Donna's Crema di Pollo e Verdure su Pane Tostato

This is quick and a versatile dish.  Once combined this is served over toast, but it can also fill a pastry for a pot pie; be rolled in a tortilla, topped with cheese, and baked; tossed with fettuccine noodles; made into a rice casserole/ served on a bed of rice; add cubed boiled potatoes for a chowder; drizzled over biscuits; served in a hard roll; or elegantly served over puffed pastry.  This recipe serves 6.

Grandma Flaugh's Butterscotch Pie

When I was in college I flew out during a break to be with my Aunt Grace's family in Creamery, Pennsylvania. My Grandma Flaugh was there, too. One day my uncle Bill requested that grandma make her famous Butterscotch pie. I came into the kitchen and with paper in hand, wrote down observational notes and asked questions as I watched her make this recipe from memory and scratch! I loved it!!! Today, I was reading through a recipe book my Aunt Grace and her son, my cousin Tom, had compiled for the extended family this year for Christmas. Grace had the recipe in there and mentioned it was my mother's favorite, and that neither Grace or mother had been successful at making this pie. I have made this recipe for my own family and I too love it. So, I quickly found my recipe card and discovered that I had details Grace did not. This recipe includes the crust, a filling, and the meringe topping. So, here I post grandma's recipe, as I wrote it down.

9 Inch Pie Crust Ingredients:
1 Cup Flour
1/2 Teaspoon salt
1/3 Cup+ 1 Tablespoon Crisco
2-3 Tablespoons water

9 Inch Pie Crust Directions:
Mix flour and salt. Add crisco and cut into flour mixture. Add in water one tablespoon at a time. Gather into a ball and roll out on a floured surface. Place in pie plate, do edges (I pinch mine). Poke pie bottom with a fork, all over the surface, so air can escape and not dome up the pie while it is cooking. Bake for 12 minutes in a 450 degree oven.

Pie Filling Ingredients:
2 Cups Whole Milk
1 Tablespoon Butter
1 Cup Firmly Packed Brown Sugar
2 Heaping Tablespoons Flour
2 Egg Yolks
1 Teaspoon Vanilla

Pie Filling Directions:
Mix sugar and flour, set aside. Heat butter and milk, add dry ingredients and eggs. Cook and stir until thick. Do not boil. Add vanilla. Cool. Pour into baked pie shell and top with meringue.

Meringue Ingredients:
3 Egg Whites (I use large or extra large eggs)
1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla
1/4 Teaspoon Cream of Tarter
7 Tablespoons Granulated Sugar

Meringue Directions:
Place egg whites in bowl, add vanilla, and cream of tarter. Mix until egg whites form tall fluffy peaks. Add sugar gradually while beating. Spread over pie filling. Cover pie filling to the edge of the crust. The meringue must be pushed up to the crust, if not it will pull away while baking. Use the back of a spoon to make lovely peaks in the meringue. Bake at 350 degrees until brown.

When mixed and cooked properly, this pie filling gels and is not runny.

Serve and enjoy!

Donna's Pot Pie

This is great for taking meat leftovers (turkey, chicken, roast beef, stew, or even a thick soup) and converting into a meal. This can be made into individual pies or a large deep dish pie. Pot pies can be made with a double crust; a circle of pie dough can be filled, folded over and sealed; or topped with mash potatoes.

Ingredients:
Donna's pie shells

Filling:
Gravy or cream soup
Mixed vegetables
Diced meat
Seasoning

Directions:

Make pie crust(s). Mix ingredients in a bowl to your desired proportions. Add desired seasonings. Pour into pie crust, top with crust or potatoes. Bake for 1 hour at 400.

Donna's Pie Crust

Ingredients:

10 inch Two crust pie
2 2/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup Butter
7 - 8 Tablespoons water.

Directions:
Mix flour and salt in a bowl. Add butter and cut through the flour mixture until it looks like meal. Add water one tablespoon at a time, sprinkling over dry mixture, and stirring until flour mixture cleans the side of the bowl. Put in a ziploc or airtight container and refrigerate for three hours. Divide in half and roll into two balls. Roll out pie crust on a floured pie cloth, flour sack cloth, or 2 sheets floured wax paper. When between two sheets of wax paper, make sure to flour under the dough and over the dough so it does not stick to the paper. Fold into quarters, flouring surfaces that will touch when folded. Unfold crust in the pie dish.

Fresh Summer Quadruple Berry Pie

Makes one 9-inch two crust pie.

Ingredients:

1 cup raspberries/ loganberries
1 cup blackberries/marionberries
1 cup fresh strawberries (core and quarter)
1 cup blueberries (optional but beneficial to the pie structure and volume)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (not bottled)
1 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pat butter broken up (optional)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Prepare Donna's pie crust and divide into 2 balls. Set in fridge in a ziplock bag.

Combine all pie ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Roll out one ball of pie dough into a large circle line bottom of pie pan, pour in fruit, roll out second ball and cover top of pie. Pinch edges. Cut six 1 inch slits in top of pie. Sprinkle with sugar. Place a 3 inch foil collar around pie and slightly bend in. this prevents crust from getting too dark. Place in 425 degree oven. Place a foil lined jelly roll pan (to catch drippings) under the pie. Bake 15 minutes. Turn heat down to 350 degrees. Bake 1 hour, take foil collar off last 15 minutes to lightly brown the crust. Cool pie on rack.

Serve with vanilla bean ice cream

The blackberries and blueberries give the pie structure. The berries blend well together.

Donna's Black-Eyed- Susan Button Pies

These little button pies were created and designed by Donna for Julia's wedding. They look like a Black-eyed-Susan that had its petals fall off. They are little bites of bliss.

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon of cinnamon to the dry ingredients of my standard pie crust recipe.

2 small boxes instant white chocolate pudding
2 3/4 cup milk
1 -- 8 ounce package of cream cheese (softened)
12-18 ounces of fresh Blackberries (rinsed and well drained)

Optional:

Almond slices
Coconut
Mini Chocolate chips
Other Raspberries, Blueberries, or whole Strawberries
Other pudding flavors can be substituted.

Directions:

Roll pie crust into 1 inch small balls, drop each ball into mini muffin pans. Or, roll dough out about 1/8th inch thick. Cut in one inch squares.  Drop a square in each mini muffin cup. Use the Pampered Chef wooden tart shaper to press down the pie centers and round the sides, or use your thumbs to shape. Dip shaper or thumbs into flour between making each tart. Prick bottoms of the button pies with a fork. Bake at 400 degrees 11 minutes or until golden. Cool pies completely.

Prepare pudding according to pie directions. Whip 2 3/4 cup milk with two small boxes of white chocolate instant pudding. Blend in softened cream cheese. Rinse and thoroughly drain berries. Drop pudding by the rounded teaspoon full into the cooled tart shells. Top with one blackberry. Chill and serve.

Optional:
Are blackberries out of season or too expensive?  These pies can be topped with any berry, kiwi, chunk of pineapple, mandarin orange section, pieces of a candy bar/ sandwich mint, coconut, almond slices, mini chocolate chip morsels, Reeces Pieces, M&Ms, a chocolate curl, or glazed fruit piece mixture.  Once topped with fruit or topping these little pies can have a drop or zigzag of melted chocolate over the top. These are really versatile little pies.

Donna's Raspberry Cheesecake Pie

Ingredients

2 boxes Jello instant cheese cake
Bea's Raspberry Pie filling
Whipped Cream or Topping

Directions:

Prepare cheese cake as instructed on box. Press the graham cracker crust into a 9 x 13 glass baking dish. Bake and cool. Prepare cheesecake as directed on box. Pour into cooled crust. Chill until firm. Combine all Bea's Raspberry pie filling ingredients and chill until thick. Pour over cheese cake. Chill until set. Serve with whipped cream topping.

Bea's Raspberry Pie in a Graham Cracker Crust

Bea is my sister in law, Roger's sister. Roger told his college roommate, Ed, that sins could be forgiven for a raspberry pie in a graham cracker crust. Ed caused some friction one day, he wanted to get back on Roger's good side. So he called Bea and got the recipe. When Roger came home from work, Ed handed him the pie and said, "Here is the pie, now I do not want anymore grief over this!"

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons corn starch
1 quart raspberries
1 tablespoon butter
1 3 oz. package of raspberry gelatin
1 tablespoon lemon
1 baked graham cracker crust, cooled

Directions:

In a sauce pan combine sugar and cornstarch. Mash 1 cup raspberries and add water to make two cups. Stir into sugar mixture. Cook and stir until boiling; boil two minutes. Remove from heat. Add butter, gelatin, and lemon juice, stir until gelatin dissolves. Chill until partially set. Spoon 1/3 of gelatin mixture into graham cracker crust, top with whole berries. Spoon remaining gelatin over berries, chill.

Graham Cracker Crust:

Mix:
1 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup sugar

Add:
1/4 cup melted butter

Press into a pie pan and bake 8 minutes at 375 degrees. Cool. Fill and Chill. Serve.

For Strawberry Pie:
Exchange strawberries for the raspberries and strawberry gelatin for the raspberry gelatin.

Pumpkin Ice Cream Dessert

Ingredients

1/2 gallon vanilla ice cream, softened
canned pumpkin
pinch of nutmeg
whipped cream.

Directions:

Add pumpkin to ice cream until desire potency. Add a pinch of nutmeg. Combine well. Freeze, cut into squares and serve, or pour into a graham cracker crust and freeze. Serve as a dessert pie, topped with whip cream.

Grandma Flaugh's Apple Pie

My maternal grandmother, Mary "Effie" Flaugh got this delicious recipe from the Reverend Swan’s wife, her next door neighbor.

Apple Pie Filling

Ingredients:
6 peeled, cored, and sliced Jonathan apples ( you can use other pie apples but Jonathans are the best)
3/4 - 1 cup granulated sugar (I use the smaller amount when using pie slices that were canned in light syrup)
2 Tablespoon flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 dash salt
1 dash nutmeg
1 squeeze of freshly squeezed lemon juice ( I do not use the bottled kind because it is bitter and changes the flavor of recipes)
2 pats butter (I slice a tablespoon of butter into small pieces)

Directions:

Make pie crust and place in pie plate. Put apples in a large bowl. Mix dry ingredients. Toss dry ingredients, lemon juice, butter, and apples together. Also, If you make a deep dish pie, I double to triple the pie filling recipe to fill the pie crust depending on the depth of the dish, usually it takes about 4 quarts of canned apples which I triple the other ingredients for. I like to fill the dish high, as the apples cook down. Pour into pie crust. Cover with second crust. Pinch edges together with a decorative slanted pinch, for a fluted look. . Cut slits in top crust. Place any crust cutout decorations on top of the pie, sealing to the crust with a few drops of water. Sprinkle the top with granulated sugar to which cinnamon has been added. Bake 50-60 minutes at 400 degrees. The shorter time is for canned apples. I place a foil edge around the crust and only remove it the last 10 minutes, so the pie will not over brown. The pie thickens as it cools.

Pie Crust

Ingredients:

10 inch Two crust pie
2 2/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup Butter
7 - 8 Tablespoons water.

Directions:
Mix flour and salt in a bowl. Add butter and cut through the flour mixture until it looks like meal. Add water one tablespoon at a time, sprinkling over dry mixture, and stirring until flour mixture cleans the side of the bowl. Put in a ziploc or airtight container and refrigerate for three hours. Divide in half and roll into two balls. Roll out pie crust on a floured pie cloth, flour sack cloth, or 2 sheets floured wax paper. When between two sheets of wax paper, make sure to flour under the dough and over the dough so it does not stick to the paper. Fold into quarters, flouring surfaces that will touch when folded. Unfold crust in the pie dish.

Note for Oblong Deep Dish Pie:

I make two recipes of this for a deep dish oblong pie.