Piemaking Season

I've been making soooo many pies lately. Like. A pie a week. Fruit pies are my favorite - even though pumpkin and pecan pie are also fabulous - so summer is piemaking season in our house. Plus, I've been getting lots and lots of fruit in my weekly produce box. More than we could simply eat out of hand in a week so what's a girl to do but make it into pie? 

Also, I got a haircut. 

Kevin got me this cool pie book for Christmas (Or was it my birthday? Being ten days apart they tend to run together...) and I've been working my way through several of the recipes. I tend to be of the mindset that a summer picnic isn't complete without a fresh pie, either, and thus in recent weeks there has been apple pie, peach pie, cherry pie, raspberry-blackberry, and most recently this quite adventurous Skillet Stone Fruit Streusel pie. 

Here's the think about stone fruit. I do like it. I think. Sometimes. But...in my opinion it's just got this really short window of deliciousness and if you miss that window it's either way too tart or too soggy to eat out of hand. And even then I'd rather eat citrus, or mangos, or plain 'ole apples. 

So, when I opened my produce box this week to find a slew of apriums and plums I immediately thought of this pie from my Four and Twenty Blackbirds book. This recipe was a first for me in many ways. First pie made in a cast iron skillet (what's not to love about that!), first cornmeal crust, and first streusel top. Oh yeah, and first aprium/plum pie. Actually, first experience with apriums at all. You weird fruit mutant you. 

The result? A+. As usual I cut the sugar in half because we like our pie nice 'n tart. Plus less sugar makes it just perfect for breakfast with a cuppa of course. The filling was lovely and spot on in terms of flavor and consistency. I did have a bit of trouble with the crust, though. One reason could be that I only had medium ground cornmeal and should have used finely ground. I also got lazy with the butter and didn't take it out of the freezer with enough time to partially thaw so I cheated and used the microwave. This was a bit of a fail since it only semi-melted the outside and left the inside completely frozen. Thus, my dough was harder to roll out than normal and turned out a bit more rustic. No matter. I'm fine with a "rustic, raw edge crust" as they say.