Tart Cherry Cheese Pie

Ingredients:
Pie crust
2 32 oz. fresh pitted tart cherries or 16 oz. cans pitted tart red cherries (water pack)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch
Dash salt
1 Tbsp. butter
3-4 Drops almond extract

Wash/drain cherries; reserve one cup liquid
In a medium saucepan combine 3/4 cup sugar, cornstarch, and salt; stir in reserved cherry liquid. Cook and stir over medium heat till thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir one minute more. Remove from heat. Stir in remaining 3/4 cup sugar, the cherries, butter and almond extract. Let stand.

Top:
8 oz. cream cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract

In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth. Pour cherry mixture into prepared pie crust then carefully spread cream cheese mixture around outside edges of pie, leaving a 3-in. circle of cherries exposed in the center. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes or until edges begin to brown. Cool on a wire rack. Refrigerate for several hours before serving.

I combined a couple recipes to make this so the baking time might need tweaking, I can't really remember if I baked at 350 or 375. I think the topping would be awesome for any kind of berry pie.

Teddy Graham Crust

Yesterday, I decided to use up my whipping cream and make Rachel's S'more pie for our book club. I had a store bought crust that I managed to dump in the sink which left me in a bind because I already had my pie ingredients on the stove and no car, a blizzard outside and no graham crackers. After scouring my pantry, I finally found a bag of honey flavored teddy grahams that proved to be a really yummy substitute for regular graham crackers. Here's what I came up with:

1 1/2 cups finely crushed Teddy Grahams
6 T. melted butter
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar.

Mix them all together, press into your pan and bake at 375 for about 7 minutes.
The crust tastes more like a cookie and was the perfect complement to the S'more pie.

Pie Crust

This is such a basic recipe but it turned out perfectly.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup ice water

Directions:

1. Mix shortening, flour, and salt together with a fork or a pastry blender until very crumbly. Add as much water as needed to hold together (a tablespoon at a time), and mix lightly with a fork. To double this recipe, use 1 cup shortening, 2 1/2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 cup cold water.
2. Roll gently, one crust at a time, on a floured pastry cloth, to about an inch larger than pie plate. Fold carefully in half. Lift to pie plate, and unfold. Fit into pan. For a single-crust pie, trim with a small knife to about 1/2 inch beyond rim. Fold up, and pinch so edge of pie is raised from rim. For a two-crust pie, trim bottom crust to edge of rim, fill, and top with crust about 1/2 inch larger than rim. Tuck top crust under bottom along rim. Seal with floured fork.