Mountain Pie

[ICEMAN]

Ok, my memory is fading for me, not sure if I posted this before.

Mountain Pie. Our deer hunt takes us into country where elderberries are around. Years ago, I researched and found they are edible. Since then, we have been enjoying a special pie I bake in camp at 4500' each year. Very simple, with a regional thing going on about it. I stop near leavenworth for a flat of apples each year for camp. Pick the berries on the hill near camp. I bring those rolled pie shells and tops, pre make the seasoning kit at home. Bring an iced down reddi whip spray...

In any pan, place your dough. cut a few apples into chunks with the skin left on. Mix in a couple cups of elderberry, and the seasoning kit (1 cup sugar, a pinch of salt, and two heaping table spoons of flour). Mix all, and place the top on the pie. Cut a slit into the pie top. Bake in your handy dandy portable propane oven, and enjoy a warm pie later with some whipped topping.

This is always a favorite around our camp, and an ol' timer nearby will not let me pass unless he gets a half pie dropped off at his camp each year! I always do!

Bring enough pie shells, cause it goes quick!

[huntingnut]

Your killing me, lets see the finished product. That looks delicious.

[boneaddict]

Do you have to wait for the elderberries to freeze first?  They are famous for making you *censored* yourself to death.
Pie looks scrumptious.

[MikeWalking]

hmm? you're camping where?

[ICEMAN]

Huntingnut, sorry, we ate it before I took a photo... 

Bone, maybe baking it is the trick? Not sure. I am also cutting the berries with apple, so two cups goes a long way. I have never had the berries raw, except a few the first time out. The seeds are probably making guys crap their drawers....very "seedy" berry. When they bake, the berries seem to lose their cruchiness and do make a fine pie.

Mikewalking, go east, you will find our camp.... 

[boneaddict]

You might be very accurate .  Heat denatures alot of things.  I know the old timers made alot of jam.

[Red Dawg]

Man that looks good. My old man is good at making cobblers in the dutch oven with huckleberries but that looks like a great idea. Do you think you could make one in a big dutch oven. But i dont want to *censored* myself to death so i am a little leery. Maybe you just need a lot of baby wipes and gold bond. FIGHT THE FUNK!!!

[PolarBear]

Damn, I just cut down several big elder berries.  I think that I still have 2 left.  I wasnt sure that they were fit to eat.  I heard the thing about the squirts as well.  Have you ever made a pie out of apples and wild strawberries?  That's some fine eating but a lot of work getting enough of those tiny little bastages.  Wild blueberry pie is good too.

[boneaddict]

They grow back pretty fast unless you got all the roots.

[ICEMAN]

We also have made mountain huckelberry pies on the west side during elk season, same plan....berries, apples and sugar/flour/salt. Fing delicious!

We eat really good in camp. Everyone brings their specialties. But something about having that fresh baked pie sitting there, as you sit around the campfire, iced down reddi whip, YUM!

[mossback91]

  I rememeber my grandma saying something about how she used to make wine out of them. They dotn taste great raw thats for sure. Huckleberrys are the best though.

[ICEMAN]

Yeah, before I decided to try them, I verified what they heck they were, and saw all the recipes all over the internet for all sorts of things made from them.  My daughter and I make elderberry syrup at grouse camp, for the next mornings pancakes!

[Idabooner]

Many years ago I took off at first light hunting for a goat, I had one sandwich tucked in the back of my red and black Mackinaw. I climbed until noon and while eating my sandwich I spotted the Billy I wanted, he was a long way away, the other side of a big canyon and up at timber line.  He laid down so I thought I could get him, which I did a little before dark. I laid up in the rocks that night, the next after noon after climbing that mountain two more times I found him afternoon.  With him on my back and sundown I still had a mile of hard going to get out, I was very hungry and shaky, I knew bear eat the elder berry's and my mother made pies so I rationed myself to one handfull. Let me tell you that was a mistake, in less then a 100 yd. I was pooping every couple minuets. almost didn't make that last mile before dark and I got very very week.  The pies and wine are great, but not the raw ones.

[ICEMAN]

I was really liking your story until the "end" of it....

Maybe cooking them is the trick. Even with our syrup, we crush and cook them down...

[Red Dawg]

Oh no. That is never good. Bet it took a while to get rid of that chafing.