Buhl - It's hard to go wrong with recipes that remind you of grandmother.

That's what Lorie Bower, owner of Gramma's Country Pie Shop in Buhl, hopes her fresh, ready-to-bake fruit and meat pies accomplish for her customers.

Bower learned to bake as a child, working alongside her mother in Roseworth, a farming tract south of Castleford.

"When you grow up in the sticks there isn't anything to do but cook," she said.

Her recipes give a nod to that frontier lifestyle when a trip to the store took a day or more and ingredients were grown, not bought. They're hearty, yet basic.

"Nothing is real fancy, but a lot of people say the pies taste just like their grandma's," Bower said.

With 600 pies going out the door every month, Bower knows a thing or two about time management, especially as she keeps the shop's part-time payroll to a minimum.

Bower opened the shop at 1025 Burke St. two years ago. While business is steady, it isn't as brisk as a year ago. The economy's been hit hard, she said, and people aren't buying as many ready-to-bake pies. Even so, she's at the shop early, making pies, soup and rolls three days a week.

"I like to be here by 7:30 in the morning," Bower said.

With most of her pies already prepared and frozen for the week, Bower decided to make a batch for use in her shop on the day a reporter visited. In addition to supplying a few retail outlets, like Buhl's Cloverleaf Creamery and the Boise Co-Op, she sells pies - some frozen, some already baked - at her Buhl business.

She also opens her shop to the public for lunch Monday through Wednesday. Don't expect a menu.

"What's available is what I happen to make up. Sometimes it's chili, pot pie or ham and bean soup. I'll throw it in the (crock pot) in the morning and let it heat up for lunch. It's a cook's choice thing; but it works well," Bower said. "Lunches aren't that busy, but it's nice when people pop in."

With the day's soup already on, Bower pulled two large, stainless steel mixing bowls from a cupboard. She grabbed a plastic bag filled with crust dough from a refrigerator and, from the freezer, another bag with 20 cups of marionberries.

With the berries sitting in a mixture of flour, sugar and other "secret ingredients," she worked at rolling dough. Within moments the haphazard pile was transformed into a thin, equal layer.

"Nothing is thrown away," Bower said, pressing the dough gently into a metal pie pan. She cut the overlapping dough from the pan's side and tossed it back into the bag. "We make a lot of pies. The dough gets used up."

Bower pressed a double-hearted metal logo into the pie's top crust.

"The heart is like a signature of mine," she said. "Plus, it creates vents in the crust and you need those anyway, for the steam to escape while baking."

The process was repeated five more times, until the berry mixture disappeared. The pies headed to a freezer filled with nothing but pies.

"We make about 100 fruit pies and 50 meat pot pies a week. In order to keep everything organized we label the freezer, designating which kind of pie goes where. We've sold pies before that we thought were peach or something and they end up being a meat pie," Bower said. "That isn't good."

With a ring of the doorbell Bower's attention turned from the kitchen to the small dining area in front. The customer would be Bower's only lunch served that day.

It was the first time Hank Langdon had lunch at the pie shop, but it sounded as though the vegetable soup won him over.

"The taste is really good," Langdon said. "Really good."

With the week's cooking all but complete, Bower took a quick breather - a rarity for the women who still provides private in-home cleaning services on Thursdays.

"That's how I make a living. I can't give that up," Bower said.

She isn't giving up on pies, either.

Blair Koch may be reached at blairkoch@gmail.com or 208-316-2607.