided to use the other portion of the crust to make an avocado chocolate pudding pie, which I had never done before. (I have made the chocolate pudding many times without putting it into a crust.) I had some whipping cream in the refrigerator to use as a topping and wanted to make another special treat. Working with the crust was much easier this time, fortunately, after it had set in the refrigerator. I prebaked the crust and set it to cool while I made the filling. Again, I didn’t get it finished before nap time was over so I had lots of help. At first, the girls didn’t want me to use avocados to make the pudding, but they had no trouble licking spoons when I let them taste it. I knew that it was a success!

This pie filling takes only five ingredients: avocado, maple syrup, cacao powder, vanilla, and salt. You can find the recipe here: Chocolate Avocado Pudding. Note: I did not add the water the recipe calls for because I wanted it to be really thick. Also, I quadrupled the recipe to have enough to fill the crust.

As you can see, the texture and consistency were perfect!

And just like the peach pie, this pie didn’t last long…

I used a gluten free crust recipe from the Bob’s Red Mill website, except I used their 1 to 1 flour along with some almond flour. The recipe called for Bob’s Red Mill All Purpose Flour, but I read in the comments that the 1 to 1 flour could be used by adjusting the quantity of liquid. I also read in the comments that a food processor could be used to make the crust. Next time I make pie, I will definitely try this recipe again. I think it will go more smoothly if I am not interrupted and stop in the middle of the process. The flavor of it was great and it turned out rather well considering the circumstances. If you want to try it, here is the link: https://www.bobsredmill.com/recipes/how-to-make/easy-as-pie-crust-gluten-free/.

I will obviously never become a food blogger…I just don’t have the time and patience to get the beauty shots of food. That, and the fact that I rarely make a recipe the same way more than once preclude any attempts of stepping into that category of blogging. Testing recipes is not my forte because I like to be creative with cooking. But when I make something that my family really enjoys, I will share it with you—even without the gorgeously presented food photos.

In addition to cooking and educating this week, I have been cleaning and working on home decor and sewing, of course. I will be sharing some of the things that I am doing in our house to make it a little more homey. We have lived here a year, and I am finally starting to work at making it feel the way I want it to. I have a long ways to go. I have so many ideas and dreams and DIY projects and projects that we will have to hire done (my hubby and I aren’t really that handy when it comes to home improvement projects).

But hopefully, in the next week or so, I can share with you some pictures of what I have been up to here in our house. Also, I have a little surprise mini collection release that I will be letting you know about soon! Stay tuned!