National Pie Day 1/23

National Pie Day is scheduled for 1/23. Be sure to bake and/or eat a pie! What a fine celebration!

http://www.piecouncil.org/national.htm

Created by the American Pie Council, National Pie Day is dedicated to the celebration of pie. As part of our American heritage, this day is a perfect opportunity to pass on the love and enjoyment of pie eating and pie making to future generations

Even if there wasn't a pie day, I'm just happy to know that we have a pie council

I promise not only to enjoy a pie but also to calculate the ratio of its circumference to its diameter.

Bob S. wrote:I promise not only to enjoy a pie but also to calculate the ratio of its circumference to its diameter.

Just don't try it with one of those square pies.

At last, the time is right for me to use Bruce's wonderful lard. But what will the filling be? I'm thinking pear-ginger, but blueberry is my favorite. Does anyone know the rest of the lyrics to this old song?

Blueberry pie. blueberry pie,
I love blueberry pie.
Since the time of the flood,
There's nothing so good,
So luscious as blueberry pie!

eatchicago wrote:Even if there wasn't a pie day, I'm just happy to know that we have a pie council

not only that, but they r located in lake forest.

Where would one go for Chicago's best pie?

Pie is an eternal conundrum.

There is very little pie worthy of the name in Chicago diners, my theory (which I've elaborated before) is that given high rents space is at a premium in coffee shop type places and so where the same restaurant in the middle of Michigan would have room and time to make pie, in Chicago it's cramped into a tiny storefront where there just isn't the open space to do it, and it needs to serve things that are more profitable and less labor intensive. (That lets out baked food generally.)

That said, I did have pretty decent homemade pie at Feed last week.

As far as storebought pie, the Achatz pies at Whole Foods are pretty good. The best I've had was from a place in Hinsdale, see here. That same thread has a few other suggestions.

A gentle reminder to bake a pie on Saturday!

Or watch this if you haven't.

OK, a) How did I miss this? and, b) Does the national pie council have no respect at all for geometry? Or is it just that they have no sense of humor?

%^&&% too much to do Saturday and now I have to fit a pie in there somewhere because there's a legit excuse...&^%

A catchy little Bette Midler tune honoring blueberry pie.

http://popup.lala.com/popup/504684697962818831

My first thought was "that's the wrong date". Of course "Pi Day" is 3/14 I was wondering why someone would mention it here...

A coworker and I will be celebrating on Monday.
I'm frying up two pecan pies. One traditional, and one with cinnamon glazed pecans.

The coworker will prolly do a traditional and an enhanced (perhaps with butterscotch chips) pecan pie also. We only recognize pecan pies as pies. All others are imposters.

jblth wrote:My first thought was "that's the wrong date". Of course "Pi Day" is 3/14 I was wondering why someone would mention it here...

Didn't Mhays make a "Pi Day" pie last year and post photos somewhere? I suppose I could look for the thread...

Here it is. Totally cool.

http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=23189&hilit=pi+pie+3+14

Hi,

I made a blueberry sour cream pie for tomorrow's holiday!

MHays pi was for the other pi day: March 14th.

Regards,

Cathy,

Would you post your recipe here? I too wanted to make a pie for this evening and I was just noodling over which to make--blueberry cream crossed my mind.

Ditto. Have a bag of frozen blueberries just waiting...though I also have cream cheese, so I might do that as well...

We are having blueberry-peach pie, but celebrating tomorrow to be closer to Mr. Pie's birthday-- I made three piecrusts today and kept going until I ran out of leaf lard. I will fill and bake two pies tomorrow. The third (plain peach) will be filled, frozen, and baked next weekend.

Jen

P.S. Not my first post-- my old account, with username JenM, got irretrievably messed up somehow and no administrator reset could let me log in, so I am back under a new name. Plus Pie-love is a much better username, methinks.

Hi,

I made Blueberry Sour Cream Pie from Epicurious.com.

I made a few changes:
- I didn't use almond extract, because in general I think it is too strong. I used 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, which gave this pie a cheesecake sense to it.
- I didn't like their crumble method too much. I mixed flour and sugar together (I think I added an extra tablespoon of sugar). I cut butter into small cubes into the sugar-flour mixture (I remember shaking in a little salt, too, my butter was sweet). Once the butter warmed a little (it was fresh from the freezer), I mushed them with my fibers. Once I was satisfied, I then added the pecans.

I made two pies: one for home and one for the taco-a-thon. I forgot to take the pie out of the car. I gave it to Mike to enjoy with his family. I returned home to find the other pie about 2/3rds done. I guess my family liked it.

Regards,

Considering we had a busy day planned already, I wanted a quick pie for dessert today (but, really, how could anybody pass up a legitimate excuse for pie, right?) I still had blueberry and cream cheese in my head, remembering the blueberry "cheesecake" my cousin used to make with the wild blueberries we picked in my Uncle's Massachusetts backyard with some kind of Jell-O kit.

This recipe turned out to be a pretty good scratch facimile, and gave me a chance to upmarket it a bit: I used about 1/3 of the sugar in the cheesecake part, and just a couple tablespoons for the already-sweet frozen blueberries (which I probably didn't have four cups of, either, so I guessed on the thickener as well.) I also didn't add any sugar to the graham cracker crust (which was a bit crumbly as a result) and used a combination of hazelnuts and almonds, which were pretty tasty with the blueberries. It was still unmistakably a redneck cheesecake, but nice enough that I wasn't at all sorry I hadn't made a more traditional pie. I can't imagine what it would have been like with the full amount of sugar, though.



There didn't seem to be any more refined recipes for this pie (Paula Deen has a mini-version that uses canned filling: ick, phtooey!) but Taste of Home had a couple recipes that piqued my interest, including this one that's so horrifying I might have to try it, just to find out what the creator could possibly have been thinking.

I needed today's day to try a recipe I'd noticed in an old Cook's Illustrated.

I did their skillet apple pie. It's really quite quick & the crust was divine. The apples were brighter/tarter than I like. I would ditch the lemon juice & tart apples next go round. Everyone loved this. Picture is here.

I was going to try Cook's Illustrated's Pizza Bianca for but we wanted Chinese before seeing Crazy Heart so that's up for tomorrow's meal instead.

Anxiously awaiting Pi Day .

Mhays wrote:...but Taste of Home had a couple recipes that piqued my interest, including this one that's so horrifying I might have to try it, just to find out what the creator could possibly have been thinking.

Don't do it. You'll regret it.

Mary, if there's a story behind that statement, you must tell....(Did you note it's listed as a healthy recipe?)

I like the comment that follows too:

i couldn't find any sugar-free cook n server pudding, so I used regular cook & serve. I made cuts in other places, though, and the recipe still came out great. Instead of real butter, i used Smart Balance 50/50 blend for baking, and i replaced the sugar in the cream cheese topping with Splenda for baking. The dessert was yummy

and even healthier now.

Kee-rist, I just don't even know how to think like these people who instinctively want to make pie out of entirely lab-created crap like that.

Mhays wrote:Mary, if there's a story behind that statement, you must tell....(Did you note it's listed as a healthy recipe?)

No story. It just sounds terrible. I guess the "healthy" part comes from the low-fat, no-sugar stuff that is used. I guess I'm reminded of family potlucks where things like that would show up. It gives me the willies.

Mike G - I read the comment as well and just shivered.

Extraplolating from the recipe and comments using behavioral evidence analysis, I'd guess the thought is to eliminate the "unhealthy" piecrust - so they've replaced the crust with some unholy marriage between sugar-free pudding mix and baked custard. (Let's see - they offer nutritional information - 12g fat: 7g saturated, 60mg cholesterol 31g carbs vs 15 g fat: 8 g saturated, 31 mg cholesterol, and 50g carbs. It does have 88 fewer calories - yea, healthier. If you overlook cholesterol and the fact that you have to put that stuff in your mouth.)

Other interesting if also low-rent versions of this pie: very common, a no-bake version where you mix the cream cheese with Cool Whip, add crushed canned pineapple, spread in crust, top with blueberries and pineapple (minus the Cool Whip, I'm curious about the pineapple/blueberry combo; it comes up often) Another added bananas to the mix instead of pineapple. Taste of Home consistently has a version of all these recipes, but they're all over Allrecipes, Mom blogs, thrifty blogs and places of that ilk; a good source for American heritage and soup-can recipes, which are part of our food history, like them or not.

But, really - could it be any worse than canned silkworm larvae?

my wife brought home a pineapple cobbler pie for pie day - the pineapple tasted good - not too sweet or tart - just right

Two thoughts:

All this talk of pies is making me crave one.

Where is PieLady?!?! How is she missing this thread?

Here is our pie contribution, blueberry peach:

Before the lid goes on:


And the first slice:


I had never made blueberry-peach before-- it is very good, combining the rich fruitiness of the peaches with dark berry flavors of the blueberries, with neither overwhelming the other. I prefer it to either single flavor.

I made two of these pies, one I dropped off at the house of some neighbors who had done us a favor. They weren't home, so I used their spare key to let myself in-- like the Pie Fairy. Now that I have tasted how good this combination is, I did consider going over and taking the pie back. However, I think one of these will be sufficient for the two of us.

Jen