My First Time...

Baking a homemade pie! Wow....you people are dirty! I cannot believe you would think I would write about that in my cooking blog!

I decided if I really want to win the upcoming homemade fruit pie challenge, I needed to do a trial run. I have been doing my homework for the past few weeks and decided on a very basic Martha Stewart pie crust. I also decided to follow one of Martha's recipes for the filling of the pie. What can I say? I do love me some Martha (plus, AJ always calls me Martha Jr.).

The pie crust created the perfect opportunity for me to try out the new food processor that my mom gave AJ for Christmas. We had been so busy with everything wedding related earlier in the year, we had yet to pull it out of the box. I have quickly fallen in love with it though. I will have to name it (my Kitchen-Aid is named McMixer in honor of Grey's).

After pulsing the ingredients together for the crust, I shaped it into a disc, covered it in saran wrap and put it in the fridge for about 3 hours. The recipe calls for the dough to chill for, at least, an hour. You could even make this the night before if you were running short on time.

The filling was an easy decision because I love peaches. Costco has a smoking deal on peaches right now and it provides enough for two pies worth. The filling is super easy -- 8 cups of peaches, some light brown sugar and a little flour and set aside to allow peaches to sort of suck the dry ingredients up.

The crumble consisted of rolled oats, flour, light brown sugar and butter. This would be fun to make with kids because it requires you to mix with your hands in order to create a good consistency.

I decided to use the thumb squeeze technique for the actual border of the pie crust. I like the rustic look of this over other methods. Once in the pie dish, dump the peaches in and then even disperse the crumble.

The pie was in the oven for about 1 hour and 10 minutes. And definitely attracted attention.

I served the pie after enjoying a beautiful meal AJ created ( I will blog about that next) for his mom (Julie), her boyfriend (Ken) and his son, Jack. For the first time ever making a pie, I was pleased with the results. As was Jack, he had two pieces.

I think I have a pretty strong chance of taking down the competition with this one. Cross your fingers for me. I want that damn trophy and prove AJ and Tim wrong. They told me the only time I was going to be in possession of the award was when I opened the box it was shipped in! Jerks.

What do you think of my pie?