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Everyone's mad about pies this time of year--or so various media outlets would have us believe. Mum is a baker, but she never made pies at Thanksgiving and Christmas the way friends and acquaintances of mine do. I recall the occasional pecan pie to satisfy my father or my elder sister, but I also seem to recall these things were quite a hassle to produce. As for the traditional pumpkin pie, Mum made a concoction that I found far more flavorful than any pumpkin pie that we've since dubbed pumpkin mush, since that was the result once you stirred together the pumpkin...mousse and the whipped cream Mum made to accompany it. Ahh, such fond memories I have of pumpkin mush!

I'm sort of carrying on Mum's tradition of largely boycotting pies. When King Arthur Flour was in town at the end of October for baking demonstrations, I opted not to attend the pie-making session. I have no use for tips and tricks for making the perfect pie crust. While I've made a few cookie crumb and graham cracker crumb crusts in my faudie days to hold some sort of Jello and Cool Whip blend, I don't ever see myself venturing into the realm of pie crusts lovely blended with butter chilled to just the right temperature and shaped with just the right amount of pressure. I don't like pies, therefore I won't bake them.

That said, though, I did bake a sort of pie tonight. No, it wasn't a dessert pie of any type, Gentle Reader, and no Cool Whip was involved. This pie involved ::shudder:: Bisquick, that staple of Mum's pantry that I myself used sparingly in my prefaudie days and scorn openly in my faudie days.

Mimi's Zucchini Pie4 eggs
1/4 C vegetable oil
1 t baking powder
1 C all-purpose baking mix
1 1/2 C sliced zucchini
1 1/2 C sliced yellow squash
1/4 C chopped onion
1 large ripe tomato, sliced
1/4 C grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
   
2. Lightly grease a 9" deep dish pie plate.
   
3. Whisk together the eggs and oil with salt and pepper in a bowl.
   
4. Stir in the baking powder and baking mix until moistened.
   
5. Gently fold in zucchini, squash and onion.
   
6. Pour the mixture into the pie plate.
   
7. Arrange the sliced tomato over the top.
   
8. Sprinkle the pie filling with Parmesan cheese to taste.
   
9. Bake the pie until puffed and golden brown, about 35 min.

Yield: 8 servings

Nutritional Info
Calories: 184
Fat: 12.6 g
Protein: 6.2 g
Fiber: 1.1 g
Carbs: 12.6 g
Cholesterol: 108 mg
Sodium: 409 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
Yes, this is one of the Poppy Cannon-worthy recipes. And yes, I couldn't help but make a few changes:

• I used four eggs' worth of liquid egg whites.
  
• I didn't use any salt, but I did use a relatively copious amount of freshly ground pepper.
  
• Since I eschew Bisquick but have a boy who likes pancakes every now and then, I used low-fat Pioneer Brand biscuit and baking mix. And because the cannister the mix comes lacks an easy-pore retractable spout, I wound up using a tad more than one cup of the stuff thanks to spillage.
  
• While I do have some yellow crookneck squash chunks among the scads of squashes Mum gave me from her garden, I used white squash instead. (The zucchs I used also came from Mum's garden.)
  
• In lieu of a fresh tomato or even slicing up a whole, peeled tomato from a can, I cracked open a can of no-salt-added diced tomatoes, drained the juice into the pot of pasta sauce I'd whipped up for the boys and then scattered some tomato diced pieces atop my little masterpiece.
  
• Screw the Parmesan. Me no likey the cheese.

I bookmarked this recipe from AllRecipes.com on a whim: While I had all the ingredients at the ready, I couldn't really see myself making this one because I'd be the only one eating it, and I'm not terribly keen on exerting a fair amount of baking time for something just for me.

But then came our first real cold front of the fall. After spending most of the day with my already tense shoulders hunched up around my ears to ward off the cold that never seems to leave the house once it's in, I was ready to turn on the oven and have it on for at least half an hour.

The oven wound up being on for damn near an hour. Thirty minutes after putting my pie in the oven, the bread-to-be was still gooey and doughy. Three to five minutes after that, the bread-to-be had started to look a bit more like dough. Five minutes after that, the crust was starting to turn golden. Three to five minutes after that, the bread-to-be in the body of the pie was starting to turn golden. Finally, five minutes after that, the damn thing was ready to come out of the oven.

Can I interest you in something warm from the oven?

By the time the pie was ready (and I knew going in that additional baking time was needed, for several recipe reviewers noted as much), I'd already had a good helping of lightly sauted leftover zucchs and white squash. But here's the thing, Gentle Reader: The smell of the hot-from-the-oven baking mix along with the smell of the onions and tomatoes took me back to the pizzas Mum would make some Friday nights using Bisquick for the crust and browned Potter sausage and tomato sauce for the topping (along with some garlic and onion powders, oregano and shredded cheese) that we'd enjoy with a small glass of Coke poured from a glass deposit-required bottle.

Okay, so the pie tasted nothing like the pizzas of yore, but, damn those memories, my pie was wonderfully comforting and warming in ways that anything else from the oven on this chilly, windy evening could ever be. I'm further ashamed to admit that I wound up eating the whole damn thing. I just couldn't imagine trying to reheat the leftovers, and I couldn't resist those feelings of warmth and comfort the pie evoked.

Pathetic, non? But, hey, I guess that's why pies are so popular this time of year. Waaaay back when, women in household kitchens made pies as a special treat for a holiday. The baking and eating of those pies instilled cherished memories that have been recreated to be shared from generation to generation. So what if my pie memories focus more on Bisquick than sweet, gooey fillings and crusts painstakingly rolled out with rolling pins that served both as kitchen utensils and sabers for the proverbial saber-rattling! It's all good.