Note: I'm a bit distracted, so I hope the following is coherent.
“As easy as pie,” apparently refers to eating pie, not making pie. But how hard is making a fruit pie? Put down the crust, fill it with fruit, a bit of sugar, a bit of butter and bake. This one is another sort, just as easy: cook a few cups of the fruit together with flour, sugar and water until thick, then mix in the rest of the fruit and put into cooked piecrust. The hardest part about this kind of pie is waiting for it to set up.
Ah, but crusts are hard, I hear you say. Well, you could buy ready-made crusts. I’ve recently learned a very simple recipe for pie crust: 1 cup flour, mix of whole wheat and white is fine, ¼ cup oil, ¼ cup warm water (perhaps a hair less), a bit of salt. You can mix it with a fork right in the pie plate. Then you press it into place with your fingers. The crust is sturdy and flakey both, and does not get soggy. I suppose it’s not good if you want a top crust since rolling it would be a problem, though I suppose you could roll it out between plastic sheets. It’s a phase, I know. I go through pie crust phases. The only trouble with this particular pie crust phase is that I’m finding it so easy that I’m making pies and quiches continuously…
I’ve become fascinated with actions that are simultaneously easy and hard. It’s very easy to take a picture every day. You just look around, find something interesting and well-lit, and you press the shutter. It’s very easy to get up when the alarm clock goes off. You just swing your feet onto the floor and stand up. It’s even easier to not do things. You just don’t do them. You don’t want to eat too much pie? Well, you just don’t take a bite. Easy as pie.
I made the mistake recently of making cherry tartlets with a raspberry coulis to take to a friend as our contribution for dinner... we keep getting invited back! The secret to making light pastry crusts? Replace a third of the flour with powdered almonds.
I like your philosophy too