National Pie Day – Today!

Happy National Pie Day to everyone! The American National Pie Council (yes, there is one!) created the pie day for everyone to celebrate pie. And here at Sustainable Table, we say don’t celebrate with just any kind of pie, we celebrate with a local, sustainable pie, made from ingredients from your area.

To celebrate, we thought we’d give you a recipe from Elisha Talley in Ypsilanti, Michigan – it was one of my favorite pies from the Eat Well Guided Tour of America and our Pie Across America events. Elisha was at our Pie Lovers Unite! event hosted by Slow Food Huron Valley and Growing Hope.

Says, Elisha, “You take a bunch of Michigan tart cherries, we’ll say 4 cups, pitted by hand over the sink. (Making sure to save the cherry stones for making freezable ouchie pouches for the kids.) Put them in a pot with a small splash of lemon juice, a heaping cup of your favorite sweetener, a hefty dash of cinnamon, and a spoonful of cornstarch. Let it boil for a minute or three, taking care to stir consistently so as to avoid lumpiness, and pour it into a rich and buttery pie crust. Top the pie with a lattice style pie crust topping. (A crumble topping tastes great too!) Finally, sprinkle heartily with sugar. Bake at 350 for 50 minutes or so. Tada! You’ve got a lovely and delicious pie!”

If you’re wondering what “ouchie pouches” are, if you freeze the cherry pits in a bag, you can use them as an ice pack on bumps and bruises.

As the Pie Council says – Perform Random Acts of Pieness – today and everyday. Happy National Pie Day!