World's Easiest Peach Pie

I adapted this recipe is originally from the cookbook of the Family Parish Circle and Friends of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Hubbardston, Michigan. I bought it in the early 1990s at a farm stand near my future in laws house in Carson City, Michigan. I first made this peach pie on that September day at my in laws while we were visiting. It is the best peach pie I have ever had. It's a great "first pie" for a kid or an adult that's never made one before, because it has a press in crust. No rolling required.

Peach Pie


Crust
1 1/2 c flour
2 t sugar
1 t salt
1/2 c vegetable oil
2 T milk

Combine ingredients to form a soft pastry dough. It will be really soft, not like a rolled out crust. Press evenly into the bottom and sides of a 9" pie pan with your fingers

Filling

1/2 c powdered sugar
1/3 c flour
4 cup sliced peeled fresh peaches
1/2 t. mace

Combine and spoon into unbaked crust.

Topping
3/4 c flour
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1/2 t cinnamon
1/3 c soft butter

Preheat oven to 375 F,  Combine for form a crumb mixture, spoon over peaches. Also, adding ground mace or pumpkin pie spice to the cinnamon is tasty, too.  I love adding mace to peach desserts - I learned this trick from an excellent soul food cook named Irene who was a member of the Society of Women Engineers with me in the late 80s.  Bake for 40-45 minutes, until the topping is lightly browned.

Salsa 2015

This year, I canned my favorite (and most difficult) item to put up: salsa.   It's the one thing I make that I can't seem to have enough of in the house.  This year, we ran out about April, so I made 33 pints.   I bought a box of Roma tomatoes from Ruhlig's produce and commenced to prepare my favorite salsa recipe Salsa #5.  I had to scale up the recipe based on the amount of tomatoes I had in my box, which was 26.3 lb, or about 3.78X the original recipe.   It's very important to keep proportions accurate when making salsa, or you could end up with botulism.  Here is my math:

It also was the maiden voyage on my new outdoor canning kitchen.  I did break it in at a canning class that I taught last weekend.  It was great to be able to can outside on such a hot day, plus, I could just hose off the garage floor when I was done.   I still did all my chopping in my own kitchen, but I peeled the tomatoes on my camp stove instead of in the house and it was way better.   Plus, the propane high burner can get my canner boiling in no time.  

I ultimately used 2 boiling water baths at a time, which made the whole project, start to finish, get completed in a little over 4 5 hours.   My friend Ellen stopped by to help for a couple hours.

 Ready for winter now!!!