Happy Pi Day! Rhubarb Pie

Rhubarb Pie

This post was a request from my sister, who, as a current college student, celebrates geeky holidays like Pi Day. Pi Day (March 14, or 3/14) celebrates that little Greek letter that terrorized you in algebra and calculus, useful for calculating circle stuff and doing various physics problems. I at one point had pi memorized out to, like, fifteen digits. Yeah, file that under useless information. It's per-programmed into your TI-83! So March 14 became Pi Day because its 3.14. If you want to be extra geeky, you celebrate it at 1:59 (3.14159) I guess you could go really into it and celebrate at 1:59 and 26 seconds (3.1415926). Math majors out there, don't deny that you have this exact time programed into your phone so you can celebrate at the exact time. I'm not nearly that geeky. Obviously Mole Day is far superior to Pi Day. Except on Pi Day you get to eat pie.

I have to say that I make spectacular pie. I won a ribbon in the county fair once. Yeah, so basically I'm awesome. But seriously though, I love to make pie, and rhubarb pie is my favorite. It's something that reminds me of summer, lakes, cabins, and sunshine. My family is full of rhubarb-strawberry pie devotees, but my husband absolutely refuses to allow any other fruit in his rhubarb pie for some ridiculous reason. Good for him I still make great rhubarb pie. I think it might actually be the reason he married me. The recipe was originally based off my Better Homes and Gardens cook book, but I've modified it so much I think it's really just mine now.

I learned to make my pie crust from my great-grandmother. The recipe itself isn't difficult but it takes a lot of practice to figure out exactly how much water to add. I wish I could make it easy for you and tell you down to the decimal point how much to put in, but I can't. It really depends on the humidity in your kitchen and the water content of your flour. It just takes practice to figure it out. I highly recommend buying a pastry cutter. It makes the crust more flaky and tender. They aren't expensive and will make all your pastries significantly better. It's also a good idea to roll your crusts onto a piece of plastic wrap. This allows easy transfer to the pie plate without having the crust crack all over the place, and keeps the side
you will see all smooth and pretty. Just peel the plastic wrap off after transfer, and voila, you have a pretty crust. In the end, it all works out and you get amazing pie.

Anyway, Happy Pi Day! What kind of pie do you want to make to celebrate?

Rhubarb Pie
Rhubarb Pie
6 cups thinly sliced rhubarb (1/8-1/4 inch thick)

2 cups sugar
2/3 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 tbl butter, cut into small pieces.

Double Pie Crust
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup butter flavored Crisco or other butter flavored vegetable shortening.
3-7 tbl ice cold water

Preheat oven to 400 deg F.

In a large bowl, combine sliced rhubarb, sugar, 2/3 cup flour, salt, and nutmeg in a large bowl. Stir well to coat the rhubarb and let sit for 15 minutes.

While the rhubarb is sitting, combine flour and salt in a large bowl. Add all of the Crisco to the flour. Using a pastry cutter or a fork, cut the shortening into the flour until the mix looks like coarse sand. Add the ice cold water 1 tbl at a time, tossing in between. Keep adding the water until the dough starts to come together. You should be just able to get it into a ball, and it should not be sticky. Form the dough into two balls, one slightly smaller than the other.

Roll out the larger ball of dough on top of a piece of plastic wrap until approximately 1/8 inch thick. Transfer into pie plate and adjust to cover the entire pie plate. Pile rhubarb mix into the pie plate. Dot the top with butter. Roll out the smaller ball of dough on a piece of plastic wrap and transfer the dough on top of the rhubarb mix. Seal the edges of the crust and flute. Slice the top of the pie to allow steam to escape.

Bake at 400 deg F for 50 min. Allow to cool for 10 min to set up.