plum pie

Every time I go home to visit my family I have fun preparing meals and treats for everyone. I love working in my mom’s kitchen, which has a large open floor plan, a huge center island, beautiful views and is probably about 10 times the size of my sweet little kitchen back in Denver. Even though she has not had children living at home for quite sometime, her refrigerator is always full and ready to feed an army. The day after we arrived, she began pulling things out of the freezer and fridge that needed to be used and asked me to work my magic. She had a few frozen pie crusts that had been in her freezer for who knows how long and a myriad of different fruits from the Marin farmer’s markets.

Among the fresh peaches, nectarines, and berries was a large bowl full of Santa Rosa plums. Even though I had never heard of plum pie, I was pretty sure you could make a pie with any type of fruit. I knew the interweb would not let me down now. With the wide variety of food blogs, recipe websites, etc., I had no doubt I would find a recipe for plum pie, and I was right.

The recipe is ridiculously simple, doesn’t call for as much sugar as most fruit-based pies, and is practically free of animal products. Keeping the sugar light, allows the natural tart flavors of the plums to really stand out. The recipe does call for butter on top, but I used Earth Balance (I swear by this stuff). Of course, the pre-made pie crust is loaded with butter, but there are plenty of vegan pie crust options out there (gluten free too!) that would be equally delicious I’m sure. We also ate ours with scoops of vanilla ice cream on top (not vegan), but Coconut Bliss, or any other dairy-free frozen dessert would be tasty too.

Plum Pie

Ingredients

• 4 cups sliced plums
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 unbaked 9-inch deep dish pie pastry

Topping

• 1/2 cup sugar (I used ‘turbinado’ sugar, but white or brown sugar works too)
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 3 tablespoons cold margarine/butter

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In bowl, combine first 6 ingredients; pour into pastry shell. For the topping, combine sugar, flour, cinnamon and nutmeg. Cut in margarine/butter until coarse and sprinkle over plums. Bake in preheated 375 degree oven for 60 minutes or until golden brown.

Easy as pie!

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