I really think I have some sort of pie baking dependency.

I can’t seem to stop myself.

I can always think of someone to bake a pie for, or somewhere to take a pie. There’s really no shortage of people willing to accept a pie. Pie is also a sort of currency. I bribe thank friends with it. I use it to celebrate.

Also, I use pie as therapy. It’s relaxing for me to create pastry; to roll out a crust. It’s therapeutic to find a new recipe challenge, tweak and perfect it.

It’s a stress reliever to have completed pies cooling in my kitchen, and something to write about here, on the pie blog.

Key limes were fresh off the boat, truck or airplane (not sure how they arrive) and so I bought lots this morning and kind of went nuts baking pies this afternoon. Five, I made, a few promised to people before they even went into the oven. I also made this set with graham cracker crusts; not my favorite to eat or make, but the popular vote had some sway.

A LOT of people have told me that Key Lime Pie is their favorite. For the recipe, head on over here. Look closely at the finished pie above; the finely shredded, microplaned lime zest is what makes this pie truly Key Lime. Accept no substitute.

My friend Lauri and the goofball she’s married to had a baby on Saturday. Lauri had been wishing for a Key Lime Pie and since their little angel needs to stay in the hospital for a bit, I whipped one up to deliver to the NICU.

One thing I love about making Key Lime Pie is the teeny tiny limes. I have learned that with most cooking and baking projects, the best results come when you have the right tools. I bought a lime juicer several years ago. It works pretty well for regular limes, but when it comes to Key Limes, it’s the perfect tool to squeeze the living daylights out of those little guys.

I think the pie turned out better than most of the Key Lime Pies I’ve made. Traipsing through the hospital with a pie in hand is a fun adventure. I was probably stopped a dozen times on my way up to see the baby (and oh, her parents, too). Everyone wanted to know what kind; Key Lime seems to be a favorite of many.

I adore babies and am lucky enough to have friends with a sweet newborn.

Of course, I rarely need an excuse like a brand new baby just to bake a pie.

Key Lime Pie

Key Limes (24 or so, squeezed for 1/2 cup of Key Lime juice)
One can of sweetened condensed milk
Zest of one lime
Four egg yolks

Prepare pastry for a single-crust pie. Juice limes (I like using a lime juicer) and make sure there are no seeds in the juice. Mix juice and condensed milk in a mixer till blended. Add the egg yolks and zest, and mix at medium speed. Pour filling into pie crust. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Cool completely and refrigerate for three hours before serving.

My mom, who really isn’t a pie baker, baked my future dad a cherry pie and shipped it to Germany. As I remember this story, the pie wasn’t terribly recognizable when it arrived, but that didn’t stop my dad and his Army buddies from devouring it.

Some time after that, my father bought a diamond ring and mailed it to my mother, telling her she could take it as an engagement ring or a birthday gift. They were married in 1957.

True Love Double Cherry Pie

Pastry for a double crust pie

4 cups fresh cherries, washed, de-stemmed, pitted and sliced in half

1 cup tart dried cherries

1 cup sugar

4 tablespoons quick-acting tapioca

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 teaspoon vanilla

pinch of salt

2 tablespoons butter

Make the pastry for the crust and refrigerate. Wash, de-stem, pit and slice the cherries; set aside. (This is a messy, tedious job that leaves your workspace looking like a slasher flick. Recruit someone to enjoy the mess with you.) Mix the sugar and tapioca together and add the pinch of salt. Add the almond and vanilla extract to the cherries and mix gently with a spatula. Add the sugar mixture in, folding the cherries to incorporate. Set the cherry mixture aside for at least 15 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Roll out your bottom crust and place in a deep, 9″ pie plate, leaving plenty of overhang for crimping. Pour in the cherries. Chop the two tablespoons of butter into small chunks and scatter over the top. Now, roll out your top crust and upend over the filling. Crimp the edges together, removing any excess. Cut several vents in the top of the pie, brush with milk and sprinkle generously with sugar.

Bake at 375 for 30 minutes, rotate 180 degrees, then bake for another 30-35 minutes, until the filling bubbles. If the crust begins to get too brown, pop a piece of foil over the top for the last ten minutes or so of baking.

The cherry pitter I bought a few months ago worked like a charm. I’m still on the road to recovery, so this pie is being completed in stages. I pitted cherries — I rested. I mixed up a batch of pie pastry; I rested. I made the pie filling, and now I’m sitting here doing this.

This is a double cherry pie so those are fresh cherries, mixed with dried. If you’re not a baker you may not know the secret ingredient that gives fresh cherry pie it’s spectacular flavor: almond extract.

The filling is in the refrigerator, as is the pastry. It’s too dang hot out to bake and heat up the kitchen so again, it’s a pie in stages; I may not bake until tomorrow morning. I’ll post the finished product and the recipe then.

And while my hand has hovered over the “Like” I haven’t been able to click. It’s not endorsement of the piece as agreement — I’d “Recommend” it, but liking takes it to another level.

What people might not expect is that I agree with several points Heller makes. Let’s face it; there’s a lot of crappy pie out there. Whether it’s made by someone who is inexperienced or just doesn’t care or commercially cranked out and over processed, pie is often bad. It’s tricky, and most people aren’t up to the patience required and practice needed to learn to make a good from-scratch, tender, flaky crust.

Since Heller focuses on fruit pies, that’s part of the issue as well. Think about it; millions of shortcut artists are using canned fillings with pre-made, store-bought crusts. That’s NOT PIE! For a good fruit pie — and I would bet that there’s a tiny percentage of Americans who have had a really good homemade fruit pie and far fewer who can make one — the fruit must (and it seems ridiculous to me to have to write this) be FRESH. If it’s locally-sourced, even better.

My friend Brian “The Food Geek” Geiger once made a pie from apples picked that morning. That apple pie is legendary and led to Brian’s current status as the best pie maker in Charlottesville, Va. (feel free to argue/challenge this) and the head judge of the Charlottesville Pie Fest.

After crusts that are out of balance or not pre-baked, par-baked or otherwise properly prepared to receive their fillings, it’s the fillings themselves that cause the downfall of many a pie. Heller complains about runny pies bleeding cooked fruit. It is a carefully measured mixture that results in the non-gloppy, sweet and tart filling that holds together without being gluey. It doesn’t surprise me at all that Heller, perhaps, has never experienced a really good slice of pie. (Dear Nathan, please join us for Pie Fest or let me know if you’re ever in Charlottesville.)

Besides characterizing pie as a completely disgusting concoction, Heller criticizes pie’s claim as being American. It’s not. Neither is pizza, as we know it, Italian. Or the Chinese food we bring home in takeout boxes remotely Asian. The history of pie is much older than our country, naturally, and the evolution has taken the path of so many “Americanized” items — we’ve ruined it in the effort to mass-produce, speed up and create a product made for travel. Yuck.

The best pie, the pie that, in my book counts as pie, was made in a home, with love, with the best, freshest, regionally and seasonally-appropriate ingredients. The best pie takes a lot of time and not a little effort. It is made by those who have made hundreds of pies, some good, some bad. It goes from ingredients to oven to plate in the shortest possible amount of time. In the best pie, you can taste the sun that ripened the fruit, the spices and flavorings pop and the crust reminds you of the grandmother you wish you’d had; the one that knew how to make a really excellent pie.

The pie I decided to make is Spanish Pepper and Chorizo Pie, a recipe from the book Pie, a collection of mostly savory creations by a British author.

I took my time making the pie — I had all day to get the house ready and dinner made, so I started by making the pastry in the morning.

There are three kinds of meat in this pie; chorizo, pork loin and Serrano ham (I still haven’t been able to find local Serrano ham so at the advice of my butcher, used prosciutto instead.) The meat (except for the prosciutto) needed to be cooked and finely diced, so I did that and prepared the vegetables ahead of time as well.

And then I took a nap . . . (I’d barely slept the night before so I took the opportunity to get a short snooze before I had to finish everything up.)

Back at it, cooking the onions and peppers in butter, adding minced garlic, red chili pepper and chopped parsley, then incorporating the meat mixture.

All that deliciousness goes into the pie shell, gets topped with crust, brushed with egg and prepped for a 350 oven.

Baking and cooling time totals up to almost an hour and a half — this is in no way a quick and easy dinner solution.

It turned out well, and we happily devoured it along with great company and a good Spanish wine.

My family is so spoiled, especially when it comes to pies-on-demand.

The girl promised her 8th grade algebra 2 class that her mom would bake a pie for Pi Day (3.14) and then chose exactly the pie she wanted me to make. She chose a Caramel Coconut Pie from Mrs. Rowe’s Little Book of Southern Pies by Mollie Cox Bryan.

Since coconut was in the house, my husband (likely thinking about that Caramel Coconut heading out the door to the middle school, never to return) asked for a Coconut Cream. I used Mrs. Rowe’s recipe for this pie, as well, and the meringue; it is, after all, the most popular pie at Rowe’s Family Restaurant (one of our favorite stopping spots in Staunton, Va.)

Now those of you who know me well know that cream and custard pies are my Achilles heel. My first banana cream pie was a total flop. I was determined, though and even when my first batch of pre-baked crust didn’t turn out well and had to be trashed, I persisted.

The first pie and pre-baked pie crust production took me a total of about three hours. Once I finished the components of the Caramel Coconut pie filling (a pie that is not baked, but frozen), it was a snap to return to it later and assemble the pie before putting it in the freezer overnight.

I’m pretty pleased with how both pies turned out — these are pies that are a real test of my patience; there’s no rushing and not a step can be skipped. If I didn’t have half a day to devote to pie creation, I’d never attempt these pies.

We’re all ready for March 14 — are you baking any pies for the day of Pi?

It was one of those wake-up call moments (it wasn’t, apparently, last year; doing it twice did the trick, though).

I made one of those snap decisions to get back in shape, specifically with regular physical therapy and ongoing exercise. The biggest decision was to join Weight Watchers — which I did two weeks ago and have so far lost 5 lbs.

Why Weight Watchers?

Among friends and family, WW has been by far the most successful plan for those who have lost weight, kept it off and regained a healthy lifestyle. It’s a plan that makes sense to me and because I’m a technogeek, I like using the online tools; the app for my iPad and my smartphone.

What happens to the pie?

Worry not, my friends. I have continued my pie obsession, mostly giving it away to others. In fact, I was pleased to find quite the selection of pie recipes among Weight Watchers offerings, so be looking for some lighter pie posts in upcoming months.

The recipe I used for this pie called for Serrano ham, which I did not find.

It also called for saffron strands to be incorporated into the crust.

So, yeah. Saffron is expensive, and I just started a new business, so when I become super-profitable THEN I will include saffron. And go in search of Serrano ham.

Instead, I bought some free-range organic pork loin that came from a pig whose sire was a champion chess player.

In addition, there was chorizo sausage which was smuggled over the border in the dark of night.

The interwebz said that I could reasonably substitute a pinch of tumeric for the saffron, so substitute I did. (Why on earth I had an unopened container of tumeric I do not know, but I was grateful for it.)

First, you melt half a stick of butter in a French Oven (which is a Dutch Oven that was made in France). Next, you chop the following into tiny bits: two onions, green pepper, red pepper, hot red chili, parsley, one garlic clove. Add the onion to the butter and cook for 10 minutes at medium heat. Add the peppers and cook for another 15 minutes, stirring once in a while.

Add the parsley, garlic and chili, season with salt and pepper.

Next, add 3 oz. of diced chorizo and half a pound of lean pork loin. My butcher said I could try pancetta (which I know is Italian, and this recipe is Cuban so – yay diversity!) instead of the ham, so after mixing the meat into the pepper mixture, I added a layer of pancetta.

This is a two-crust meat pie, using a rich butter and egg crust lining the bottom and with a crimped lid on top.

There was a seriously tense moment as the pie spilled over — all that pork puts out a fair amount of grease, as you can imagine. The grease hit the bottom of the oven and during a routine peek at the pie, a cloud of smoke billowed out and filled the kitchen.

It was time for a beer.

After that incident, I installed a drip pan and all was well.

I was really unsure about this pie; it was the first time I had made it, or anything close to it. In fact, a search online did not reveal many pies like it . . .

I’ll tell you though, (modestly, of course) this is one delicious pie. It took a long time to make (it bakes for 50 minutes at 350) and then had to sit for another good 30 minutes to settle. The wait was totally worth it. We’ll make this one again.