heart shaped cherry hand-pie goes awry and the rest of our valentine's day

When I was pregnant I craved cherry pie.

In the pacific northwest there are some really yummy cherries and people bake all sorts of elaborate pies.  The kind of pie that you know exactly which farm the fruit was picked at, organic of course, pure ingredients; you get the picture, cherry pies with hazelnuts, liquors, flavored crusts, and even fried.

That's great and all but I wanted bright red, over processed, too much sugar, high fructose corn syrup cherry pie filling from the can. I couldn't find it anywhere. Until now.

I thought it would be very valentinesy.

My idea was to make a heart shaped cherry hand pie.

It was going to be great.

That is, until I wondered why it smelled like crayons burning in the house and was it getting smoky? Yes. The smoke detectors started to beep and I opened the oven to what I thought was parchment paper but actually was wax paper (which I realized as I glanced over at the box on the counter. Genius.) drying up and smoldering. Fantastic.

So much for my heart shaped hand pie.

But just like life (and love) sometimes better things come from events that seem, at the time, like they are a disaster.

I looked over at the little bit of dough I had left.

What is better than one big heart? Why, two half hearts that make the whole, of course.

How romantic.