Have Your Pie and Eat It Too

Peaches, apricots, plums, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and even some figs. All in season, all luscious on their own, and even more so in a pie. Consider one of your five-a-day servings of fruit in pie form, especially if the pie doesn’t require turning on the oven.

It can be a real temptation to purchase so much summer fruit ... and then reality sets in. Fresh stone fruit and berries can be eaten as-is for a delicious, juicy snack, or can be frozen to be used in cold drinks, pureed into a summery slushy, or just munched on right from the freezer. Summer fruit can be pureed and served as a sauce for savory grilled items or as a “dipping” sauce for ice cream, crackers or toasted bread or even stirred into hot cereals or cooked rice, quinoa, couscous or barley, sliced and used for a topping for cold cereal, sorbet or sherbet, or fresh green, pasta or macaroni salad.

But there’s more! All you need to create fresh fruit pies are ripe summer fruit, a sweetener of choice, cornstarch and water, and a pie crust. Here’s how to start:

Select ripe fruit. If using peaches, plums or apricots, pit and slice or chunk the fruit. It will be your choice whether to peel some of the fruit, or not; it works well either way, and, if you leave the peel on, you get more fiber! For strawberries, remove the leaves and cut coarsely. For berries or figs, wash very well and pat dry. Since you will not be cooking most of the fruit, you can create combinations, as don’t need to worry about different fruit required different cooking time. Think about a four berry, or strawberry-peach, apricot-raspberry, plum and fig or blueberry-peach combination.

You will need about six cups of fruit to make a heaping-high 9-inch (standard size pie pan) pie. Of course, you can simply create the fruit pie filling without the crust, and serve on its own or topped with ice cream, Greek yogurt, sliced angel food or pound cake or crumbled cookies.

Here’s how to proceed: place your prepared fresh fruit in a large bowl; you will be mixing, so be certain you have enough room. Place about 1 cup of fruit in a large pot, add ½ cup of sweetener (sugar, honey, maple syrup, your choice) and 1 cup of water, bring to a boil and then reduce heat, allowing to simmer. Taste to see if it is sweet enough for your taste, and add more sweetener, if needed. In a small bowl, whisk together one tablespoon of cornstarch with ¼ cup water until smooth. Stir the cornstarch mixture into the simmering fruit, and heat and stir until thickened; this should take about three minutes. Remove from stove and allow to cool, about fifteen minutes.

Pour the fruit mixture over the fresh fruit in the large bowl and mix well, so fruit is coated. Pour into pie shell, and then allow to chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour. If you are in a real hurry, or just don’t feel like stirring at the stove, a filling hack is to combine very ripe fruit with canned strawberry or apricot glaze. This works just as well, as long as you have very ripe fruit.

For the crust, a ready-to-use graham cracker crust is convenient. If you have the time/inclination to make your own no-bake crust, here is some guidance: graham crackers, vanilla wafers, Biscoff, shortbread, gingersnaps and chocolate chip cookies work well (avoid the “soft” variety). You will need 2 cups of cookie crumbs to make a 9-inch pie crust. Create your cookie crumbs by placing the cookies in a food storage bag and smash with a water bottle or food can. Please the cookie crumbs in a large bowl. Add ½ cup of melted, cooled butter or margarine and 3 Tablespoons of sweetener. You can play with the fat and sugar amount for your taste. Mix the ingredients together with a fork until well combined and “pressable” (sticking together). Place mixture into a pie pan and press evenly. Freeze for 15 minutes (or refrigerate for 30 minutes). Remove from freezer/refrigerator, add filling…and, after about two hours of chilling, you will have pie!

Please contact Nancy at foodprof2@gmail.com for any health or nutrition questions, or for ideas on upcoming columns.