Pies Are Just Delicious Circles

29 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Dried Fruit Pie, Nut Pie

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There is one list of holidays commonly recognized throughout the United States by the average citizen. This list includes the like of the fourth of July, Halloween, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, perhaps Hanukah, maybe Easter…etc.

Then there is anOTHer set of holidays that only teachers know about. It’s true. Secret list. Teachers, in addition to decorating their classrooms seasonally and being more likely to wear holiday-specific attire than anyone else in the world, have created a whole slough of extra holidays to celebrate. This phenomenon occurs because teachers don’t have anything else to do with their time (sarcasm.) It actually occurs because teachers are just such fun and fantastic people.

Holidays that fall in this category, at least at my school, include the following:

Read Across America Day/Dr. Seuss’s birthday
Pajamas and Pancakes Day
100th Day of School
Crazy Hat Day
Pi Day (March 14th)

Pi Day is a great holiday because pi has everything to with circles, and circles are shaped like pie, and pie is a homonym for pi, so Pi Day really usually ends up as another cleverly disguised excuse to eat Pie. (I find there are so many of these excuses in life.)

On Pi Eve (3.13) I baked Ken Haedrich‘s Chewy Medjool Date-Nut Pie.

Just one little tip from Ken about chopping dates: it’s much easier if you sprinkle a little flour over them first. Cause they’re really sticky, dontcha know.

Dates: one of those food items people either love or hate. I love ’em.

Levi took it upon himself to make sure the flavor was up to par. The description that I heard was, “This is basically a better pecan pie.”

Obi would gladly have taken the job of taste tester upon himself had he been granted the opportunity.

Here are a few peeks of Pi Day gluttony in action. I love pie and all, but I’m telling you, this is a no-fail recipe for a stomachache.

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If you’d like to check out my post about LAST Pi Day (3/14/12), go here.

If you’d like to watch a video my students made last year in response to the question “What is Pi?” you can find that here.

If you commented on my last post (about Pie-in-a-Jar) thank you so much for your enthusiasm! I will be randomly drawing the names of at least one domestic and one international helper and will announce the winners in my next post. Here’s hoping the jars can hold up to the journey!

Pie-in-a-Jar!

27 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Apple Pie, Mixed Fruit Pie, Summer Fruit Pie

≈ 29 Comments

Tags

apple, berry, blackberry, blueberry, jar, mini pies, pear, pie-in-a-jar, raspberry, spices, strawberry

Pie-in-a-Jar is as exciting as it sounds.

They’re pies. In JARS.
They’re so super cute.
I think they would hold up really well in the mail. Big question is whether they’ll hold up internationally. Now taking domestic and international volunteers to help me test this theory out.

A year ago, I send some normal pie pies (as opposed to pie-in-a-jar pies) to a bake sale in Palm Springs benefitting the school I teach at. You can read that post here. This year, I was asked to contribute again to the same sale. I decided to make mini pies in jars this year after pondering the following key points.

What’s better than a slice of pie? A whole pie to yourself.
What’s more socially acceptable than eating a whole pie? Eating a whole mini pie.
What’s easier to transport than a jar with a lid?…Nothing.

(My points just seem to be rolling out in groups of three this evening.)

This post from Our Best Bites provided me with some inspiration, and even comes with some rather adorable labels to top your jars with. It’s worth checking out if you’re interested in making your own pies-in-a-jar. For my part, I did what I usually do…read some blog posts on the subject at hand, then decided not to follow any of the recipes after all. So, in all accuracy, I probably couldn’t replicate these exact mini pies ever again.

(Awkward silence as you ponder how unhelpful of a blog writer I really am…)

I made two types of pies-in-a-jar; a pretty basic apple pie with lots of spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, lemon and lemon zest) and a pear and mixed berry pie (strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, almond extract).

I love how they look here, all packaged up and ready to travel!

Have you ever tried baking pies (or anything else) in a jar? I would love to hear:

Stories about YOUR mini pie experiences, or questions about mine.
Interest in being a mail-tester for a pie-jar (depending on the number of comments I receive, I’ll put your name in a drawing.)
Which of the two above flavors you would have purchased had YOU attended the bake sale?

Pertaining to Pasties…

19 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Chess Pie, Savory Pie

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

chess, handheld, lemon, meat, savory

Our good friend Phil spent a week with us in February. He’s the type of guy who never does anything halfheartedly, whether it’s becoming an overnight fan of the Utah Jazz basketball team or making an authentic Australian meal.

Once Phil and I had the idea that we must make pasties while he was visiting, the whole thing kind of snowballed.

Oh wait, take a step back. What’s a pasty? Take a second to educate yourself if you’re not sure. (They’re basically meat and vegetable handheld pies.) But if you’re going to make proper pasties, you need to be even more specific.

Things that I discovered while grocery shopping with Phil:

1. Proper pasties contain beef, onion, potato, and swede.

2. Swede is Australian for rutabaga. (!!)

3. In a good and just world, pasties are accompanied by HP Sauce. Not surprisingly, the very American grocery store that we had visited to locate the swede did not stock HP sauce. There was clearly nothing for it but to make our own. Into the cart went the tomatoes.

So there we were, on a Monday night, chopping some steak and swede, mincing fresh rosemary, forming pastry, and simmering homemade HP sauce on the road. I made extra pastry, because savory pie followed by sweet pie is pretty much a perfect meal. As we were making enough food to feed a small army, it was luckily that we had six friends on our way over to share in the goodness.

(Thanks to Phil for the above photo!)

Here are the recipes we used for the pasties and the sauce. To be fair, we more glanced at the recipe to establish the necessity of including the swede. I used Ken Haedrich’s Basic Flaky Pie Crust for the pastry and we included some herbs in our version, most notably fresh rosemary from a friend’s garden. The sauce was lip-smackingly good; I’d definitely make it again for any and all future steak situations.

An egg wash over the pasties never hurts. Nor does the accompaniment of a nice Aussie red. I can think of many things that would hurt far more than those.

And now, dessert. A very simple Lemon Chess Pie, which perhaps did not receive a completely thorough cooling before it was consumed, but was none the worse for its lingering warmth and just a tiny bit of runniness.

PS to Phil/File: Here is a little note I received from a certain young 2nd grader later that week that I thought you might enjoy.

Don’t forget…

18 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Pie Academy

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

almond, cherry, tart

about the Pie Academy!!

It’s a wonderful website started by a pie baker (Ken Haedrich, the author of the cookbook I’m baking my way through…) for pie bakers of all levels.

Check it out here: http://thepieacademy.com.

If you sign up to be a member (it’s free!), you will reap the benefits in the form of discounted bakeware, step-by-step how-to videos, and original recipes in your inbox. The latest recipe, Cherry Almond Coffeecake Tart, looks just fabulous. Now if only I had a tart pan…

The Republic Strikes Back

14 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Berry Pie, Pie Destinations, Summer Fruit Pie

≈ 1 Comment

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Republic of Pie

It’s still good. I went back to confirm, and it has been confirmed. Check it out if you ever get a chance (The Republic of Pie in North Hollywood.)

A few items for your perusal.

Item 1: Pecan bar. Not pie, but very good nonetheless.

Item 2: Very pleased mother-in-law with quiche and strawberry-rhubarb pie. Made the mistake of saying out loud, “This is the best strawberry-rhubarb pie I’ve ever had,” forgetting that she has had mine.

Item 3: A Charming Chair.

Item 4: Chai latte with almond milk and a tiny strawberry rose with an even tinier dabble of whipped cream (a complimentary plate of which were brought over to our table whilst we dined.) Thanks again, Republic, for another lovely evening! Also, apparently you hosted a pie-eating contest tonight in honor of Pi day….fantastic. I just baked a pie. And ate at least six kinds, and taught my 2nd and 3rd grade students about pies and fractions. And screamed and cheered at 1:59 pm. (….3.14159. I know there is someone reading who doesn’t get it.) Pi day post to come.

10 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Berry Pie

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berry, marionberry, Whole Foods

All these weekend road trips lately. Sometimes handheld pies make the journey go a little faster.

Guilty Pleasures

07 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by jessica@peace-of-pie in Apple Pie

≈ 1 Comment

“What’s YOUR guilty pleasure?” asked the voluntary-but-actually-mandatory name and email sheet next to the free wine in my hotel lobby.

If you give me a free wine hour, I’m happy to answer a question. However, the term “guilty pleasure” has always bugged me, namely because I don’t really feel guilty about the things that I would list as my top pleasures. Such as, macaroni and cheese. Or pie.

(Or macaroni-and-cheese-pie. But I diverge.)

Our hotel (which was awesome and luxurious and I would highly recommend to anyone going to Salt Lake City) was odd in that it had a specified theme. A theme that we did not know when we made our booking. And that theme was “Guilty Pleasures.” What a weird theme. But because of this theme, we got lots of free wine and massages and things like a hot cocoa bar with bacon bits.

So we drove out to Salt Lake City for the weekend (as you do) to see some special friends who we hadn’t seen in five years. Since they were out all the way from Sydney, it was the least Levi and I could do to get out there and meet up with them. Having received some not-so-subtle hints prior to that weekend, I decided that it would be in my best interests if a pie drove out to Salt Lake City for the weekend as well.

Now this, my friends, is what is commonly referred to as Ozark Pie. There is no actual pastry crust; however, the “batter” separates during the baking process to form a harder outer shell which acts like a crust. It’s like, the coolest thing ever. My book said, “If you have only one apple and a desire to make a simple pie, this one is for you.” And then I said, “Heck Yes.”

I must confess that this pie didn’t make it fully intact all the way to SLC. It was a long drive, and I got hungry. But most of it survived, and was consumed one cozy afternoon in our hotel lobby during wine hour, whilst playing an epic game of hearts. (As we clearly believe in compounding our guilty pleasures.)