Pie Festival

Over the last few months I have been practicing my pie. I entered Claremont's pie festival contest that was hosted this weekend. I found a pie I liked and then practiced and practiced. This morning I dropped off my pie and waited to see what happened.


This is my pie crust. When it comes to pie crust there are a few things you should always make sure of. One, you should not over work your dough. Two you should love your crust just as much as your filling. I made an orange pie for my entry. The first thing you should know about oranges is they are filled with amazing juices. Okay everyone knows that oranges have juices but does everyone know how to capture them into a pie?


What comes to mind when you make a fruit pie? It is all liquid because of the fruits natural juices making the pie soggy. So how do you fix this, you ask? I was about to keep all the juices in the orange by poaching them first. By poaching the orange it keeps all the juice inside while it is baking. Know this is not true for all fruit but when it comes to oranges or pears this works really well. To poach the fruit just put it on low heat in a pan of sugar water. Make sure your fruit is fully covered so the whole fruit gets poached.

Once I had the oranges poached and the filling all ready to go I put my pie in the oven. Since this pie does not have a top crust I wanted to make sure that the fruit was arranged nice and pretty. There are two types of pies. One with crust on top and the bottom, the other with just crust on the bottom. Something that I learned when baking this pie is that the tin helps. When you bake in a glass tin you are able to see if the crust is baked all the way through. The downfall of not having a glass tin is you have to be confident in yourself that your pie is fully baked. Have you ever gotten a piece of pie and the bottom crust is raw, it is so sad. After I took the pie out I added some apricot glaze and toasted almonds.


Okay after a few hours of walking around the Claremont shops with my mom the judging had commenced. It was time to announce the winners of the contest. This was the first time I had ever entered any contest before. Even though I knew there would be a lot of great pies I did hope I won something. Well after all the waiting I can say I was not disappointed. I won second place for my division. I was so excited, not only was it my first time entering, I won. I can honestly say even with all the nervousness I get from not knowing what will happen it was definitely worth it.

Me and the owner of I Like Pie

For all you bakers, cooks, learners and anyone else. I say go for it. Find local things near you and enter to see how you do. Even if you don't win, even if you have never made the item before, go for it. It is so fun and if all else fails you get random people to eat your food. No doubting if your spouse is just being nice. Maybe that is just me, that doesn't always trust my ability. Until next week try something new and broaden your boundaries.

A Family affair

This weekend I spent time at my aunt and uncles house. We had a sort of in prompt to slumber party. They were nice enough to let me cook them lunch the next day. I'm going to give you a glimpse into my families life. Have you ever watched a movie and the main character is on the side walk and they are looking into a strangers window and the family is sitting around the dinner table laughing and everyone assumes they are happy? Well your the main character and as you sit at the computer you get to look into the window of my family.

Friday night we all went out to eat dinner, nine in all. Did I mention I have a big family. So on Saturday we all got up and I made pancakes. This is not about that meal this is about lunch. Have you ever eaten out and it was so good you take home the left overs but the next day your just not into it? You don't want to waste the food but you don't really want to eat them. One of the things I'm decent at is reinvention. Taking left overs and making them new. So that is what I did. I made leftovers into something new.

Empanadas! I should mention we had Mexican food last night. After I had the empanada dough mixed and rising I got the left overs out to make the filling.  I cut up the veggies and the chicken into nice small dices. Then I found a can of black beans and strained it real good. Tip you want to strain the beans really good to get all the can liquid out since it taste gross. I'm sure there are other reasons why you want to rinse things from a can that is more scientific than "gross" but this is my take on the matter.

Once the middle is ready and all heated up the dough should have been doubled. Once that happens you need to separate the dough into eight balls. This number could change depending on the size and the recipe. Then roll them out one at a time. Let me tell you pinching edges is not my thing. If it's not an empanada its a pie or pretty much anything with a top and a bottom crust. I just can't do, I try and by the last empanada the edge work looked okay. Not amazing but its something I have to work on. If you cant tell from the picture above every edge looks different. A trick I learned was to sit the empanada up and then pinch the edges. When it is sitting on the counter it was so much harder to get a good edge. If it is sitting up you can work it from both sides.

After you have all the empanadas stuffed and finished you put them in the oven. Every oven is different so just cook them until they are golden brown. Once I pulled them out we added avocado and ate until we were full. Well that was a glimpse into my family. So next time you are at home and all you have is leftovers know you don't have to eat leftovers. It is really easy to make something new by adding a little something from your kitchen.

Birthday week quiche

This week has been so weird. I wrote a whole post on Wednesday and then I proceeded to erase it. Due to the fact that when I re read it, it was non sense. I mean complete randomness. I don't know why I thought it was so amazing. I had thought of the whole post late at night on Tuesday and found out one thing, ALWAYS re read what you write when you have an idea late at night. I'm telling you I could give any stream of consciousness writer a run for their money when it comes to my brain late at night. So all week I have been trying to think of what to do. Want to hear what I came up with? This has been my kitchen this week: Wednesday macaroons (bust), Friday donuts(good but not light enough more cake then donut), Friday also another Bundt (good but already written about a few weeks ago), and then I made it, Saturday a quiche.




It is Anthony's birthday this week and in our house we do a birthday week tradition. The whole week leading up to a birthday the birthday person gets spoiled. Growing up the spoiling meant not having to do chores, (i.e. siblings had to do them for you, it was always the best week of my life). Well Anthony was an only child and he did not have a birthday week tradition. Even if he did, the forcing chores on your siblings is the best part. So once we got married this tradition was one he was happy to adopt. We have turned it into our own tradition, the other person has to do all the cleaning for the week. Plus every day the birthday person gets a little present, Anthony got his favorite cereal one day.

With this in mind I decided to do something different for Saturday morning brunch. Saturday morning brunch is one of the only meals Anthony and I have together that we don't, one have to rush through and two aren't eating at midnight since that's when he gets home from work. This morning I got up and made a quiche. No I did not get up early, this is not an all day thing. Most people stray away from pies of any sort because they think it will take forever. I can assure you pie crust is so easy to make and it doesn't take long at all. A few tips; make sure to take a fork and give the crust a few stabs once you have put it in the tin. This will make it not rise during the bake. Also don't over kneed it or it wont be fun to eat, you want it nice and flaky.

I started with a savory crust which is not only quick but has all of four ingredients one being water. There are many types of pie crust. In the end you need to know one thing, savory and sweet. If you are making a quiche or any type of non dessert pie use savory. If you are making a dessert pie use sweet. A main difference is there is no sugar in a savory pie crust. I added shredded cheese so it was kind of like a cheese biscuit crust. I wrapped the dough and put it in the fridge. You should always chill your dough it makes the ingredients hold its form (the butter mostly, you want it to stay nice and cold) and then it doesn't stick to your rolling pin. You only have to chill your dough for 30 minutes. This is the perfect amount of time to assemble your filling.


I then opened my fridge and added pretty much everything that was in our fridge. Saturday is clean out the fridge day in our house, this means either eating left overs or throwing out food. I don't like throwing out food but it has to be done. When was the last time you went through your fridge? Maybe you are better at it then I am. Well either way this is what I found, eggs,  tri-tip which I julienned, then some seasoning and minced garlic. I had forced Anthony to buy carrot sticks for his hummus (he eats hummus like its going out of style) since he doesn't eat veggies, I figured carrots goes with hummus it would be better than chips even if they are pita. Which go figure he didn't eat the carrots. Just like he was a little kid I cut the carrot sticks up small and hid them in the quiche. Then I sliced up some tomato real thin and layered it on the top. Added a little sea salt and popped it in the oven. After about an hour it was ready to be eaten.

I pulled it out and let it cool. While it cooled I got some yogurt out of the fridge and added some fresh raspberry's on top. Making it like a little cake. Also trying to get him to eat some healthy options. Like every husband he will eat anything I put in front of him which is a bonus. This meal was a hit, he loved it, he got a second slice. I was so excited it was a perfect brunch. Next week maybe I'll try one of the flops I encountered earlier this week. Until then take a look at your fridge and see what you can whip up without having to go to the grocery store.