Whilst I am decent in the kitchen, it has been a long journey for me to learn how to cook and feel comfortable and confident in the kitchen.  I still get touchy about it sometimes and recently the failure of my bread machine to produce dough reduced me to tears.  So, I never expected this blog to include anything remotely close to food topics, yet here it is.

I made an Apple Gruyere Pie yesterday and it was amazing!  Let me give you the back story.  We have recently been watching “Pushing Daisies” on Amazon (maybe it’s Netflix, I can’t remember at the moment).  I won’t go into the details of the show, it’s quirky and a bit odd, but entertaining in it’s own way and it centers on the exploits of “the Pie Maker”.  A few episodes back, one of the characters made an Apple Gruyere Pie.  It looked wonderful and I found myself oddly hungry for this pie.  Now, I’m not really a pie person.  I’m more of a cake and chocolate kind of gal.  My husband, on the other hand, is a pie person and he informs me that I’m quite good at it – except for fruit fillings.  They are the reason I don’t make pies much.  I get so angry because my fillings are way too watery, no matter what I try. 

My wonderful mother in law gave me a recipe many years ago (an Amish/Mennonite recipe) that makes about 5 crusts at a time.  You can wrap these crusts and freeze them for up to 3 months and they ALWAYS turn out great, nice and flaky.  I gave up on trying my hand at making my own fillings and I use pie filling canned lovingly by someone in a factory now and I’m happy to say I’ve reconciled this particular demon and I’m fine with this.

However, when I got the hankering to actually make an Apple Gruyere Pie yesterday since I had a nice, Swiss block of Gruyere in the fridge, I had trouble finding an easy recipe.  Every recipe I found referred to “Pushing Daisies” and went on to describe in detail how you had to use a particular kind of lard and 3 different kinds of apples, blah, blah, blah.  Well, I didn’t have lard nor three different kinds of apples. Nor did I have the time or inclination for so much work, so I improvised – which is HUGE for me in the kitchen (just ask my long suffering husband).

Here’s what I did – in pictures, no less:

the cheese which I grated (about 3 oz)

the crust to which I simply added the grated cheese by kneading it a few times

the filling which someone slaved over

all put together – and I did remember to cut some slits in the top and sprinkle on some extra cheesein the oven – fingers crossed at 350 degrees for 40 minutes, then out to brush an egg wash over it & remove the foil from the edge and back in for another 15 minutes

and viola! looks and smells heavenly

It was super good.  The cheese is very subtle and provides a nice balance to the sweetness of the apple filling.  My family enjoyed this warm with extra creamy vanilla ice cream.

So, that’s it…the end!