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Amanda's Amazing Pies March 17

Avocado Pie

And now for something completely different.I love avocados, so why not a pie?

Easiest pie ever, and it tastes like an avocado smoothie in pie form.

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Amanda's Amazing Pies March 16

Chocolate Peanut Butter Malt Pie

One flour-less chocolate cake molded into a pie crust.

Filled with sweet peanut butter.

Covered with Malted Chocolate Mousse

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Amanda's Amazing Pies March 15

Gluten Free French Silk Chocolate Lavender Pie

Gluten free pie crust is a strange substance.

It almost has the consistency of play doh mixed with sand.

However it has the advantage of once its pressed into a mold, it doesn't fall. So there's no need to use rice to hold it in place during a blind bake.

The downside is that it cracks.

No problem though, I'll just fill it with chocolate! (it fixes everything)

Now to add the silk part.  Meringue infused with French lavender

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Amanda's Amazing Pies March 14

Mini Blackberry Pies

Fresh blackberries are a bit expensive, so I opted to make mini pies instead.

A good crust and some sugar crumble is all you need for some deliciousness.

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Amanada's Amazing Pies March 13

Peach Maple Pie

Fresh peaches marinated in cinnamon and maple syrup.

Layered with cinnamon sugar crumble.

This was my first attempt at doing lattice work.

This has been my favorite pie so far.

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Amanda's Amazing Pies March 12

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

Sometimes one forgets to take a picture of the completed pie before giving it away....so here's a picture of the filling

of the

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Amanda's Amazing Pies March 11

Beer and Beef Pie

Not all pies are sweet. Tonight I decided to make my pie of the day our dinner.

First I sauteed some shallots in butter.

Then I added a bottle of dark stout beer.

Reduce the beer down till syrupy, then add beef stock.

Add meat from a fully cooked chuck roast. 

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Amanda's Amazing Pies March 10

Blueberry Pie

My favorite as a kid was picking blueberries in the back yard and my grandma making a fresh pie for that night's dinner.

Her's was better.

I decided to have fun with cookie cutters!

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Amanda's Amazing Pies March 9

Banana Cheese Cream Pie

Time for a classic diner dessert.

Bring on the bananas!

I buy pre-made graham cracker crusts because I find making them to be tedious and time consuming. Whole Foods has a pretty decent one.

I started with lining the crust with bananas.

The cream part actually has no bananas in it. Its cream cheese, vanilla pudding, condensed milk, and whipped cream.

All that's left is filling the shell.

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Amanda's Amazing Pies March 8

Pear Almond Pie

I got a giant jar of almond paste.

Since many of my favorite French recipes contain almond paste, I couldn't wait to try it out.

First I poached the pears in a simple syrup.

I blind baked a pie shell.

I filled the shell with a mixture of almond paste, butter, eggs, and vanilla.

I pressed the poached pears evenly into the shell.

All that's left is to bake it!

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Amanda's Amazing Pie March 7

Apple Pie

There comes a day when one is simply too tired to make pie.

That's too bad cause its Pi(e) month, so we soldier on.

Somehow while chopping up these apples I shaved off a sizable chunk of my thumb and nail. (Don't worry I threw that apple away)

Towards the end I was too tired to care how pretty it was

The results were hilarious

It still tasted good though

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Amanda's Amazing Pie's March 6

Sweet Potato Pie

This venture into southern cooking is prompted by a request from a house guest. I'm solidly a pumpkin pie girl normally, but why not give it a try.

First I roasted some sweet potatoes in the oven, until they were as soft as butter.

Then I mashed them up with spices and sugar.

Voila!

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Amanda's Amazing Pies March 5

Strawberry

For those of us living in the sunshine state, its strawberry season!

So while the rest of the country is dealing with yet more winter storms, we (and countless snowbirds) are down here enjoying the fruits of living in a land that almost never sees snow.

The primary fruit of course is Strawberries.

I encased the strawberries in a homemade jello consisting of strawberry juice and vanilla.

Then I topped the whole thing off with a mountain of strawberry mousse.

Finishing it up with fresh strawberries for decoration.

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Amanda's Amazing Pies March 4

Custard Pie

Not having grown up in the south, there is much about Southern cooking that confuses me. Why is there sugar in everything? Why do casseroles exist? Is it truly necessary to deep fry a turkey?

However, in the course of this month I will be making some old fashion southern pies. The first of which is custard.

This has to be one of the easiest pies on the books. It has 5 ingredients eggs, sugar, cream, vanilla, and nutmeg.  In a pie shell.

I used a nutcracker to create the crinkled edges.

Mix eggs, cream, sugar, and vanilla together.

Pour into shell.

Top with nutmeg.

The results is a very rich creamy pie with the consistency of a good flan.

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Amanda's Amazing Pies March 3

Lemon Meringue Pie

I do not like traditional Lemon Meringue pie mainly because of the consistency of the meringue. So I decided to make it my way.

First I blind baked pie shell.

I filled up the shell with rice so the edges wouldn't collapse until it cooked enough for them to stay up on their own.

While that was baking, I made a lemon custard consisting of eggs, lemon juice, butter,  and sugar.

I filled the fully cooked shell with lemon custard and put it in the fridge to cool.

Italian meringue is my favorite meringues. It has the consistency and taste of marshmallow Fluff  without all the chemicals and artificial ingredients of the grocery store version.

Beating the egg whites in an electric mixer is almost essential to making this work, because you add boiling sugar to the whites as it beats. This cooks the eggs, and it stabilizes the meringue so it will not fall once the beating is stopped.

It also gives it a nice shiny look.

All that's left now is to top the lemon pie with the meringue!

Now since that doesn't have the nice toasty look that lemon meringue pies usually have.

Nothing a little blow torch can't fix

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Amanda's Amazing Pies March 2

Key Lime Pie

Before I started this project I took requests from friends around the area who might want to partake of some delicious pies. One of my good friends who lives in GA, but grew up in the Keys, requested a real key lime pie. Most store bought key lime pies are artificially flavored, so a real key lime pie is a treasure.

I quickly found out why. Squeezing juice from a key lime is difficult, unrewarding work. First off they are tiny. Second they are as hard as golf balls.

Once one gets past the horrific experience that is squeezing a key lime, the pie is pretty simple.

Condensed milk, sour cream, key lime juice, sugar.

The bake time is only about 8 minutes, and out comes a beautiful key lime pie.

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Amanda's Amazing Pies March 1

Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin is one of the most popular pies in my house, so I thought I would kick off the month with a classic.

I started with a whole pumpkin which I roasted in the oven until it was so soft I could scoop out the meat with a spoon.

Then I made a Pate Brisee by hand. (I am one of those people that like to do things the hard way)

Once the dough was formed I let it rest while I mixed pumkin, spices, eggs, and sugar together for the filling.

Then it was time to line the pan. I used to have a set of tweezers specifically to create the nice crinkly edges on a pie. However, do to some unfortunate circumstances involving a dryer and some clothes catching fire I lost a few of my kitchen tools.

I decided to use a nutcracker.

I'm pretty pleased with the results.

Time for the filling.

Finished!