When in doubt, make pie.

In my usual bleary-eyed early(ish) morning email and blog checking I suddenly noticed that it had been ten days since I'd posted. Ten days! How on earth had that happened? Then I mentally tracked back across those hours and it gradually became clear. What a ten days it has been.

There's been a flurry of strange happenings around here lately and as a result the last week or so has disappeared never to be seen again.

First, Sniff decided that since the tiny bird clearly wasn't impressive enough, he needed to try harder. Enter the rat. Yes, I did say rat. Now, it was a small one, but still twice the size of a mouse, and Sniff conveniently herded it into the study, the smallest, most full, room of the house. Great stuff Sniff, thanks for that. Cue a frantic hour and a half of trying to chase, maneuver, and encourage said rodent out of the place. The relief of its final exit was brief as I returned to absolute carnage. Books off shelves, fabric from my stash on the floor and a broken bobbin case. It was not a good afternoon.

Then after that debarcle came the big stuff, about jobs and all sorts. Followed by stressing over some teaching.


So, what did I do to ease these troubled times? I did the only thing I could. I made pie. On the first of September it was as if the god of weather himself had flicked the switch and made it autumn. The air was chilly, the leaves beginning to crisp and fall, the afternoon light slightly weaker. Great! I thought, now I can get back to pies and sausage and mash, and roasts. Then came the curve ball, it suddenly got warm again. Talk about messing with my seasonal excitement.

So I made the pastry, and it sat in the fridge and went unused, until I couldn't stand it any more. I needed pie, I needed hot fruity bubbling pastry-enclosed reassurance on a plate, covered in cream. I needed something homely and comforting to remind me that despite the rats of this world things are indeed very good.

Now, my only issue with this little pie (well, galette really as I was trying to cut down pastry consumption) is the filling wasn't quite as bubbling and fruity as I expected. Probably by fault as I just adapted the filling of something else. However, when we had it the second day it was much better. Weird, but good of course!

My real delight came from the pastry. I wanted something a bit different, and my experiment worked perfectly. I can't wait to make it again, this time to use with a proper pie filled with British apples.


As a result, I recommend you try the pastry, but use with your own filling recipe, just to make sure. I used 2 cups of blueberries (with some raspberries to make up the amount) 2 tbsp of cornflour and a dash of lemon juice and it just wasn't quite right. In fact it was very much "alright" and next time I'll be back to good ole apple pie, and no messin'

Cinnamon pastry (makes enough for one 8" galette, but could easily be doubled.)

3oz cold butter, cut into small cubes/chunks
6oz plain flour
1 tbsp caster (superfine) sugar
1.4 tsp cinnamon
Milk

In a medium bowl, place the flour, cinnamon and sugar and mix. Rub the cold butter with your fingertips so that it resembles coarse breadcrumbs (I used my new pastry blender, and I'm so in love!) The slowly add a little milk at a time until the pastry just comes together - I make it so it still seems a little dry.

Wrap in clingfilm and leave in the fridge for at least an hour before using.

Alternatively you can make it in a food processor, but I'm afraid I don't have one, hence the hand instructions.

oh, oh, oh, how could I almost forgot, I won an award! Thank you Liz! So, in the next post you'll get seven things you might not know about me...(and I promise it won't take as long this time around!)

Four and twenty blackbirds...

...baked in a..."pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie"

Whilst lying in bed with the laptop last night uploading some photos I couldn't help myself from chanting "pie" over and over again. I don't think N could decide if it was hilarious, cute or just downright weird. However, upon discovering that today is "Pi day" in the states (because their dates are written month then day, hence 3.14) I can't help but think I was being channeled by the god of pie in anticipation of this wonderful day.

I can't quite get my head around the American date system, but I can get behind anything that involves pie, and I must admit that I have baked forms of pie twice this week. I know it must seem strange given that the weather has finally begun to feel like spring, the daffodils are out and the sunshine making an appearance almost every day. I should be wanting to make lighter dishes, but somehow pie has been on my brain. I didn't make as much pie this winter as I would have liked. We eat such carbohydrate/root veg based meals that having a pie for dessert seemed like overkill, and in an attempt to constantly wade through the mound of root veg piled in the bowl I made mash, and roasts rather than pie, because I just can't face a pie that is filled with another stodgy thing.

So the pies got a bit lost. A tragedy considering the beauty of my red pie dish and the addition of a pie blackbird to my cooking kit at Christmas. Then a few weeks ago I discovered this recipe for mushroom bourguignon. Having recently come back around to mushrooms (years of slimey, badly cooked mushrooms put me off ever wanting to eat or cook them again, until I discovered that if you do it right they can be wonderful) I decided to give it a go. It was delicious. We had it ladled over mash with some broccolli on the side. However, as I was eating it all I could think of was how good it would taste in a pie if made with a mix of mushrooms.A trip to Borough Market and the amazing mushroom stall a few weeks later and I was set. On Monday I made it and it was a resounding success and I am already trying to work out how many more times I can make it before it really does become to warm and spring-like for a hearty pie dish.

"pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie"

Pastry:

10oz plain flour
5oz of cold butter, cut into small cubes
cold milk

cut or rub the butter into the flour until you get a coarse, almost breadcrumb-like, mixture (I admittedly can never be bother to be quite this precise, I just do it until it looks about right, and if there are a few larger clumps so be it.) Add only enough milk to make the dough just come together. I find it various according to the flour, so add a little at a time until it's just right, and sometimes I stop a little on the dry side to err on caution.

form into a ball and place in the fridge until needed.

Mushroom filling

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 1/2 pounds mixed mushrooms. I used Portobello, chesnut and porchini
1/2 carrot, finely diced
1 small yellow onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, (I used smoked) smushed in a garlic press.
1 cup full-bodied red wine
2 cups vegetable stock
2 tablespoons tomato purree
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour


Heat the one tablespoon of the olive oil and one tablespoon of butter in a medium casserole or heavy sauce pan over high heat. Cooke the mushrooms until they begin to darken, but don’t release any liquid. Remove them from the pan and place in a bowl to one side.

Lower the heat to medium and add the rest of the of oil. Cook the carrots, onions, rosemary with a large pinch of salt and a lots of black pepper, stirring occasionally, until the onions are lightly browned. Add the garlic and cook for one more minute.

Add the wine, then turn the heat up and reduce the liquid by half. Stir in the tomato purree and the stock. Return the mushrooms to the pan with any juices that have collected. Bring to the boil and then reduce the temperature and simmer for 20 minutes, or until mushrooms are very tender.

Combine the remaining butter with the flour with a fork until combined; stir it into the mixture. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 more minutes. Leave to cool before placing in the pie dish so you don’t melt the butter in the pastry.

Preheat the over to 200C

Once cooled, remove the pastry from the fridge. Divide in two. Roll out the first piece so that it will cover the pie dish base, sides and lip, with some overlap. Roll out the second piece as the lid and cut a steam vent in the middle. Place the cooled filling in the pastry lined dish, add the blackbird funnel if using. Wet the edges of the pastry with milk then place over the lid (with the steam vent over the funnel) pressing down all around the edge to seal. Brush with milk and then place in the over for 20-25 minutes, or until the pastry is golden.

Remove, serve and enjoy your, "pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie, pie!"
As a total fluke my pastry turned out to be really flakey, hurrah!

Tart that's not a tart, cos it's a pie!

So last week we had a whole load of confusion about a tart. I kept calling it a pie, and it wasn't, it was a tart. Now I have the other problem, I've made a pie, but it's in a tart dish, so it's blatantly a tart!


This is indeed the pie I was going to make last week when all this confusion started. Back then I didn't have the ingredients, and so instead we had to struggle on like the troupers we are and make do with a cranberry and pecan frangipane tart. We suffer in this flat we really do.


Tonight we have friend coming for dinner and I wanted a nice dessert. The cranberries in the fridge were still good and I had a nice new batch of cooking apples. It just had to happen. This time however, it wasn't having the ingredients that was the problem, it was quite the opposite, I had the butter, and could plan for the cream cheese, except one of our friends doesn't eat dairy. When asked by N if this was a problem, I laughed, "no no," I said, "it's not a problem, it's a challange!" I definitely enjoy this stuff far too much.


So yesterday I prepared the pie, veganising it as I went along. It wasn't actually as difficult as I'd expected. I replaced the cream cheese with silken tofu, and the butter in the pastry with vegan margarine, and the egg with soya milk. This made the pastry less fluffy, but it still looks pretty good. In fact, I think it looks downright pretty if you ask me.


We haven't tried it yet of course - it's taken some will power not to, I can tell you - so I will have to report on the flavour and response later, but hopefully it'll be a winner. I'm going to serve it with whipped brandy soya cream so if nothing else at least the booze should go down a treat!

here's the recipe. I adapted it from one in the Sainsbury's magazine.

Cranberry and apple pie (Makes one 9'' pie)

375g of your favourite sweet pastry (replace the butter with vegan marg and any egg or milk with soya milk)

250g cranberries
250g apples, peeled, cored and sliced thinly
juice of one orange
200g light muscovado sugar
200g silken tofu

Lightly flour the worksurface and roll out the dough and line the tin, collecting the scraps to make the lattice top. Chill for at least 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180C.

Put the cranberries, apples and orange juice in a saucepan and simmer uncovered until all the berries have popped, the apple is cooked and it is a thick bubbling sauce - aprox 15mins. Stir in the sugar and then leave to cool.

Gently prick pastry shell with a fork, line it with parchment and fill with baking beads. Bake for 20 mins, then remove the beads and cook for a further 5mins, until dry. Leave to cool.

Stir half the cold cranberry mixture into the tofu and blend until smooth. Spread evenly over the base. Cover with the remaining cranberry mixture, then with strips of rolled leftover dough make a lattice top.

Bake for aprox 40-50mins, until the pastry top is golden (keep your eyes on this, in my oven it took a while, but it might be much faster in yours.

Serve warm, or at room temperature.

"It takes how long?!"

That was my exclamation when I re-read the recipe for the galette pastry I was about to embark on. I had read that I needed sour cream (and bought yoghurt), I had read that I needed lots of butternut squash (and only had two baby ones), and still I was determined. Then I read the pastry instructions, which included, "Place bowl in the freezer for an hour" and "leave butter in the freezer for an hour." That was the final straw. It was already almost seven, I'd been out all afternoon and I was starving.

When I get hungry, I get grumpy. Boy, do I get grumpy. So what ensued was not pretty. That was stomping, and loud poking about in the kitchen, followed by more stomping. All done while poor N cowered on the sofa quietly suggesting we phone for a curry.

But I was angry now, and I was determined to make a galette. I had onions, I had squash, all I needed was some damn pastry and it would all be fine. So I improvised, and for the first time every made my own pastry using my own recipe. I then rested this in the fridge while I fried the onions, grated cheese and checked on the squash that N had set roasting when he got in.

Then I mixed this all together, placed it on the tray and folded the pastry around it. Voila!

Okay, so it's not the greatest folding job in the world. But I'd like to award myself marks out of ten for at least sticking with the project!

As it happens the pastry turned out to be the nicest thing about the galette. I think the filling really suffered from the amount of onions we crammed in. It would be perfect with more squash and less onions. We added rosemary instead of the usual sage, and a grating of very strong cheddar rather than parmesan. I think the flavour choices were good, if a little oniony!

I will definitely be making this again, although the filling needs some thought. With that in mind I am only going to put the pastry recipe here as I reckon you can fill the pie with whatever you like. Plus I am just so proud that the pastry worked out when I just made it up as I went along!

Galette Pastry.

8oz flour
3oz cold butter, cubed
2 tbsp bio yoghurt
dash of lemon juice
enough cold water to make into a dough - add very gradually, you don't want a sticky mess on your hands.

Place the flour in a large bowl, rub the butter into the flour so you get a breadcrumb like mixture. Then add the yoghurt and lemon and mix together. Finally add enough cold water to make into a dough. It should come together and be slightly elastic. Leave in the fridge until you need to roll it out, or for at least half an hour.

Pretty on the inside: October Baking Day and the story of the inaugural pie.

This is a story of a pie. A pie in a beautiful bright red pie dish.

I've never made pie before. Hard to believe, but it's true. I'm not quite sure how it came to be this long before I attempted pie. It wasn't really about fear, because I've made pastry before with success. It wasn't even about lack of tools, because you can make pie in any ovenproof dish and I have several pyrex ones tucked away. But for some reason the dessert has eluded me. Until now.

There was a conspiring of events, as there often are when it comes to me attempting a new recipe. First was a conversation between N and myself about the seasons changing and how it would soon be time for warming hearty food. Pie came up and I learned that N was a fan. How could he not be in fact, warm fruits, spices and pastry. What's not to love.

Then the second thing happened: Mum pointing out that Lakeland, home of all things a domestic goddess doesn't even know she needs, has a website. Disaster! Before I knew it two hours had passed and I had perused every page of the site, sometimes going back to pages for a second or third look. It's a good thing my credit card was in the other room and that I was pinned down on the sofa by the cat, otherwise the damage could have been very widespread indeed.

On one of the pages was a pie dish. A bright red pie dish with a fluted edge. It was beautiful, it was perfect and it was screaming out to join my kitchen and force me to make pie. And so the Lakeland fairy visited whilst we were on holiday (thank you Mum) and suddenly the means to make pie were there. It was like a challange.

But with a dish that sexy it couldn't be any old pie. Oh no, I wanted it to be the best pie ever, which was something of a high standard considering I've never made pie before. But I'd tackled the beast of jam making and overcome it, so I was feeling pretty confident.

Off I went to Smitten Kitchen to get the foolproof pie dough recipe. I could have used ordinary sweet shortcrust pastry, but no, this had to be special and everyone said this was the dough of all doughs. I had to do a bit of conversion work, and the amount of butter seemed very high (I used all butter, rather than a butter and shortening mix), but I decided just to go with it. For the filling? The epitome of autumn; apples and pears spiced with a mix of cinnamon, mixed spice, nutmeg and ginger.

See, see how beautiful that pie dish is? I don't deserve a pie dish that seductive. I filled the pastry case with the fruit, rolled out a nice thick top, placed it carefully over the fruit, cut slits for the steam to escape, and even made little leaves out of the left-over dough. A masterpiece.

Then disaster struck. I made the mistake of glancing in the oven while it was cooking. My perfect crust had sunk over the fruit and the shell had shrunk. NOOOOOOOOO! I had broken the perfect pie, I had failed the pie dish.

But all was not lost. There is a happy ending to the story, because despite it's rather rugged exterior, this pie was pretty on the inside, the fruits were delicately spiced and not too soft and the pastry turned out just right and didn't seem to have suffered despite the sinking.

I might fiddle with the ratios in the pastry using less fat next time, I might add more fruit to the filling next time, I might make the shell larger to prevent shrinkage next time, but the important thing is...there will be a next time. Oh yes, my pie making days are only just beginning, and there are a good five months of cold weather still to come.