Preacher's Pie and Gleaners Update!

Hi there everyone! Megs here with an update and recipe for you today.  I did decide to join Skagit Gleaners, and it has been a huge blessing for our family!  I have already seen a decrease in our grocery expenditures.  We go through a lot of vegetables and fruit juicing, plus we eat a lot of fruit as a family.  I don't have a picture of our latest veggie/fruit haul because as soon as I brought stuff home, I made a big pitcher of juice with our gleaned fruit and vegetables:

This may look awful, but it tastes fantastic!

 There were two special fruits available this week: a big pallet of blackberries (I only took one flat, even though we were allowed two, and was still overwhelmed with the bounty!) and apples off of a local tree.

 The blackberies were immediately sorted (there were a few "bad" berries in each clamshell, but many perfect berries to be had!) and I froze them for later use in smoothies this winter....they will be such a treat!  The apples are going to become Preacher's Pie (recipe below) and applesauce, as well as more juice fodder.  The apples and berries alone would've cost about $25 on sale at the store!

These pub rolls made gorgeously tasty buns for turkey burgers last night (with gleaned lettuce as a topping!) and our breakfast omelette today is filled with savory gleaned mushrooms (yes, the eggs were overcooked, but they were fantastic anyway!) and the bread underneath the eggs is absolutely heavenly (gleaned, and from a national bread restaurant chain!) :)

I also got several bananas with which I will be making banana bread cupcakes, and some tasty looking brussel sprouts (which are fantastic halved and sauteed with salt and pepper!).  These pastries and bagels have made morning breakfasts MUCH more fun and fast:

Seriously, if I had purchased all of the groceries I gleaned at our regular grocery store, I easily would've spent over $60!  I do my first shift of volunteering this Sunday morning, and I'm looking forward to it.  I'm definitely glad I joined Gleaners :)

So! Back to the apples...

Some of our gleaned apples are going to be prepped and put into Preacher's Pie.  What is Preacher's Pie you may wonder?  Well, it's an easy recipe with a lot of family history and memories for me.  Preacher's Pie is basically another word for fruit crumble.  My Grandpa was a pastor, and my mom remembers that they would often have people drop by unexpectedly, sometimes at dinner or coffee time.  Preacher's Pie was something my mom or Grandma could whip up quickly to serve the guests.  It works with pretty much any kind of fruit (we most often use pie cherries or apples, but it's also great with canned pie filling), and is easy to make.  Growing up, it was one of my favorite desserts (so much so that I would request it for my birthday).

Here is the recipe!

Preacher's Pie
(recipe for 8x8 pan; double it for a 9x13)
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup shortening or butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
Enough fruit to fill bottom of your pan (fresh fruit or pre-made pie filling)

Combine flour and sugar.  Crumble together with butter/shortening. Press half of the crumble mixture into the bottom of the pan (like a pie crust).  Prep fruit (cut apples into pie sized slices, pit cherries, etc)  Toss fruit with some sugar (There is no specific measurement here, but it depends on the fruit; if you have a sweet fruit you don't need as much sugar, and if you have tart cherries you might do a bit more).  For berries and "wet" fruits, you may want to add a bit of cornstarch to thicken the fruit when you add the sugar to the filling.  Put fruit into pan.  For apples, add a touch of salt and some cinnamon. Top the fruit with the rest of the crumble mixture.


Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until browned and bubbly around the edges/on top.

There you go! A fantastic, easy recipe to use up the last of your summer fruit harvest.  Thanks for reading everyone and have a fantastic day! :)