Bourbon Apple Pie

Made this lovely, boozy pie for my family and friends over Christmas. Kicked it up a bit, as usual. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

* 1/2 cup craizins
* 1/2 cup Cherry Bourbon
* 3 pounds Granny Smith apples, about 4-5 apples
* 3/4 cup granulated sugar
* 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
* 1/2 cup chopped pecans, toasted
* Pie pastry
* 1 tablespoon buttermilk or evaporated milk
* 1 tablespoon sugar
* 2 cups Orange Juice
* 1 cup flour
* 1 cup oats
* 1/2 cup brown sugar
* Butter


Preparation:
Peel apples; cut into 1/2-inch slices. Heat orange juice in microwave for 2 minutes. Combine craizins and apples in OJ and cover for 15 minutes while you make the crust. Strain juice. Add bourbon to apples and craizins.

Combine 3/4 cup sugar, the flour, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg in a large bowl; add apple mixture stirring well to combine.

Fit 1 pie crust into a 9-inch pie plate. Spoon apple filling mixture into pie crust.

Mix up a cup of flour, the pecans, a cup of oats, and 1/2 cup brown sugar. Sprinkle over the top of pie until covered. Then take frozen butter and slice it into very tiny pieces. Cover the top of the pie with them evenly.

Bake at 450° on lower rack of oven for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350° and bake 30 to 35 minutes longer. Cover with foil if browning too much.

Glazed Pineapple Pie

Chris and I made this amazing pie together. It was his idea to add lemon zest to the crust. Yum! I know the picture is a total cop out but we ate the pie too fast to take a picture.

Ingredients:

* 1 can (20 ounces) crushed pineapple
* Pastry for double-crust pie (9 inches)
* 3/4 cup flaked coconut
* 1 cup sugar
* 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 1 tablespoon lemon juice
* 1 tablespoon butter, melted



Glaze:
* 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
* 1/4 teaspoon rum or vanilla extract

Directions:
Drain pineapple, reserving 2 tablespoons juice (discard remaining juice or refrigerate for another use); set pineapple aside. When making the dough use mom's recipe but add the zest of two lemons to the mix. Line a 9-in. pie plate with pie dough; trim dough even with edge of plate. Sprinkle with coconut.
In a small bowl, combine the sugar, flour, salt, lemon juice, butter and pineapple. Spread over coconut. Roll out remaining pastry to fit top of pie; place over filling. Trim, seal and flute edges. Cut sits in pastry. Add decorative cutouts if desired.
Cover edges loosely with foil. Bake at 400° for 30 minutes. Remove foil; bake 5-10 minutes longer or until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbly.
In a small bowl, combine the confectioners' sugar, extract and enough of the reserved pineapple juice to achieve glaze consistency. Drizzle over warm pie. Cool on a wire rack. Store in the refrigerator. Yield: 6-8 servings.

Week Pie: Lime Pie

I made this for Easter and walked miles around the city searching for key limes with no luck, so this is just a lime pie and it tasted lovely anyway. For fun, I separated out some of the filling and dyed it green with food coloring and then polka-dotted the top with it. Looked awesome. And of course I forgot to take a picture. I made two. The other had whipped cream on the top with zested lime rind and sliced limes on top.

For crust:

* 7 (5-by 2 1/2-inch) graham crackers, broken into small pieces
* 3/4 cup sliced or slivered almonds
* 1/4 cup sugar
* 1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted


For filling:

* 2 (14-ounce) cans sweetened condensed milk
* Grated zest of 2 Key limes
* 1 cup fresh or organic lime juice (from about 2 pounds fresh limes)
* 4 large egg yolks

Make crust:
Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Butter a 9-inch pie plate.

Pulse together graham crackers, almonds, and sugar in a food processor until finely ground. Transfer to a bowl and stir in butter. Press crumb mixture evenly onto bottom and up side of pie plate. Bake until lightly browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Cool completely. (Leave oven on.) Or you could just but a pre-made graham cracker crust like I did. Some things should be made from scratch but graham cracker crusts are a pain.

Make filling and bake pie:
Gently whisk together filling ingredients in a medium bowl until smooth and pour into crust. Bake until just set in center, 15 to 20 minutes.

Cool completely (filling will set as it cools). Chill pie, loosely covered, at least 8 hours.

* Accompaniment: sweetened whipped cream