Mixed Berry Pie and Turnovers (OXO Product Review)

Wow, I've kind of fallen off the wagon with posts over the last couple weeks.  I apologize to my loyal readers.  To make it up to you, let me share a delicious new pie recipe and tell you about OXO's new cherry pitter design.

To make this pie...

...which involves delicious homegrown sweet cherries, blackberries, and blueberries...

...you need one of these.

But the design of the above pictured cherry pitter is awful.  I'd been using it for about three years now, and I never liked it.  The grip was too far apart to be comfortable for my hands, it wouldn't really come clean in the dishwasher and was a slight pain to wash by hand. Plus it splattered cherry juice everywhere - on my counter, down my arm, across my (apron-clad) front...

You get the idea.

But fresh cherry pies are so awesome, so you need a decent cherry pitter to make the pitting part easy.

I received OXO's newly designed cherry pitter recently and I have to say, it's pretty awesome.

For one thing, the distance between the hand grips is far, far smaller than on my old cherry pitter.  It's more ergonomically designed and thus more comfortable for pitting quart upon quart of cherries.  The overall design is a lot smarter too.

The prong (the thing that pushes through the cherry, I don't know if it has an actual name) is made of metal - probably stainless steel.  The little "cradle for the cherry is also a little more secure - I had no fears of the cherry falling out, which was a bit of a problem on my old pitter.  Plus, see that little plastic sleeve on the bottom there?  That's a splash guard.

So you don't spray yourself and your kitchen with cherry juice.

It works like a dream.

Plus, that little plastic guard comes off for easy cleaning - and like most OXO products, the whole thing is dishwasher safe.

And perhaps my favorite part (aside from the dishwasher safe thing) - there's a little locking mechanism that lets you lock the pitter closed for easy storage.  Takes up way less space in my drawer!

So, armed with this awesome OXO cherry pitter, what did I decide to make?

Well, that mixed berry pie, of course!

It was one of a dozen pies I made for a friend's wedding recently.

(This, by the way, is one of the reasons I haven't blogged much in the past couple weeks.  The other reason is getting my classroom ready.)

Anyway, the mixed berry pie was amazing, if I do say so myself.  Want to know how to make it?

Peanut Butter Pie

I realize that we're one week into Lent, so many of you may find this particular post to be a little cruel.  I, in fact, am sort of torturing myself with the memory of this particular sweet treat, because I will not be eating the likes of it again until April 8th (-ish).

(For those still scratching their heads, that's Easter, and thus the end of Lent.)

But if you're brave enough to dare temptation, by all means, continue reading about my husband's favorite treat, peanut butter pie.

Coconut Cream Pie (The 12th Sweet of Christmas)

Merry Christmas, everyone!  Here's the last installment in my special holiday series, "The 12 Sweets of Christmas."  And today we have....

*drumroll*

Coconut cream pie!

Meet my Waterloo.

This is the most difficult pie I make.  It's time consuming.  It's fussy.  It requires constant vigilance. It has the potential to be completely disastrous.   But if it comes out right, it's oh so good!

Normally I make this for New Year's dinner, but my cousin (the same one who wanted the 12-layer cake for his birthday) is getting his wisdom teeth out on Tuesday and won't be able to eat much of anything on New Year's.

A few "musts" up front.  Allot yourself close to an hour to make this pie, all hands on time.  Use whole milk.  No not leave the filling unattended.  Adhere to the bold typed directions if you want to be successful.  If you don't have a double boiler, go buy one.  They really aren't that expensive, and even though you might only use the top part a couple times a year, the bottom of a double boiler is just a sauce pan that can be used whenever.  Trying to rig up a double boiler with two saucepans is tricky, irritating, and can lead to messes, burns, and a pie-fail.

Peach Cobbler Pie

A few years ago, I sort of created my own recipe for peach cobbler pie, based on pieces and parts of other recipes I'd found online and in cookbooks.

Since the peaches were so amazing this year, I couldn't help but make a peach cobbler pie.

Peach pie (really any peach treat) is rather time consuming, only because you have to peel, slice, and pit the peaches.  It's also a rather messy process.  But it's definitely worth the time and effort.

The Great Grape Pie Experiment

The New York State Finger Lakes region is rather well known for it's wineries, grapes, and treats related to grapes.  One of the baked items I've long thought about making is the "famous" Naples grape pie.  It sounds sort of odd, but interesting and good at the same time.

So armed with some fresh NYS concord grapes, and this recipe for "the world's greatest grape pie", I set out to see what all the fuss is about.

Raspberry Pie

Yesterday was a chilly 79 degrees, and I decided to make a raspberry pie.

Let's face it, fresh raspberries are amazing and awesome.  And raspberry season only lasts, like, a week.  Blink and you miss it.

I bought two pints of raspberries at the farmer's market two Thursdays ago, but two pints of (extremely expensive) raspberries does not a batch of jam make.  So I decided to wash and freeze them, so later on I could either make a pie or possible acquire more berries and make jam.

I decided on pie.