A Confession & Fruitily Fruitful Hand Pies

I'm going to be straight up with you. There hasn't been much making-from-scratch the past two weeks. Remember how I had surgery two Fridays ago? That equals a whole lot of sitting around, not being allowed to do much of anything. Well, unless I want to get yelled at by my Mom/husband/mother in law. Who thankfully have been helping us with my son the Bear - he is included in the list of things I'm not allowed to lift.

Not only have I not been doing much, my camera broke this past weekend. I never realized how attached I am to my camera until I couldn't use it. My Mom came to the rescue yesterday though, and has allowed me to borrow her camera until I can either find one on eBay or figure out how to get mine fixed for an affordable cost.

This week Ok, last night, I was in a panic. What on earth was I going to post about for my MIFs post?!?!? I haven't done anything MIFs-worthy!! So I am going to share what I baked yesterday: hand pies. They're like sweet little calzones; a tidy handful of pie perfect for school or work lunches, quick snacks and even a dessert if you add a scoop of ice cream (or not!).

My husband goes crazy about these and he doesn't like desserts, as a general rule. Previously I'd only made apple, but have always wanted to try other fillings. They are essentially a pie, so whatever you might find delicious in a two-crust pie would work. Obviously fillings like lemon meringue or key lime wouldn't work well in this application but if you let your imagination run wild with fruit and fruit combinations, chocolate or heck, even a savory route would be totally yum (I'm thinking a beef n cheddar...).

I made three kinds yesterday: strawberry rhubarb, blueberry and apple. Just a few of each - I only made one batch of pâte brisée and out of that one batch made about twenty hand pies. I would have been able to make more but on the first go around I was unable to reroll the scraps...it was my mistake and I'm still kicking myself but anyway! Of course it all depends on the size of whatever you are using to cut out your hand pies. I was using a 3.5 inch Cut n Seal (Pampered Chef) that I found at the thrift store for a dollar.

There really isn't a recipe I can share with you - I was just tossing the fruit with sugar, cornstarch/flour, pinches of salt, gratings of fresh nutmeg and splashes of vanilla. For the strawberry rhubarb I added some strawberry gelatin powder to help the fruit set up nicely and not run as much (although they still ran terribly while baking!). Go with your instincts or loosely follow your favorite fruit pie recipes!

My favorite pâte brisée recipe is from Martha Stewart - it's quite rich with butter but comes out so flaky and tender it's worth the extra calories.

What would you put in a hand pie??

I usually blog at Gotta Little Space and Suitable For Consumption, come say hi!