Easy As Pie Bars

 There's nothing like an end of season pie to highliught late summer harvests. Yet apie at a picnic can be messy, especially eaten out doors. Try a pie bar instead. You cn bake and bring it anywhere, the back yard or the beach ,

Melissa Clark wrote about pie bars in her A Good Appetite Column in yesterday's New York Times Food section. These bars take the fruits and crusty flavors to a new level witohut the mess. Traditional pies can be messy. Their insides drip out. Crust crumble into a million  pieces. it hard to eat a piece of pie while ballancing a paper plate on your lap. Pie bars allow home bakers to bake them days ahead , cut them and  put them on plate.Guests and family can just grab one and nibble as they mingle. There's no gooey mess to deal with afterwards. Ms. Clark compares it this way, a pie bar isto a  pie as a hamburger is to a steak.It's totable and easy to eat . The crust should be sturdy and Ms Clark recommends prebaking both the given sortbread and grahan crackers, She likes the first for it's flavor and sturdiness. The shortbread should be a dark brown.It'll be harder to gauge the grahahn cracker one because of its' color. The color will deepend ever so slightly so keep an eye on it.

As for the filling Ms. Clark gives three. There is a raspberry crunch one with a a combo of five (!) cups of  fresh raspberries and half a cup of raspberry jam. There's a crunch topping of rolled oats, almonds , brown sugar and butter.Everything is flattened down to create three layers of fruity, sweet buttery goodness. Coconut lovers will go wild for the recipe that has a cocoonut pie filling laced with dark chocolate.It's rich with eggs and butter along with unsweetened coconut milk.  These two hav e the base of shortbread which adds to the flavor.Enjoy peach season with creamy peach pie bars. This starts with a graham cracker crust made ven more crunchier with pecans. The filling has a rich mix of cream cheese and heavy cream along with one whole egg. You will need three cups of peaches, preferably fresh. These can be peeled or unpeeled (go with the unpeeled - less work). The peaches are simmered in a sugary sauce and then placed on top of the already pired heavy cream and cream cheese mix.

Try a pie bar this Labor Day weekend. They're a fun and tasty way to enjoy the season's harvest.  They're better than pie .