...so good...Lizzy's mini fruit pies

Written December 2014

The Feast of Food.  Thanksgiving is no different in our home.  When we lived in the big house in the Battleground, WA woods, I'd spend two days before baking pies and cookies and making sure my menu and table settings were going to be "just perfect!"  I loved Thanksgiving in the big house surrounded by family, dogs and great food my Thanksgiving stretched into Sunday eating leftovers and remembering the holiday with gratitude. Which brings me to...

Gratitude.  To me, it's an action word.  I MUST do something to protect my gratitude for all that I am blessed with.  When we moved to Texas life as I knew it changed. Well, duh....Patricia.  I found myself sitting in my own self-pity party wondering if I would ever get my life back. Well, duh....Patricia. The answer to that is I have a life and it is continually being blessed and because of the many blessings I have been given. So...when life isn't exactly the way I would like it to be....when I'm not remembering it's Life on Life's terms, I make a gratitude list.

This Thanksgiving, 2014, I am grateful first and foremost for my family. This year, with all of us together since we moved in 2012, I was happy to plan menus with family, grocery shop, and help Lizzy learn how to make pies.

Lizzy mentioned that her favorite pie was berry....mixed berry to be exact:  raspberries, blackberries being at the TOP of her list. She's a girl of my own discriminate tastes in pies. The only problem is not everyone in our family likes berry pies.  Jeff wants my chocolate (which is to die for), Eli wants pumpkin and blueberry and John wants pumpkin and apple. What's a gal to do?

Lizzy and I watched a show on Food Network where the Pioneer Woman was making mini-pies or as they are called, Gillette's.  Perfect! Little individual berry pies leaving only pumpkin, apple and chocolate to make.

The directions to the Gillette's was really easy and Lizzy did not have any problem with them at all. In fact, the only problem she had was eating them before Thanksgiving....so she made another batch!

After rolling out and cutting pre-made pie dough, Lizzy puts the berry filling onto the dough.

Once loaded with filling, she crimped up the edges and left the centers open for goodness to bubble out. Then she used a pastry brush to brush melted butter over and then sprinkled granulated sugar over them.

These are little purses of glorious goodness in every bite...no wonder she had to make two batches!