658. Lemon Meringue Pie

For New Year’s this year we kept it pretty quiet and just had a couple of friends over for dinner (and Xbox Kinect competitions). We made deep-fried brie for the starter, curries for the main, and this selection of little mini tarts for the dessert. I was tight on time so I cheated ever so slightly and bought pre-made tart cases, and then just made the fillings myself. I went with raspberry jam and clotted cream, chocolate ganache, and lemon meringue. I made my own lemon curd and then whipped up some meringue. I cannot wait until I can finally get my Kitchen Aid mixer because meringue will suddenly go from being the bane of my baking life to something which is just easy and involves me pressing one switch.

658 down, 1138 to go

609. Edam

I bought this cookbook in Greece of traditional Greek recipes, and when I was browsing through it the other week I found a recipe for a mac and cheese pie. Yes. You heard that right. Mac and cheese PIE. And on top of that it also included sausage. Mac and cheese + pastry + sausage. Of course I immediately thought that this sounded like the single best idea I’d ever heard and rushed to the store to buy the ingredients to make it for dinner.

To make a bit of a change from cheddar, I chose edam as the cheese. I thought that with the sausage and pastry, choosing a slightly milder, lighter cheese would probably be advisable. Edam still has enough of a cheesy flavour to make it good for a mac and cheese though.

Basically, to make the pie, you make a homemade cheese sauce and boil the pasta like you normally would for a mac and cheese. At the same time, grill the sausages. Slice them up when you’re done and mix the macaroni, cheese sauce and sausage together. Pile it all into an oven dish, cover the top with storebought puff pastry (get the all-butter stuff if you can find it, it’s so much better) and bake for like 20 minutes. Voila, awesomest dinner ever. As you can see I served mine with some green salad to try and pretend that it was the unhealthiest meal ever. But frankly when something tastes this good, who cares.

609 down, 1187 to go

600. Pumpkin Pie

So I totally dropped the ball on seasonably posting this one, but hey, pumpkin pie is delicious at any time of year so who cares if I forgot to write it up straight after Thanksgiving. I actually go to have two Thanksgiving dinners in 2011, which considering I live in the UK is pretty good going. First I celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving with friends in London cooked by my friend Mags, then I got to go to a US Thanksgiving lunch at Pie’s office courtesy of our friends Nate and Rhonda. I had pumpkin pie at both.

On the whole pumpkin pie is not a popular dish here at all. We actually don’t use pumpkin all that much at all, and certainly not in sweet dishes and baking. I love it though. It’s sweet and creamy and (hopefully) oh so cinnamonny. Mmm. I might have to make my own this year.

600 down, 1196 to go

516. Spanakopita

Greeks eat a lot of pies. I never knew this before reading my guide book. I always just pictured Greek food as lamb and eggplant and feta and salads and tzatziki and pitta, but yeah, there are a lot of pies too. I had a range of pies (I mean, I had to test them out right? Nothing to do with my intense love of pastry obviously…). I had a sweet custard pie topped with powdered sugar and cinnamon (delicious), and a zucchini pie which was similar to a quiche (delicious), and then this spanakopita, which is a spinach pie. Some of them have feta in too, but this one was pure spinach. It tasted good, but the piece was so huge, even I couldn’t eat it all!

516 down, 1280 to go

509. Tarte au Citron

For my flatmate’s birthday he had a birthday lemon tart rather than a birthday cake, though it was still decorated with not only candles but also haribo tangfastics. Considering my lemon loving and my pastry loving, tarte au citron is a great dessert for me. It has to be nice and tart though, too much sugar just ruins it. This one was pretty good!

509 down, 1287 to go

399. Rabbit Pie

On a Sunday when I was feeling especially domesticated, I went to the farmers market and saw that they had 2 whole rabbits for £6. I decided that this was a bargain and so I was going to set myself a challenge of butchering a rabbit all by myself. Luckily it was already skinned and beheaded so I didn’t have to do the really gross stuff, but I did have to joint and debone it. It took me a while and it probably didn’t end up the prettiest looking pieces of meat but I succeeded nonetheless. I decided to turn it into a rabbit pie so I sauteed it with onions, carrots, celery and bacon and made a sauce by making a roux and adding chicken stock. In the end it was really tasty and I was pretty proud of my efforts.

400. Jerusalem Artichoke

I served the pie with some sauteed swiss chard and a jerusalem artichoke puree. I LOVE jerusalem artichokes, they’re really sweet and creamy and make a fantastic alternative to potatoes. To make the puree I literally boiled the artichokes until they were soft and then blended them with a little butter, cream, salt and pepper.

400 down, 1396 to go

324. Steak and Kidney Pudding

Before starting this list the only offal of any kind I had ever eaten was chicken livers. The whole idea of it disgusted me and I didn’t really want to go anywhere near it. So the fact that I actually sat down and ate a whole plate of steak and kidney pudding without even batting an eyelid makes me quite proud of myself (especially considering it’s only recently I even started eating the steak part). This pudding was made with 325. Lamb’s Kidney. I can’t say I loved the kidney, but it was ok, and I would be happy to try it again. I certainly preferred it to the liver I had a few weeks back.

325 down, 1471 to go

293. Cherry Pie

Last month I was head bridesmaid at my best friend’s wedding and a few days before the best man and I went to the bride and groom’s house for a pre-wedding dinner. The groom Nik made the main (which will be featured in a few post’s time), and the bride Em made dessert, which was this delicious cherry lattice pie. I never really got the phrase “American as apple pie”, as to me apple pie can be British, French, German… but cherry pie is unequivacably American. Personally, I move that the phrase should be changed.

293 down, 1503 to go

243. Melton Mowbray Pork Pie

I always avoided pork pies as when I was younger I never used to like the jelly in them. Trying it I really didn’t notice the jelly though so it was much nicer than I thought it would be. I did just find it a little lacking in something though, I think mostly the pastry was quite bland. As much as I’m in love with other pastries (puff, choux, filo etc), shortcrust has never really done it for me. I think largely it’s because it tends to me made with white fat rather than butter, so it ends up short, but lacks in the flavour. Pie suggested that I try adding a tiny bit of mustard, and the very littlest bit did make a difference to how tasty it was.

243 down, 1553 to go