A Year of Gluten and Dairy Free Pies

The great pie experiment is over! I made a gluten and dairy free pie, featuring a different locally sourced ingredient, every month of 2014. I learned a few things. I really love Joy the Baker’s gluten free pie crust– I made it dairy free by subbing coconut milk mixed with a squeeze of lemon for the buttermilk, but no changes otherwise. It was my go-to crust this year. Adding an egg to a gluten free pie crust makes it so so much nicer to work with. I learned that it’s hard to make a locally-sourced fruit pie in fall in central Texas. The apples and pears all seem to be gone well before it gets cold here. I learned that my family is obliging and wonderful. They ate the failures (weird-o grapefruit pie, liquefied pumpkin, crazy tart blackberry, and unpeeled persimmon) as happily as the successes. I learned that strawberry pie is amazing- I have no idea why you don’t see it more often. The strawberry pie and peach pies were my easy favorites. So here they are! A year of pies!