Pie Prep

This year, I had not planned on us having a big Thanksgiving celebration.  My sister will be in town next week, and we all planned to do Thanksgiving, Christmas, and a family birthday all together in one big "do."  I scheduled myself to work Thanksgiving and, really, almost every day this week.  I'm home today, but worked the past 2 days, will work the next 2 days, and again on Sunday.  Then my husband's sister and her family asked if they could come visit for the holiday.  I said, as long as you don't mind that I'm working!  They didn't, and they're here, some of them, anyway.  Their kids are due to fly in tonight, snow permitting.

A few days ago I made the squash and creamed broccoli side dishes.  I will make the stuffing today.  Last night I made a pumpkin pie and this morning I made the apple pie.  And a few tarts.  I will show the finished pies tomorrow, when I can photograph them with all the feast trimmings, but here are the tarts which will be eaten by the kids for lunch, I'm certain.

For the crust I used half butter and half lard (regular, not leaf) and I cut down on the salt because the crust I made last night for the pumpkin pie seemed a little too salty.  I might have cut down too much, so for future reference maybe 3/4 tsp. in the batch is OK if using lard.  Half a teaspoon isn't enough.  The filling is 8 cortland apples, 1 cup of sugar, 1 tsp. cinnamon and a pinch of freshly ground nutmeg.

I took the rest of the crust and made 2 little tarts with strawberry filling.  Rather than making the folded-over tarts I generally make, I thought I could make little tiny pie-shaped tarts as I had little tiny pie plates.  I think they came out pretty well, don't you?