Pies and Pinochle

Twice a month I meet with 7 other ladies (most of whom live in my neighborhood) for pinochle. Yesterday was my turn to host. We typically have 2 tables set up with 2 decks of cards (so as not to waste time shuffling) and snacks. We all chip in $1.50 which is divided up when we finish and given to the high point winner, last pinochle and lowest score.

After we play several hands our 2 1/2 hours of playing time is over and we can then all sit together and have dessert. Since our friend, Marv, rode his bike over here yesterday and brought  some yummy fresh rhubarb for us, I decided to make 2 (from scratch) strawberry rhubarb pies. I made one gluten-free pie and one regular. One of our group cannot eat any gluten and I've been avoiding it myself, so I figured it was a good thing to do. Can you tell which is gluten free?

Let me tell you why one is so much darker than the other. Bad me! I didn't think to put a pan under the first pie until it was too late. The one on the left (yup, that's the gluten free one) needed to be cooked at a lower temperature so I baked them separately. As you can imagine, it oozed all over the bottem of my oven, which I had just cleaned last week. Too late for me to do anything about that, so I assume that when I put the 2nd one in all that smoke (gasp...open the windows!!!) made it brown up more than usual.

Actually the gluten free pie was a real hit. It tasted fabulous. Better than regular crust, in my opinion. The only problem was that I couldn't crimp or use a fork on the edges since the crust was a bit crumbly.

This one may have looked over done, but it wasn't. Still very tasty. Strawberry Rhubarb is my very favorite pie! But only homemade. I just don't enjoy store bought pies. Not even Costco pies.

I may have had a hit with the pies, but alas, my $1.50 buy-in went to others in the group.