That's MY pie!

I don't know what bug got up my butt, but Sunday I decided, dammit, I'm making a pie. And I'm making it from scratch. I owe Sara big time, too, because without having watched her make a pie and crust a few weeks ago, I would have been totally unsure of everything I was doing. Anyway, I looked online for a suitable recipe, and I settled on this website: easy pie. The website is a disaster, but the recipe seemed the most basic (and I had all the ingredients [mostly]). I used the site's crust recipe, too. I just made a few adjustments: instead of shortening, I used 3/4 cup applesauce + 1/4 cup margarine; I hardly used any water with the dough and used a TON of flour (I couldn't get it to stop being so darn sticky!); seemed weird not to have any sugar in the dough, so I threw in a tablespoon; and I didn't have quite enough blueberries for a big pie, so I made four mini pies -- I just used a little less sugar and cornstarch for the berry goo.

I was super unsure about the dough... Had no idea how it was going to turn out. Fingers crossed!

Berries and sugar. Figured I couldn't mess that up.

...aww! At least they look cute! Dough on bottom and top.

Baking is messy.

So... they exploded a little. But they still look pretty good....

With the pies done, it was time to throw dinner together. Thanks Encyclopedia of American Cooking for putting the idea of English muffin pizza in my head! (Much tastier sounding than meat nut ball roll or whatever that was!) I loosely followed the recipe, but there was no way I was using American cheese, and it seemed like they'd be too dry with no sauce. I lightly toasted three English muffins, laid them in a 9 x 12 baking dish, spread a dab of pizza sauce on each, and then topped each with chopped tomatoes. On two halves I used mozzarella cheese, two goat cheese, and two goat + mozz; then I topped each with a little grated parm and a few sprinkles of red peppercorns. I baked them at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes, then I turned the broiler on to crisp 'em up a tad. Served with some lightly cooked green beans with lemon juice and pine nuts, it was a perfect pre-pie dinner.

Everything turned out super tasty -- even my mini pies! The crust tasted fine, the goo was nice, and it was the perfect mini size. I always worry about baking because, as Rachael Ray always says, I hate to measure (random aside, I love measuring cups and spoons. Go figure.). And even when I try, I figure I've somehow messed it up. Seems easy, but I'm also someone who managed to mess up my checking account records so badly, using a calculator, that I had to cancel my account and start over. So I don't trust myself when it comes to numbers. With baking, if you go a little over or under, you might really mess something up. At least in this case, all was well. Hooray! Maybe this is the start of a baking streak... It is fall -- apple time!!!