WebbFoot wrote:

I'm leaning towards taking the pre-made frozen crust approach...any ideas  or suggestions?

If you mean buying a pre-made crust.............reconsider.

When you are feeling a little creative & have nothing better to do, make up a batch of sweetcrust pastry & make a few 'pre-made' pastry shells for the freezer. The difference in taste between h/m & 'bought' sweet pastry is amazing.

Sweetcrust Pastry - This makes one large pie/tart crust, or several individual ones.

8oz Plain Flour
4oz Butter
3oz Icing Sugar
1 Egg (lightly beaten)
Milk (how much depends on the size of your egg)

Using your hands, rub in fat into flour to form crumbs.
Add the sugar, & mix.
Add the egg & enough milk (go gently with the milk you don't want the pastry too wet) to bring the pastry together into a ball.
Note: At the point you add the liquids, you can also add any flavourings you want to.....Vanilla Paste/Extract, ground Spices, etc.

If you want the quickest of crusts, zizz plain Digestive biscuits to crumbs, add enough melted butter to bind the without becoming too greasy, & press well into your pie/tart tin.
Particularly good with Black Cherries, & Apricots.

Last edited by minerva (Sat 23 Jun 12 5:35pm)

My favorite fruit tart recently featured the best of the season around here - blueberries, strawberries (cut up if they are large) raspberries with basic vanilla custard.

A really nice deep dish custard pie with stone fruits - plums or peaches is nice.  I think we are just starting to get peaches here because we had a mild, early season.  You can dry the cut fruit a little in the oven sprinkled with brown sugar before putting the pie together to prevent the pie from getting too wet.

Not much of a desert person myself but my family are happy to see either go onto the table .
I have made more crumbles than pies I think but this is more of a speed issue , I can wizz up a crumble topping in seconds in the food processor , ( ( never weigh the ingredients !) , to use pasty it more problematic for me and takes longer ....
But ... One of my sons favorite is a pastry base , with an pie apple filling a crumble topping ( especially indervidual sized ones !)

I love cobblers ,grunts, slumps,buckles  or crisps as an alternative to tarts or pies.   I am hoping there will be at least a few peaches this year  to make a good peach cobbler .

An apple brown betty is awesome , especially if you have some bread that is on the outs.

http://www.canadianliving.com/food/appl … _betty.php