Today was PIE day! (Cherry, and Blackberry)

Because I wanted to make room in one of the freezers today, I decided to make two pies-- one a cherry, and the other a blackberry.  Besides that, with the oven going, the kitchen warmed up nicely on this chilly Fall day...

For this cherry pie, I followed the recipe found at:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/the-best-of/cherry-pie-recipe/index.html

Because the cherries had been in the freezer, they were VERY JUICY when they thawed.  First thing, I took all of the juice and, in a kettle over medium heat, I "reduced" the amount of total juice from 2 and 1/4 cups, down to 2/3 cup.  (It didn't take all too long to do that.)   Once the juice amount was down to around 2/3 cup, I dumped the pitted cherries in, and heated them until "just boiling"-- then I added the blended mixture of sugar (I added only 1 cup of sugar) and cornstarch to the hot cherries.  Stirred until it was beginning to thicken.  Dumped all into the bottom crust.  Put the top crust on.  I proceeded and then baked  it according to directions on the website.   

Below:  I use a "cheater mold" for 

making a sort of lattice top...

Some of the cherries I used were "early cherries" 

(lighter in color); the others were "late 

cherries" (darker in color).  End result

was a pie with darker colored cherries.

Because the cherries were frozen, they are a 

little darker than usual, and some are just 

not "as round" as fresh cherries would

be in a ready-to-eat slice of pie like this.

(Some cherries looked more like a "flat tire",

but the regular taste was there.)

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The second pie for today, Blackberry, was made from the recipe

found at:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/blackberry-pie-i/

For this pie, I used "wild" blackberries that were frozen from over the summer.  Because they WERE still frozen, when going into the pie crust, I followed the advice of the "submitter" and baked the pie for an extra 20-25 minutes, and it worked just fine.  Your oven may be different, so check on the progress every 5-10 minutes after the originally suggested baking time.

As shown below, this top crust was also made with a "cheater" kind of pie crust mold-- this one, with the heart cutouts.  Others I have can be seen under the category of "gadgets I like" in the index list along the  right side of this blog.

Like one "reviewer" did, I also 

added an extra cup of berries.

It is time to have a piece of pie!