Grasshopper Pie

This pie came from Martha Stewart's New Pies & Tarts book, which was a gift from one pie blogger to another. Thanks Amy! I FULLY recommend this book, even if you don't bake, just to look at the pictures. It's truly decadent. I can't wait to make more pies from this book!

In case you can't wait to get your cook book, you can also find the recipe here, Grasshopper Pie. 3 layers of minty goodness, with a chocolate cookie crust, this pie was tasty!


First we steeped fresh mint in milk. The milk turned green & tasted of spearmint. Mint layer #1.


While the mint milk was on the stove, the crust was made. Instead of chocolate wafers that Martha uses we used mint chocolate cookies (aka. grocery store thin mints- see photo above.) because I couldn't find chocolate wafer cookies in our small town. It gave another layer of mint to the pie ( #2). My fave thing about this crust was the coconut in it, it gave the pie great texture. :)


We mixed some plain Gelatin with a few tablespoons of Creme de Menthe. Mint layer #3.

It got all green and groovy looking... :) Oh I spy piebakers!

Then we had to mix the green milk with the green gelatin...minty goodness.


That baby had to cool in an ice bath... which took forever... and which was when we learned the true reason why it's called grasshopper pie.

Not because it's green, but because it takes
"PATIENCE GRASSHOPPER! "


Finally thickened we added some whipped cream to it to make it fluffy!

Refrigerate for a while and then ENJOY!



This pie was probably the fussiest pie we've ever made at the Pie Hole, but I thought it was worth it. It tasted just like the grasshopper cookies my mom used to buy when I was a kid. Some of us however thought the mint flavor overpowering, so it may need to be adjusted according to taste.

Jamaican Meat Patties

I think it's fairly obvious that a lot of the pies I want to try and make are products of nostalgia. I have no idea how Jamaican Patties became a common quick meal or afternoon snack but they were totally our version of hot-pockets growing up. This is another thing that we never really cooked at home. No secret family recipe...they were strictly from the box in the freezer section. Flaky pastry surrounding a spicy meat filling. Yum!

Here is where I found a recipe to try.

JAMAICAN BEEF PATTY INGREDIENTS: Below is a delicious recipe for Jamaican Beef Patties: PASTRY 2 cups Flour 1/4 teaspoon Salt 1/2 tablespoon curry powder 1/4 cup Solid shortening 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) margarine 1/3 cup Cold water Recipe by ©eatjamaican.com Sift the flour, curry powder and salt into a large bowl. Cut in the shortening and margarine until crumbly. Add the cold water to make a stiff dough. Lightly flour a wooden cutting board and roll out the dough until about 1/8-inch thick. Cut out 8-inch circles. Cover with wax paper or damp cloth until ready to use. You can place the dough in the refrigerator overnight. If you do refrigerate, remove the dough at least 15 minutes before using. MEAT FILLING Recipe by ©eatjamaican.com 2 tablespoon oil 1 Small white onion, Finely chopped 1/4 teaspoon Chopped Scotch Bonnet pepper 1/2 lb. Lean ground beef 1/2 teaspoon Salt 1/2 teaspoon Freshly ground black pepper 1/2 teaspoon Curry powder 1/2 teaspoon Dried thyme 1/4 cup Breadcrumbs 1/4 cup Beef or chicken stock 1 Egg, beaten 1/4 cup Water In a heavy skillet, melt the margarine and sauté the onion and Scotch Bonnet Pepper until they become limp. Add the ground beef, salt, pepper, curry powder and thyme and mix well. Brown the meat for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the breadcrumbs and stock and combine all the ingredients well. Cover the skillet and simmer for about 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. When all the liquids have been absorbed, the filling is ready. It should be moist but not watery. Remove the skillet from the stove and preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Uncover the dough circles and place 2 to 3 tablespoons of filling on half of each. Moisten the edges of the dough with water and fold the dough circle over the meat filling. Pinch the edges closed with a fork. Lightly brush the pastry with a mixture of the egg and water. Bake on a lightly greased baking sheet for 30 to 40 minutes or until the pastry are golden brown. Serves: 10 Patties

The bad:
The pastry was really hard to work with and to be honest, I wasn't in love with the texture after baking. It had a hard, crispyness as opposed to the thicker, tender, flakiness I wished for.

The good:
I liked the flavor of the filling and other than the pastry being annoying they were fairly easy to make. You could make a double batch and freeze them for heating up later.

The verdict:

These didn't really live up to my memories. Sometimes the texture of mass-produced goods is really hard to replicate and I think this was one of those times. 

Note to self:

Add these to your grocery list for two week trip to Canada this summer. Multiple boxes for late nights catching up with family and after swimming/running snacks. Extra spicy please.

S'Mores Pie

Over Spring Break Lou & I went camping (well as "camping" as I get) in a cabin.
We decided to do a camping inspired pie while there.
What says camping more than S'Mores? Nothing!?


For our pie we combined 2 cups of heavy cream with a box of devil's food chocolate pudding.


Though we wished we'd brought a handmixer becuase it ended up a little grainy.


We piled that mixture in a premade graham cracker crust.


Then we tried toasting some marshmallows over the fire in the woodstove (see above) but that was taking forever and they seemed too big on the middle of the pie. So we cut the marshmallows in half and covered the pie. By then we were too full with other camping food, so we didn't feel like eating the pie (plus we'd left our long lighter for toasting the marshmallows back home...) so we stuck it in the fridge overnight. It traveled to Mesa with Lout where the marshmallows on top were toasted with a lighter and then it was devoured by her family, who she said liked it very much. :)




Lou would be making this post, but she has been sick in bed all week. :( poor thing.

Chocolate Chess Pie

We like Chess Pie, so we thought we ought to try a chocolate variety.

Recipe HERE.

Here is the cast of characters.

We melted the chocolate in the melted butter. It was just easier. I would suggest a little more chocolate personally. It wasn't very chocolatey. But I think the others liked it just like it was. So it depends on your tastes.

Above you see the dry ingredients and the butter, below you see the finished filling. It was really runny, and we were kind of worried, but it turned out fine. However, this was supposedly only enough filling for one pie. Not so. We filled two. If we had tried to stuff it all into one it would have been a major disaster.

This is the finished product. Looks kind of strange. Kimmy and I kind of dubbed it "wrinkly old man pie" but it tastes good.

The perfect slice. Amy and Kimmy think it kind of tastes like hot chocolate. I liked it.

Raspberry Cheesecake

On Monday 3/14/2011 a.k.a. Pi day! Kimmy pi  and i (amy) made a quick and easy pie to celebrate. 

We actually just reworked this recipe for quick and easy cheesecake and gave it a fresh, fruity topping. 

So....make the cheesecake and for the topping follow the recipe below. It was really yummy and fast which was great for a spur of the moment, after work, kind of a pie. 

Raspberry Topping

1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries

1/4 cup white sugar

2 tsp cornstarch dissolved in about 2 tsp water

1 tsp lemon juice

Method:

Mix together sugar and raspberries in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir while the mixture gets hot, breaking up the berries with your spoon. When the mixture is hot (simmer) and the berries are broken up to your liking (this took maybe 5-7 minutes for us) add the cornstarch mixture and stir. You should notice a thickening pretty much right away so keep stirring for a minute or two and then turn off your heat. Carefully, taste and see if it needs a little lemon juice. Ours did! Let cool and top your cheesecake. Easy! We loved it. The topping was great, almost like a raspberry jam. Some people may have been spotted scraping out the bowl it was chilling in in the fridge with a spoon and eating it plain. It's good folks!

Full disclosure: I was out of cornstarch (remember this was a totally on the fly pie) so we ended up using 2 tsp of Horne's Custard Powder. It worked like a charm. I have random ingredients because i'm Canadian and this is a key ingredient for Nanaimo Bars. 

Happy Pi Day!

So usually we are all about PIE but today we recognize PI! or 3.14159265!

Besides letting you do cool math tricks like calculating the area of a circle and having a super fun shape:

pi has also come to a fun convergance with PIE like this adorable Pi Plate!

and serious eats has a fun pi recipe today!

and an annual pi day contest (check out the winners from last year. seriously cool!) 

So in honor of our very own KimmyPi....HAPPY PI DAY!

Spanakopita!

Spanakopita, besides being really fun to say, is Greek spinach pie.


We combined two recipes for our Spanakopita:
this one from Epicurious & this one from All Recipes.



We used:

2 lbs of fresh spinach
1 small yellow onion
4 cloves garlic
3 tbsp Olive Oil
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 cup garlic feta cheese
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 egg beaten
2 sticks of melted butter
1 package of phyllo dough (thawed)



First brown the onions & garlic in the olive oil. Clean & cut the spinach. Add to pan and cook for 4-5 minutes until wilted. Let cool completely & chop finely. (You may want to chop your spinach before you cook it but I think that would reduce the spinach even more.) This was 2 lbs of spinach, overflowing the pan, and it reduced down to about half a skillet full.


Mix the cheeses and egg together.

Combine with spinach mixture.
* The following excerpt is taken directly from Epicurous- as these directions are pretty much exactly what we followed and they are well written...

"Take 1 phyllo sheet from stack and arrange on a work surface with a long side nearest you (keeping remaining sheets covered) and brush with some butter. Top with another phyllo sheet and brush with more butter. Cut buttered phyllo stack crosswise into 6 (roughly 12- by 2 3/4-inch) strips.

Put a heaping teaspoon of filling near 1 corner of a strip on end nearest you, then fold corner of phyllo over to enclose filling and form a triangle. Continue folding strip (like a flag), maintaining triangle shape. Put triangle, seam side down, on a large baking sheet and brush top with butter. Make more triangles in same manner, using all of phyllo"Read More

Tip: Use a pizza cutter to cut your phyllo dough!

We like our Spanakopita more crusty than filling, so we used smaller amounts of filling and made more of them. This recipe can also be made into a large pie instead of the small handheld ones.

We had some left over phyllo dough so we buttered the layers and filled it with Nutella, cinnamon, and pecans for a yummy dessert!