Pies

For those you who were not at dinner, and therefore not on the large mass email I sent out inquiring about the menu, you missed out on the Pie Wars of 2007. Apparently the chasm between Apple and Pecan is unbridgeable, with accusations of fundamentalism and unpatriotic behavior being bandied about wildly. And obviously, pumpkin pie has to be made for Thanksgiving. So I ended up making three pies, which was actually the easy part, as I, you know, like baking. And since the pie crust is the biggest bother, scaling up is no big problem if you're already making one.
My usual problem is that I don't roll out the pie crusts enough, or there simply isn't enough dough. Using a butter:Crisco ratio of 2:1, I made crusts for 5 pies, and rolled out 4 crusts from that, which worked well. Also note my apron in the picture below, sewed by my same sister. I'm too much of a throwback sometimes I fear. Still, it lets my wipe my hands on something other than my pants or shirt, which is probably a good thing.
Now, I know the last time I made a pumpkin pie, I said I would try to make it from a real pumpkin this time. Ha! I didn't even try to look for a sugar pumpkin. Three pies is still more than enough work without having to boil pieces of pumpkin. But next year, people, next year! Also, the way to test for doneness is to have a knife come out clean, but it leaves a large mark. I don't know what to do about this. Maybe I should bake a leaf of crust on the side so I can cover it later. This might be thought of as "obsessive." Anyway, the same recipe was used for the pumpkin pie as before, and I turned to Baking Illustrated for the apple pie, although I used six apples, not seven.
The pecan pie I was most worried about, since I had never made it before, and most people (5 out of 6) wanted pecan over apple. It turned out very very good, and I wouldn't mind making it again soon. It didn't really really fill the pie shell completely, so I guess I should have used the smaller pie tin for it instead.