So I have to make a pie for Monday for the team. This is loosely related to some tenuous puns on pi or pie charts or p.i.e. acronyms.
I've cooked cakes before. Or is that baked. Right see the problem? Most of my cooking involves throwing things into a pot, a pan, or on a BBQ. Not much involves in actually following a recipe or really having a clue as to what I am doing.
None the less I need to make a pie for the office. It can be sweet or savoury (I'm thinking savoury), but has to be a pie not a tart. I could probably get away with a quiche. Bear in mind this is for 10:30am so steak and ale pie is probably a bad option. Also it should ideally be edible and not kill anyone.
Any ideas? Any favourite pie recipes?
1. nrgza
Apple! Totally apple. Make it cinnammony and don’t add raisins (yuck).
They could have a slice with a cup of tea, 10:30am is a great time for tea and pie.
And serve each slice with a little dollop of cream.
I’m hungry now!
2. Gordon
Yup I’d go with Apple as well. It’s dead easy, plenty of recipes on the ‘net.
Ohh and I’d recommend you pick up a Nigella Lawson cookbook or two. Her stuff is tasty and surprisingly simple - she does a nice Apple and Walnut upside down pie which might just do the trick!
3. Jack
Buy one. Distress it a little. They’ll never know.
4. Adrian
Nat, I’m not sure after American Pie, I see apple pie in quite the same way.
Gordon, buy a cookbook? With Google at my finger tips? Surely not?
Jack, what do you mean by distress? There is no way any bought pie will look as good bad as any pie I make so will be found out.
5. matthew
I vote for apple pie as well. It is one of my favourite sweet pies, for as you say, savoury pie is not really an option at 10.30am.
Speaking of Google… Recipe+Apple+Pie.
Easy. Grandma’s apple pie sounds tasty, and it even uses store-bought pastry, which isn’t actually cheating, as my Mum Mam uses it.
6. Calista
It’s summer - berries are in season. Blueberry pie…currant pie…blackberry pie….
And then there’s peach pie…rhubarb pie…
Delicious :-)
7. Jack
Well I don’t mean call it names.
Alternatively, you must have a farmers marker (or school fete, at a push) near you that sells this kind of homemade fare. No distressing needed there.
8. Adrian
Farmers Markets scare me.
9. D
Alternatively go to a really bad bakery.
10. Destructor
Well I don’t mean call it names.
Ha!
11. matthew
D, I don’t think that’s the best advice. Especially after Adrian has said “Also it should ideally be edible and not kill anyone”.
In Tesco over here, you can buy a pre-made pie/tart that isn’t cooked, so you can bring it home and bake it yourself. If you do that Adrian, you can bake it in the morning before you go to work, so it will have that lovely ‘just-baked’ aroma.
Farmers markets scare you? As I said elsewhere, you’re a wuss. And you won’t be able to get anything to eat on the weekend of the FOWC either! It’s market-o-rama all that weekend.
Unless you really, really want greasy burgers and chips and crap.
12. Calista
If I remember correctly, Adrian won’t buy seafood from a street seafood vendor either. That I can (partially) understand. It’s meat from a weird guy behind a counter on the street who gets your fish out of a cooler box and wraps it in newspaper for you. Perhaps he might throw your choice fish across a warehouse to another weird guy. But berries…that’s a different story.
When you do bake your pie, if you choose to make it from scratch, please make sure to be gentle with your pie crust. It is a horrible thing to have wonderful pie filling with chewy crust.
13. annie
Can’t go wrong with Nigel Slater
14. Francesca
Make two. Steak and Guinness with an apple pie afterwards. Mmm.
15. adam
$trip->to(“sainsburys”)+ {object} - “packaging” + 10 minutes in microwave = pie
16. Meg
Personally, given that brief and deadline (and given that hour to serve it up), I’d make Paella. Pie-ella. Whatever.
Dead simple to make, plus you get bonus points for use of creativity/humour/being different.
17. The B
ok
a) farmers’ markets are GREAT and not even within the same parameter as scary
b) this whole work moving into life things to encourage bonding and creativity is becoming a little sinisterly near work taking over life, tempting it with fizzy haribo, abducting it wearing balaclava, life believing this is good and skipping along merrily while actually being completely brainwashed, MY LIFE IS WORK MY WORK IS LIFE…
c) yes. 4 pints.
18. Calista White
I personally love farmers markets. It’s great to support the local farmer. I also love seeing my entire salmon being tossed hither and yon from one weird guy to another…though it does not happen very often.
Perhaps it is the farmers that scare you, Adrian?
19. Adrian
I don’t like being yelled at when I shop. Markets are loud yelly environments. I like to peruse and take my time when shopping. Not to feel pressured into buying by yelly people. I always buy rancid rotten horrible stuff when pressured (duped) by yelly people.
I also like my meat and fish to be in their naturally occurring state of wrapped in polystyrene and cling film, and not hauled out in the air in some open market with flies and snotty people and smells. Shudder. I do not like buying meat and fish sitting in the open air. Who do I get to sue when it makes me ill.
Meg brilliant. I’m sure fish pie-ella will go down a storm at 10:30 am. Well, it will go down somewhat. I await to see everyone staring back at me in shocked amazement. (I’ll take it under advisement, and when it all goes tits up on Sunday evening … I’ll be grabbing for some yellow rice). Although I have been told the pie definition is “must have crust”
Previous pie can be seen here.
20. Calista White
Perhaps farmers markets in London are different than they are here. Farmers here are quite willing to happily let you peruse the produce at leisure. There’s only one meat vendor in our town and he’s very quiet. The salmon tossing I wrote about happens in Seattle.
The vendors here are not in any way pushy. I think they tend to feel that their produce sells itself as they have some sliced up in a bowl to try before purchase.
21. Jack
Farmer’s markets are not the same as your common or garden cor-bleedin-blimey-guvnor fruit and veg affair I think you’re imagining. Farmer’s markets are quiet, polite and relentlessly middle class - the only real noise you’ll find in one of those places is the sound of little Jocasta ‘fussing quietly’ as she’s wheeled round in one of those three wheel buggy SUVs.
22. Lyle
Lime Tree Pantry is your friend for all things Pie.
23. Meg
“must have crust” = how about crustaceans? They’d do.
Paella usually has some sort of seafood in it, and I think shrimp count as crustaceans. Also lobster, crab…
24. Adrian
Sevitz + Seafood + 1030am
Can anyone say food poisoning?
:)
25. Calista
This is a yummy looking recipe, complete with crusty things.
Pictures included.
26. The B
from that link, they’ve all been pushing the “pie” definition boundaries pretty far…
27. Nuge
It’s dirty.
It’s northern.
It’s a steak pie sandwich.
Recipe (Serves 1) Take 1 Steak Pie (the more gravy the better). Take 2 Slices of White Bread (or a Bread “bun” if you are feeling continental)
Take your pie and place it between the slices of bread. Can be served with ketchup.
28. Gordon
I agree with matthew. Ya big wuss.
Farmers markets aren’t really a ‘market’, more a gathering of stalls with polite people all queuing up to try the samples without buying anything…
And as for the whole ‘buying things that aren’t wrapped’… I’m presuming you, you know, COOK the food before eating it? That usually kills the germs.
I wish I could find the article I read last year about how we are all LACKING in germs these days, between the purified water and anti-bacterial shower gel it won’t be long until we are all wearing … no I’m taking that too far.
As my granny used to say “a wee bit of dirt never did anyone any harm”.