Cute as Pie!

J and C were here last weekend and I got most of my grandgirlee fix (1 is covered in snow in NY and I haven't seen her since August~ sniffle) I was included in a Nana shower at school. My friend Laura became a grandmother for the first time coincidentally on the same day that Baby J was born. Hers was an emergency C-sect. Anyhow, the teacher whose place I took is a Grandma Pro and gifted "me" with a big bucket of sidewalk chalk for H and me to play with. I have been lugging this stuff around since the shower in early November but circumstances (like weather) has not allowed us to participate.

So this Saturday, even tho' the wind could have thrown us in the lake, Nana and her girlee got to

P-L-A-Y!! BTW, she can name every one of those shapes. Yep, she's a genius!

Baby J supervised:

After dark Auntie LJ and H made cookies! YUMMY!Look! I keep telling ya she's PERFECT!

Okay, the pie part!! My students are making pies from scratch this week. A few used pie filling, they had the option. But the crusts are all from scratch.

Arent' they beautiful?

Apple pie from scratch. The "I heart U" cutouts are precious!

German Chocolate Pie!!! An update on this pie. It had wonderful anticipation. It was creamy and beautiful when cut. That first bite... hmmm. Something was amiss. Second bite: SALT! There was too much salt. If you eat anymore you will need an I.V. drip to rehydrate! Apparently in reading the recipe the 1/8 tsp of salt turned into 1/8 CUP, yes CUP. Hubby and I did the math last night and that comes out to 48X the salt called for in the recipe. YIKES!! Like I said before, it was pretty. Students are learning to pay more attention to directions!

Pumpkin!

I think this is Cinnamon apple. Beautiful! They are so creative! It had 1 Tbsp of cinnamon (Red HOTS) candies crushed up and sprinkled in. Very yummy and it was as gorgeous in person as here in the photo. However, when sprinkling sugar on top of the crust the student realized she grabbed the SALT and not the sugar. It was hilarious watching the whole lab group trying to blow that salt OFF the top of the crust. They then did sprinkle sugar and unless you knew about the added salt, you probably would not have noticed in the tasting. Wouldn't this be pretty for Christmas or save it as an idea for Valentine's Day (individual tarts in heart shaped pans?)

Blueberry

...and Blackberry

And finally strawberry rhubarb. I don't think any of them has ever had rhubarb before and you shoulda seen their faces when they sampled the frozen rhubarb before putting in the pie... HA! This was the pie with the most leftovers. The students did not really care for the taste and texture. Tried to pawn it off on other kitchen groups but no takers.


The students were aghast when I told them yesterday that I would need a little teensy 2-inch sample slice of each pie. They don't want to share. I "have" to taste it to grade it! I usually don't but this time... needless to say, I'm not taking any lunch today. I'm eatin' PIE!
The red is the update editing Saturday morning. I did indeed have pie for lunch. The rest of the teachers laughed at me in the lunch room but I enjoyed it. The pie slices from 7th hour Foods class I brought home to share with hubby. He helped me gobble them up. And it did help me score their projects.