Shepherd’s Pie – (made 12/12/15)

For the first time, I’m not going to post the recipe for this week’s pie… because I forgot to write it down, and now it’s been almost a month since I made it. Sigh.

Honestly, I’m not too sad about it. It was good enough, but not a stand-out. I riffed on this recipe, and I recall that I used a bottle of winter stout in place of the broth, and I omitted the peas per the tastes of The Husband. Which is fair enough, because I think he was a bigger fan of this pie than I was.

Really, the most interesting point for me is this: is it a pie if it doesn’t have a crust? Informal facebook poll says yes, but I still have doubts, because if not for the crust, what are the essential constituents of a pie? Clearly, it didn’t bother me that much: I made this for Week 13 and called it good. And then forgot to write down the recipe.

I always forget how much I love pot pie. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of blah pot pies out there, but I think I’ve hit on the key over the last couple of years: always overstuff the filling, and brown the butter in the sauce.

This particular pot pie grew out of a desire to try out the leeks I have growing in my garden and to use up stuff in my refrigerator and freezer. Oh, goodness, it was tasty. This combination of vegetables and seasonings is a winner, and I can highly recommend it if you’re bored by the thought of regular old chicken pot pie (and even if you aren’t). It takes a little time to put together, but it’s worth the effort. This particular combination of vegetables maintains a fresh, late-season-gardeny flavor that is much different from its typical stick-to-your-bones wintery pot pie cousin.

Also, my newly-acquired lard made its debut in this pie crust, and guys, there may be no going back. It’s pretty hard to feel guilty about the unhealthy factor when just a third of a cup of lard makes a double crust that is this flavorful and flaky. I am not ashamed.

We won’t talk about how quickly this pie disappeared, and how little {none} of it we shared.

 

Fall Harvest Pot Pie – made 11/16/15

Special equipment: deep dish pie pan—you’ll need it to hold all this filling!

1 recipe for double pie crust (I highly recommend using half lard, half butter for your fat content)
2 medium leeks, white and tender light green portions, washed well and sliced
1 carrot, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 red potato, diced
1 c. corn (I used frozen)
1 ½ c. kale, chopped small
1/2 c. cherry tomatoes, sliced in halves
2 c. cooked meat, i.e., turkey, chicken, ham (We used ½ chicken, ½ ham. I think it would be great with just ham!), chopped or shredded
5 Tbsp. butter, divided
½ c. butter
1 ½ c. milk
2 c. chicken broth
1-2 Tbsp. sherry
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add leeks and sauté until soft and transparent, about 5 minutes. Add carrot, celery, and potato, and continue to cook for an additional 7-8 minutes, until the vegetables are just beginning to soften. Add corn, kale, tomatoes, and meat, and cook 3-5 minutes further, until kale turns dark green.

In a separate saucepan (at least 4-cup capacity), brown the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter over medium or low-medium heat.* Add flour, stirring and cooking an additional minute. Whisk in the milk and chicken broth. Bring to a simmer, then allow to simmer another minute or so until the sauce thickens up. Add the sherry, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Add sauce to vegetable-meat filling, and stir to combine.

Prepare the bottom pie crust in a deep dish pie pan. Pour in the filling, then apply the top crust, sealing and crimping the edges. Cut vent holes in the top crust.

Bake the pie for 30 minutes, until crust is set and begins to brown slightly, and the filling begins to bubble.

* If you’ve never browned butter before, I recommend using a pan with a light – colored bottom so that you can see when it begins to turn. Let the butter melt and then continue to heat over medium temperature until it turns a caramel-y brown color with little bits of sediment in the bottom of the pan. Be careful, though—you want a nice golden brown, but it’s easy to go too far and burn it. I often pull the pan off the heat for a minute once I have the color I want, so as to stop the heating process more quickly.

 

After last week’s [undeniably odd] green tomato pie, this week’s pie needed to be a sure bet. We recently had spent some time experimenting with butter making–what, this isn’t what everyone does on the weekends?–which left us with fresh, real buttermilk in the fridge.

This Amish buttermilk pie is going to become one of my go-to pies. (Have I mentioned that one should ALWAYS trust the Amish when it comes to desserts? No exception here.) It’s quick and simple to put together, and it seems extremely versatile in terms of flavors and additions. Since it was one of the last warm weeks before autumn turned cold, I opted for bright flavors: lemon and raspberry. The results were fresh, light, and completely delightful.

This time I made cute mini-pies in silicon muffin cups.

Lemon Raspberry Buttermilk Pie (made 11/8/15)

1 single piecrust recipe, unbaked
¾ c. sugar
2 Tbsp. + ¼ c. flour, separated
2 eggs
2 Tbsp. butter, melted
2 c. buttermilk (store bought is fine)
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. lemon zest
½ c. fresh raspberries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Roll pie crust to a circle approximately 11 inches in diameter, and lay in greased 9-inch pie pan. Set aside.

Separate eggs and set aside the egg whites. Mix the egg yolks, sugar, 2 tablespoons of flour, butter, buttermilk, lemon juice, and zest.

Rinse the raspberries if they are not already cleaned. Toss with the remaining ¼ cup of flour, then sift off any excess flour. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whip the egg whites with an electric mixer on high speed until they are foamy and form stiff peaks.* Gently fold egg whites and coated raspberries into the buttermilk mixture, leaving small pillows of egg whites remaining. Pour mixture into piecrust.

Bake pie for 10 minutes at 400 degrees, then lower oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 50 minutes, or until the middle is firm and a toothpick comes out clean. Serve at room temperature or chilled. (If making mini-pies like mine, they will only require 12-20 minutes at 350 after the initial 400-degree bake.)

*Note: If you wish, you may omit separating the eggs and beating the egg whites, simply adding whole eggs to the filling mixture. I do like the fluffy bit of “crust” that forms on top of the pie, though.

Green tomato pie… every now and then it has popped up on my radar, but I’ve never met anyone who’s actually made or eaten one. Recipes I had seen treated it much like an apple pie—interesting. We had our first frost around the last week of October, so I tore all the tomato plants out of our garden and saved the unripened tomatoes to try my hand at green tomato pie.

I made this on Halloween… it seemed appropriate.

My grandpa recently became intrigued by my pie-making endeavors, and he sent me a packet of recipes, including one for green tomato pie. Like the other recipes I’d come across, this one treated the tomatoes much like apples. And, because my grandpa hates cinnamon, I left the cinnamon out in his honor. (It turns out that it really needs it. Don’t skip the cinnamon. Sorry, Grandpa.)

The results: it’s an unusual pie, to be sure. I preferred it best chilled, and it was intriguing enough to keep me coming back for another slice each day, just to allow my palate to figure it out. It tastes much like apple pie on the front end, just like you’d expect. And then, at the very tail end of the flavor, you get a hint of something savory with the distinct kick of tomato. This isn’t a pie that I am likely to make on a regular basis (especially because I only got The Husband* to try one bite), but let me tell you: it is certainly one of the most fascinating pies I have ever made. If you’re a traditionalist, this might be a pie to skip. If you have an adventurous culinary streak in you, I’d recommend trying this one—it’s worth making at least once.

Green Tomato pie

Green Tomato Pie (made 10/31/15)

Pie Crust:
2 c. flour (it might be interesting to substitute ½ c. cornmeal for ½ c. of the flour, but I haven’t had a chance to try it)
pinch of kosher salt
2/3 c. shortening
ice water

Filling:
½ c. light brown sugar
½ c. white sugar
6 Tbsp. flour
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. ginger
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
1/8 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. black pepper
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
4 c. finely chopped green tomatoes
2 Tbsp. butter, cut in slices
2 Tbsp. heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Assemble the piecrust: Combine the salt and flour together in a small mixing bowl. Add the shortening and mix with a pastry blender or your fingers until you have a bowl of pea-sized crumbles. Add a scant ½ cup of ice-cold water (not the ice cubes) to the mixture. Mix with pastry blender or fingers until the mixture holds together in one ball, adding additional ice water a tablespoon at a time as needed, but being careful not to add too much water. Roll half the pie dough into a circle approximately 11” in diameter. Place in a 9” pie plan.

For the filling: In a large bowl, mix together all the remaining ingredients except the butter. Pour the mixture into the bottom piecrust, then arrange the butter slices on top of the filling.

Roll the remaining pie dough into a circle approximately 10” in diameter. With fingers dipped into cold water, wet the edges of the bottom crust. Place the top crust on and seal well, crimping the edges decoratively. Cut small slits into the upper crust to create vents.

Bake the pie at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees, and continue to bake until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbly (35-40 minutes). Remove and cool on a wire rack. Serve chilled with whipped cream.

* I asked The Husband what moniker he preferred for this blog, and he said that he would like to be referred to as “The Hu$band.” Nope.