Kitchen Faves / Pi Day

I am back with another favorite item in my kitchen, actually, I think this one is more of a Kip favorite! I love kitchen gadgets of all kinds and would love to own everything if I had enough room for storage. Most everything I buy now can do more than one thing, I don't buy a lot of things that only have one purpose, especially if they are kind of bulky. One of the exceptions is this mini pie maker. 

Kip really loves dessert and I really didn't make it that often unless we were having company over or if we were going somewhere and taking food. One of the reasons was because if I made it we would definitely eat it, and eat all of it. With just the two of us in the house that was a lot of extra calories that we didn't need. So I started searching for some recipes with a smaller yield. Even if I am making dessert from scratch with real food ingredients, I really don't have much need to have 36 cupcakes at a time. 

I saw this pie maker on sale one day and kind of on impulse purchased it. Kip was pretty skeptical at first, mainly because it only does one thing and it is one more piece of equipment that needed to be stored in my already overstocked kitchen. I won him over the first time that I made an apple pie for dessert. By the second time he had a pie for dessert, he was a huge fan.

This fall when apples were coming into season I canned several jars of apple pie filling to have on hand. I almost always have a pie crust in the freezer so if I need a quick dessert, all I have to do is pull out the crust, roll it out, pour in a jar of pie filling and pop it in the oven and I am good to go. I canned this pie filling in both quart jars for a full size pie and in pint jars for making mini pies or serving over ice cream.

 One thing I like about this set too is that it came with that black cutter. The larger side cuts the perfect size for the bottom crust and the other side cuts the top crust. 

Here are my finished pies. A lot of the time I only make one for each of us, but I decided to make one for lunches today too. Yesterday was Pi Day (3/14) and I knew my geeky husband would appreciate getting an apple pie for dessert!

The pie crust recipe that I use and keep in the fridge can be found here. I have used several over the years and I like this one because it isn't sweet so I can use it for savory pies too, not just dessert. I really like that it makes three crusts. They store well in the freezer and it's great to have them already made if I need them. 

Have a great weekend!