Just Plum Peachy Nectarine Pie

If all of you are like me, you have trouble resisting the great deals on summer fruits. It always seems like during summer you can never buy just a few; despite the fact that you know they will go bad before you can finish all of them.

So what do you do when a once tempting bowl of summer fruits begins to look like this?

You turn it into this:

Here is how:

There are two parts to making this pie. First, turning the fruit into a filling. Second, creating a great pie crust.

*** For this pie I used the plums, peaches and nectarines I had that were going bad, but you can adapt it for pretty much whatever fruit you want to use.

Fruit filling
1. Wash all of your fruit and cut off all of the good parts. If it is a little juicy or starting to bruise inside it is probably still good. Just make sure it is not rotten.

2. Place all of the good cutting (discard the rest) in a medium sized pot with a small amount of water in the bottom. ***Note this picture does not display the appropriate amount of fruit needed.

3. Add sugar (I used brown, but you can use whatever you wish). I sprinkled probably around 3/4 cup - 1 cup.

4. Let fruit simmer on a low setting (around 3 depending on your stove) for about a half hour or so, then add desired spices. I added some cinnamon, nutmeg and a cinnamon stick.

5. Cover the pot and allow to simmer again on low for 45 minutes - 1 hour.

Pie Crust:
I tried this recipe for the pie crust from Simply Recipes. It was fast and easy and the crust came out perfectly flaky and buttery.

Put it all together:
Okay, so now you have the dough and the filling. All that is left is to create the actual pie.

1. Roll out the dough on the floured surface. I found this dough very easy to roll.

2. Put dough into pre-greased pie tins.

3. Add the fruit filling. Depending on how much water was released from the fruit while cooking, you may need a slotted spoon to spoon the fruit into the pie crust without getting too much of the liquid. You can also add a dash of flour of cornstarch to the liquid to thicken it and add the whole thing to the pic crust. For this one, I simply added the fruit.

4. If you like the lattice effect I created on top, roll out more of the dough and cut long half in strips that you can lay across. In a true lattice pie crust the strips are woven together. On mine I went a little less fancy and simply laid them across in two layers.

5. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

I could not wait to eat these so I pretty much took a bite right after it came out of the oven. You can serve them warm or chill them in the refrigerator for later. Either way, the fruit of your labor will be sweet.

Share your thoughts! Let me know what you think of this recipe.