Happy 4th!

Ten hours of sleep, nothing to rush off and do, a hot day and uncounted popsicles .. it's been a good day so far.

Though not perfect. I'm sure I've mentioned the odd air conditioning system in my condo before, but in case I haven't, something went weird somewhere down the line, long before I bought here, and I get air from both systems (the building has two heat/air conditioning systems, and it's supposed to be three apartments on each). The bedroom and living room vents come from one system, and the the bathroom, kitchen, and office from the other. Today, I'm partly grateful for that, because one of the systems isn't on, and I appreciate having some a/c to retreat to.

It's odd, because the side that isn't working is usually the most enthusiastic side, and frequently drives me to close the vents and open windows because good lord, I don't want to live in a fridge. I love having a/c, but I don't want it unless the heat is really up there. But today it is, and the humidity, and since I had the oven on, OF COURSE today is when one a/c is taking a holiday. Figures.

But no matter! It's the 4th of July, I'm going to a cook-out, and I made a flag pie. I made one some years ago, in the pre-blog days if you can believe it, and even pre-digital camera; I have old-school film pictures of the pie, whoa. Isn't it funny how old-fashioned that seems now? When probably it was 2005 or 2006 (I'm too lazy to dig out the pictures and look).

I didn't invent the idea of the pie myself; I may not have had a blog in those days, but the internet was there and I looked around on it, and I saw the pie somewhere and thought it was a fun idea for the holiday. I freely admit also that I used "boughten" pie crust, and pie filling. I never claimed to be making it from scratch! And look how pretty!

I made an American flag pie! I hope I'm not alone in thinking this is fun.

The tools involved: a 9-inch glass pie dish, a pie crust shield (so, so, soooo much easier than messing about with tin foil), a star cookie cutter, and a pie gate for an off-label use.

You'll see why in a minute. Can you guess?

I went with the Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust, but I did roll it out a little, to make it a touch thinner. Crust in the dish, then the gate, and then the pie filling. The gate is designed to keep your filling from running after you cut a piece out of a finished pie, but I used it to keep the blueberry in its corner and the cherry in the rest. More or less, anyway. Worked pretty well!

Then I pulled the gate out, and layered stripes of dough over the cherry, and stars over the blueberry. Voila!

I let it cook about 15 minutes before putting the crust shield on, since I do want the edges baked, just not burned. And I recommend an oven liner, since it's sure to bubble over. Mine did, anyway. I used two 21-ounce cans of cherry pie filling, and about three-quarters of one can of blueberry. Probably should have used slightly less, but oh well. Life's not perfect, and it doesn't bother me.

Since I didn't make a full double-crust pie, I had dough left over. I rolled it out, laid on the cinnamon sugar, and made snails.

Not being of homemade dough, they are not as good as the ones my mother made when I was a child*, but really, not bad at all.
*Of course nostalgia couldn't be painting them rosier than they were, could it? Nonsense, they were amazing!

I'm not the only one having a good day, today, either. This guy is, and I hope you are too.