Tamale Pie!

One of my favorite meals to cook. Savory tamale pie!

Plum, Hazelnut & Blue Cheese Pie

This was a good idea in theory: a plum & hazelnut pie, made savory through the addition of blue cheese. But I made some terrible errors in judgment. As a result, I believe we ate a total of four slices, and the second two were pretty reluctant. Not a success.

Savory Sweet Potato Pie with Poppy-Seed-Cheddar Crust

This pie was possibly a better idea in theory than in reality (if you can read the title of this post without drooling, something's wrong with you). The crust was great, but to my tastebuds the filling was somewhat bland and disappointing. 

The recipe's from Mollie Katzen's Enchanted Broccoli Forest cookbook.

Details below:

Tamale Pie!

Let's be honest. This isn't really pie. But it looks like pie, and it's delicious like pie. Therefore...

Savory Tomato Pie with Kale-Walnut Pesto

As promised, I've jumped away from the sweet plum pies (for now!) and made a savory pie. In this case, a tomato pie with kale pesto. It tasted as good as that sounds, and maybe even better.

Tomato and Cheddar Pie!

Another savory pie, this one from a recipe in a Bon Appetit magazine. I don't usually get recipes from magazines... but this magazine was staring me down, it had a pie theme, and this one jumped out at me once I started browsing. Not too hard to make... but will it taste good? Let's find out.

Here's what it looked like fresh out of the oven:

Sadly, after letting it sit for an interminable hour (the recipe calls for 1-3 hours of waiting!) I cut it open and it turned to a mushy gooey liquid mess. I'm not yet sure what I did wrong but it must have been something substantial.

It still tasted good, and the crust (for which I decided to stick with Mark Bittman's recipe (see last Sunday's marionberry pie post), with no sugar and a little whole wheat flour added) was great. But the center just didn't come together. I don't know why.

The recipe:
http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2011/08/tomato-and-cheddar-pie

Well, the two reasons I'm so pie-centric right now are (1) to eat pie; (2) to learn how to bake great pies.
Chalk this one up to a learning experience toward the second goal.