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May 19, 2008

Book Review: Meze

Barron, Rosemary.  Meze: Small Bites, Big Flavors from the Greek Table.  Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2002

 

Plenty of cultures have a tradition of "small plates" that work well in conjunction with, say, a cocktail party.  Spain has its tapas, China its dim sum (which is not traditionally cocktail food, but it works well under those circumstances) and Greece its meze.  I love meze - piling a wide variety of small plates onto the table, letting my guests (and myself) sample from multiple dishes without overindulging.  Many of the traditional meze dishes also make simply wonderful side dishes, and they generally make a wonderful addition to the repertoire of any cook. 

 

My husband bought me this book a few years ago, and I refer to it fairly frequently when we will be entertaining.  It offers a wide variety of dishes that should suit a wide variety of palates.  A vegetarian should have no problem finding recipes in this book, and dyed-in-the-wool carnivores will be equally satisfied.  The ingredients aren't generally difficult to find, and the recipes are generally reasonably easy to follow.  There aren't a lot of pictures, although the photos that exist are quite beautiful.  The book also isn't very long, and there's been an attempt at organizing the recipes that doesn't always work all that well.  Still, I would definitely recommend this book to people who enjoy "small plates" or who entertain frequently. 

Recipe: Chocolate Ice Cream with Pistachios and Almonds

Ice cream 1 I was watching the Yankees a couple of weeks ago when a craving hit me.  I wanted ice cream, but not just any ice cream.  Rocky Road came the closest to my desires, but it wasn't exactly right.  I wanted it with something more.  I pondered this craving as I watched my beloved Yankees get runners in scoring position with nobody out and STILL not do anything with it.... again.  What was it that I wanted?  Finally it hit me: I wanted rosewater in this.  I don't know why it took me so long to figure that out.  I mean, I want rosewater in everything, even my salad!  I waited and waited until the opportunity came to make it, only to flub it up.  I forgot the marshmallows, for which I would have used native New England marshmallow fluff in a strike back at local legislators who want to ban this local product.  Oh well. 

 

Even without the marshmallows I was pretty happy with how it came out.  I used turbinado sugar, and soy milk because that's what we keep on hand.  I toasted the almonds and pistachios before using them, and I think this did make a huge difference in the final dish.  The marshmallow would have been good, but I don't think that the dish really needed it to be a success.  We served it to some friends at a Green Egg night and it went over very well indeed.  Even people who don't usually care for rosewater enjoyed it. 

 

Chocolate Ice Cream with Pistachios and Almonds (serves about 10, cost per serving not available)

1 cup turbinado sugar

3 large eggs

1 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 cup light soy milk

1 cup heavy cream

3 tablespoons rosewater, divided

2/3 cup almonds

2/3 cup pistachios

Equipment:

  • Ice cream maker
  • Blender
  • Saucepan
  1. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
  2. Spread your nuts out over a cookie sheet and toast.  You'll know that they're done when they're fragrant; this took me about 10 - 15 minutes. 
  3. Set the nuts aside until you're ready to churn your ice cream.
  4. In your blender, mix the sugar, cocoa powder and eggs until they're creamy.
  5. Heat your milk gently in the sauce pan. 
  6. When the milk is hot (but not boiling), add it to the blender.  Blend well and pour the mixture back into the pan.
  7. Heat the mixture gently, stirring constantly, until slightly thickened.  Pour the contents into an airtight container and allow to cool slightly.
  8. Add the cream and mix well.
  9. Seal the container and refrigerate until well chilled, even overnight. 
  10. When the custard is cool, pour it into the ice cream maker.  Churn according to the manufacturer's instructions - in my case, 30 minutes. 
  11. Pour in the nuts when you start the churning process. 
  12. When the ice cream is ready, turn into another airtight container and freeze until the consistency is right - this is a matter of individual taste. 
  13. Serve! 

May 18, 2008

Recipe: Red Onion Galettes

Recipe Source: France, Christine and Steven Wheeler.  Barbeques and Salads.  Anness Publishing Ltd., London, 2002 p. 141

Red onion galette 2 I've been dying to make this dish ever since I got this cookbook, but somehow the timing just never worked out.  When I found out a vegetarian was coming to dinner recently, I decided that now was the time.  After all, it would be one more thing on the table that he could eat.  At the end of the day, the gentleman canceled on us at the last minute, but that was okay.  While he was the impetus behind this, I enjoyed the dish so much I was more than happy to eat his share! 

The only thing I wasn't happy with was the appearance of the dish.  The recipe called for 8 oz of ready-made frozen puff pastry, thawed.  I tried to pick up some puff pastry but wasn't able to find any at my supermarket.  I did what any proper intrepid fearless cook would do: I made my own.  I used a very quick kind of pseudo-puff-pastry dough that I found in Najmieh Batmanglij's Silk Road Cooking.  While it makes a pretty darned good dough, and it certainly did puff up very nicely, it didn't really behave the way that the authors of this recipe intended.  As a result, the galettes looked pretty hideous, as you can see from the pictures.  That said, the taste was really out of this world.  I cooked them on our smoker while the meat was resting and it gave a beautiful color to the dough as well as an amazing flavor, but you can make these very easily on a conventional barbeque.  You could probably even manage it in the oven, but it won't be the same. 

Red Onion Galettes (serves 4; approx. 1.97/serving)

4 tablespoons olive oil

2 red onions, about 1 1/4 lb, sliced thin

4 garlic cloves, crushed

2 tablespoons mixed chopped herbs - I used sage, thyme and chervil, with more sage than thyme or chervil

8 oz (around 1/2 package) frozen puff pastry, thawed

2 tablespoons sun dried tomato paste

Equipment:

  • Grill, barbeque or smoker
  • Baking sheet
  • Skillet with lid
  1. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in the skillet.
  2. Add the onions and garlic.  Cover and cook gently for 15 - 20 minutes. 
  3. Stir in the herbs.  Note: These three steps can be done well in advance.  Set aside until ready to cook and then proceed with the following.
  4. Divide the pastry into 4 pieces and roll each piece into rounds.
  5. Crimp the edges so that they stand up a bit and provide a shallow bowl for the onion mixture.
  6. Prick the bottoms of the rounds with a fork and place on a baking sheet. 
  7. Chill the rounds on the baking sheet for 10 minutes.  (This is where I think my problem developed.)
  8. Mix the tomato paste with 1 tablespoon olive oil and spread on the bottom of the galettes.
  9. Top with the onion mixture.
  10. Drizzle the remaining olive oil over the mixture.
  11. Cook over a medium barbeque for 15 minutes, until the pastry is crisp.
  12. Serve! 

May 17, 2008

Recipe: Smoked Garlic on Baguette

Smoked garlic This is probably the easiest recipe I have ever put on this site.  It is so easy that I'm ashamed to write it down.  It seriously seems like cheating.  The only reason that I'm actually posting it is because of the beautiful color that the garlic took on when we smoked it.  Really, it was that beautiful, although it might not come through on your screen well enough to do it justice.  You'll just have to try it for yourself!  It has just three ingredients - four if you count the smoke. 

 

The smoke is really the important part here, so while oven-roasted garlic is wonderful and tasty I'm going to strongly recommend smoking it.  If you don't have a smoker like the Big Green Egg, you can improvise one using any number of techniques that you can find with a pretty simple Google search.  The only catch is that the timing is a little iffy.  We cooked the garlic alongside the Pomegranate Lamb Chops.  While the lamb chops were perfect, the garlic wasn't cooked to the right consistency.  I wound up having to use a quick microwaving technique that made me feel very lame.  Still, the smoky flavor came through just enough!  I'm going to recommend smoking the garlic for at least an hour. 

 

Smoked Garlic on Baguette (serves 4; approx. $1.45/serving)

1 baguette, sliced into thin roundsBread and smoked garlic

4 heads of garlic

Olive oil

Equipment:

  • Smoker
  • Large bowl
  1. If you aren't already smoking something else - and really, you should be - prepare your smoker.
  2. Cut the tops off the heads of garlic.
  3. Place the heads in the bottom of a bowl and add olive oil.  You don't have to cover the garlic heads in the oil, but you do need to be able to toss them around and get them good and saturated. 
  4. Let the heads sit in the bowl for a minute or two. 
  5. Remove the heads to the smoker and let smoke for about an hour.
  6. Meanwhile, quickly dip the baguette slices in the olive oil.  Be sure to get both sides of the bread.
  7. You'll know that the garlic is ready when it takes on a beautiful golden hue and the cloves feel squishy in their paper.  When you take the garlic off, put the bread slices on and toast quickly, until just golden.
  8. Serve.  Guests can either pick cloves off the heads of garlic themselves or, if you're feeling fancy, you can provide them with a tiny fork to remove the cloves from the papers.  Eat by spreading onto a baguette slice. 
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May 16, 2008

Recipe: Pomegranate Lamb Chops

Recipe Source: Jamison, Cheryl and Bill.  Sublime Smoke.  The Harvard Common Press, Boston, 1996

Pomegranate Lamb Chops 2 About a year ago, as many of you are no doubt aware, my husband purchased a ceramic grill/smoker/cooker called the Big Green Egg.  He's been very taken with it ever since, and even I have to agree that it does a simply marvelous job with pretty much everything.  Therefore, we use the thing every chance we get.  We recently hosted a small get-together - just one couple, and the male was a vegetarian to boot - and wanted to make use of the Egg.  A huge hunk of meat seemed a little wasteful, but my husband remembered that we had prepared these lamb chops last summer and that they were quite good.  It had the added advantage of being very easy to prepare!  I realize that I've been throwing a lot of pomegranate recipes your way lately.  I can assure you that no pomegranate growers' association, juice maker or manufacturer of pomegranate molasses has employed me to do so (although I am open to the idea...)  I've just been going through a phase, and it tastes so good! 

Do I think that you could make these without a smoker?  Sure, if you must, but the smoke really does add such a wonderful dimension of flavor to this dish that it would be a real shame not to use it.  A quick Google search just now turned up a whole bunch of different ways to improvise a smoker.  We used hickory smoke in this recipe.  I didn't really make many changes to the rest of the recipe; all I did was substitute minced jarred garlic for the fresh garlic.  My Whole Foods didn't have the type of lamb chop required, so I used a different type.  We skipped the searing step and this doesn't seem to have been detrimental to the final dish.  The meat came easily off the bone and was so tender and juicy that I wished we had made twice as much! 

Pomegranate Lamb Chops (serves 4; approx. $7.36/serving)Pomegranate Lamb Chops 1

8 lamb rib chops

1 cup pomegranate juice

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup pomegranate molasses

4 tablespoons minced jarred garlic

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

Equipment:

  • Big Green Egg or other smoker
  • Plastic zip-top bag
  1. In your plastic zip-top bag, combine the pomegranate juice, olive oil, pomegranate molasses and minced jarred garlic. 
  2. Add the rib chops.  Make sure to get all the chops thoroughly wet.
  3. Marinate in the refrigerator for a minimum of 2 hours and up to 8 hours.  We went the long route this time and it really made a positive difference in the dish.
  4. When you are done marinating the chops, remove them from the marinade.  Reserve the marinade! 
  5. In a small bowl, combine the cumin, oregano, salt and pepper.  Rub both sides of each chop very well with this dry rub.
  6. Allow the chops to sit, covered at room temperature for one-half hour.  In the meantime prepare your smoker.
  7. Cook the chops in the smoker for about 45 minutes to an hour over a temperature of 225 - 250 degrees or until done to your liking.  Remember, we like our meat rare! 
  8. Meanwhile, bring the reserved marinade to a boil and reduce by about 1/2.
  9. Serve the lamb chops, with the reduced marinade as a sauce on the side. 

May 15, 2008

New Uses for Old Food - Leftovers!

Leftovers are the bane of my existence, or at least share a space with the pitching staff of my beloved New York Yankees.  Actually, the Yankee staff is probably a good analogy: Every once in a while I get a good start (every 5 games or so) but the rest of the time the spark just isn't there, and whether it's the starting dish or the backup players that blow it I just don't want anymore.  Unfortunately, I am also incapable of cooking small amounts.  Oh, I do okay on the weekend, but when it comes to entertaining I follow my family custom (dare I say compulsion?) to cook for at least twice as many people as I expect.  Most of the time, this works out.  Sometimes people are hungrier than I'd expected.  Sometimes there are more people than I expected - this is always a good thing - or some other dish doesn't work.  Either way, leftovers are rarely a problem.  When they are, though, my heart sinks.  I wind up feeling like I've failed in some way.  If I couldn't convince people to take some with them, they must not have liked the food!  Yes, I know this is irrational, especially when my guests have come from someplace far and can't really bring perishable food with them.  It doesn't help make leftovers more palatable, either emotionally or gustatorially. 

 

Easter is a big event in the life of most Greek families, or at least most of the Greek families I know.  Big events require lots of food, of course, and I did in fact make a lot of food.  Unfortunately, there were only four of us to eat it!  To make matters worse, my husband left town on business the next day, leaving me to suffer through the leftovers alone.  I decided that I was going to come up with a couple of new uses for the lamb, so that I would at least be able to get it out of my refrigerator. 

 

Leftover Harira and Leftover Salad This one was pretty easy.  I had already bought the makings of a green salad.  I put them in the bowl, added some of the leftover lamb and the leftover hard boiled eggs, and topped it off with some leftover dressing from when I made the Spicy Calamari Salad from Holy Basil.  To accompany it, I cut up some of the lamb and added it to the leftover Vegetarian Harira that I had served the day before.  The result was pretty good, if I do say so.  The lamb in the salad, despite the strong Mediterranean flavors, worked well  with the more South-East Asian flavors in the dressing.  I guess that makes it technically Fusion Cuisine, but really it was just leftovers in front of the ball game.  I'm not THAT pretentious! 

 

The second was a little wackier.  I used some snow peas and some bell peppers to make a stir fry with the remaining Leftover Lamb Stir Fry 1 leftover lamb and some of the rice and pomegranate stuffing for the tomatoes.  This one didn't work quite as well.  The lamb and everything tasted great, and the pomegranate didn't match that badly with the rest of the stir fry flavorings.  The only problem was that I had used far, far too much of the rice.  I'm not used to eating that much rice anymore, and at the end of the day I wound up having to discard an awful lot of what was in my bowl.  Still, it actually tasted pretty good until I couldn't eat anymore! 

 

Anyway, this was just to help get the ball rolling in terms of what to do with leftovers.  I think everyone probably winds up with them at some point in their lives, and the thought of letting it all go to waste is just painful.  Finding new uses for the leftovers can really help stretch a food budget too! 

Recipe: Green Salad with Warmed Goat Cheese

Green salad with goat cheese I threw this together for a recent dinner party.  We thought we were getting two guests, one of whom was a vegetarian.  While this in no way meant that we were going to not eat meat, I wanted to ensure that there would be plenty on the table for this person to eat.  As it all turned out, I needn't have worried, because the vegetarian bowed out at the last minute.  Oh well.  The rest of us at least enjoy vegetables, and there weren't any leftovers so it all worked out in the end. 

 

I had kind of mixed feelings about this dish.  On the one hand, it was easy enough to throw together, at least once I obtained the greens.  On the other, the goat cheese was originally supposed to be fried, and this did not work out the way I had intended.  I may try it again with a different type of cheese, or maybe a different means of coating the rounds.  Then again, I may not.  It was still very easy to prepare!  I'm not sure exactly what quantity of salad greens I used, I just filled the bag until it looked like "enough."  I'm guessing about 4 cups, but I could be very wrong.  Use your best judgement.  In terms of the goat cheese, the log I bought was a little dry and the dredge did not adhere well.  I tried dipping the rounds in water first, which only held the dredge onto the rounds long enough to get them into the oil.  Then it all slipped off.  If I do it again, I'll probably try dipping them in egg.

 

Green Salad with Warmed Goat Cheese (serves 4; approx. $2.56/serving)

4 cups mixed seasonal greens, washed

1/2 cup pitted kalamata olives

3.5 oz log of fresh goat cheese, sliced into rounds

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons oregano, divided

1/2 teaspoon sumac

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/4 cup breadcrumbs

Equipment:

  • Shallow bowl for dredging
  • Frying pan or skillet
  1. In the bowl in which you are going to serve the salad, mix the greens and the olives well.
  2. In another bowl, mix 1/4 cup of the olive oil with the red wine vinegar and half the oregano.  Mix very well and set aside.
  3. In the shallow bowl for dredging combine the bread crumbs with the remaining oregano, the sumac and the thyme.
  4. Just before serving, heat the 2 tablespoons olive oil in the skillet. 
  5. Dredge the rounds of goat cheese in the breadcrumb mixture and drop into the hot oil.
  6. As the rounds cook, pour enough of the vinaigrette over the salad and mix again.  ("Enough" depends on your personal taste; I used about half of what I had prepared.  You may need to re-whisk your vinaigrette.)
  7. When the goat cheese rounds have finished cooking, add them to the salad and mix yet again.
  8. Serve immediately.

May 14, 2008

Recipe: Thyme-Scented Mushrooms

Recipe Source: Barron, Rosemary.  Meze: Small Bites, Big Flavors from the Greek Table.  Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2002 p. 26

Thyme-scented mushrooms 1 I love mushrooms.  I think I always have, although I'm not sure why.  They weren't exactly a fixture in our home growing up - we had them on the wonderful homemade pizzas my mom used to make, and that was about it.  Still, they're one of my favorite foods.  I know that they aren't everybody's cup of tea - some people are allergic, while other people find the idea of eating fungi strangely off-putting (but they'll eat blue cheese without a second thought.)  This is their loss, because mushrooms are great.  This particular recipe is pretty easy - there aren't a lot of complex steps, the ingredients are all pretty prosaic, and the best part of all is that it absolutely has to be made ahead of time and served at room temperature. 

I didn't make very many changes to the recipe.  I did decrease the amount of oil to around 1 1/2 tablespoons total, simply because my husband dislikes noticeably oily dishes.  I also omitted the water at the end, as it wasn't needed.  The results were everything that I wanted them to be: delicious, aromatic, and easy.  The liquid in the bottom of the bowl can be spooned over toasted bread for an added treat. 

Thyme-Scented Mushrooms (serves 4; approx. $0.73/serving) 

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

4 bay leaves

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar, divided

12 oz button mushrooms, stems trimmed, halved or quartered if large

4 sprigs thyme

Equipment:

  • Medium saucepan with a tight lid
  1. Heat the oil in the saucepan over low heat.
  2. Add the bay leaves, pepper and half the vinegar. 
  3. Add the mushrooms and 3 sprigs of thyme.  Place the lid on the pot, hold it down and gently shake the pot a few times to mix the ingredients.
  4. Cook over low heat for 10 - 15 minutes, until the mushrooms have given up some of their juices and have a "cooked" look to them.
  5. Turn out into the serving bowl.
  6. Garnish with the leaves from the 4th sprig of thyme and allow to cool between 1 and 3 hours.
  7. Serve at room temperature. 

May 13, 2008

Book Review: Indian: Deliciously Authentic Dishes

Husain, Shehzad and Rafi Fernandez.  Indian: Deliciously Authentic Dishes.  Anness Publishing, London, 2003

I don't remember how old I was when I discovered Indian food - maybe seventeen?  An Indian restaurant had opened up briefly in a downtown location in my hometown.  I've always been a curious, adventurous eater and so I clearly had to give it a shot.  I remember having liked it, although the experience is so lost in the dim mists of history that I no longer remember what I ate or how it compares to the dishes that I've enjoyed since then.  I'm pretty sure that the restaurant is gone now, or at least there's another lousy fast-food type joint where I remember the restaurant as being located.  I guess my little Upstate city wasn't quite ready for the deliciousness Indian food has to offer.  Anyway, moving to Boston for college allowed me to try Indian food again.  Having an Indian roommate for half a year certainly helped!  It quickly became one of my favorite cuisines.  When I got my first solo apartment and was able to cook for myself for the first time, I started buying up Indian cookbooks when I could find them.  I picked this one up because it was on the bargain shelf at the bookstore, but I really came to enjoy it. 

It's part of the Hermes House imprint, a series of cookbooks you've seen me review here before.  It follows the same format as other books put out under this label, and the recipes are all beautifully illustrated.  The recipes are easy to follow - possibly a little basic for experienced cooks - and rarely call for ingredients that are difficult to find in an urban area.  Recipes come from all over the Subcontinent, but provenance is not always given.  There are two major differences between this volume and other books from this series: some of the recipes contain nutritional information and are indicated as "low-fat recipes," which is very helpful in menu planning, and there is a list of suppliers in the back of the book.  I'm not so sure about this list of suppliers.  The authors list one Indian grocery in the state of Massachusetts, in Boston's Oak Square.  I don't know when the list was drawn up (my copy is a late edition), but when I lived in Oak Square I did not see this grocery.  I was however very much aware of other Indian groceries in town, so I wouldn't view their supplier list as gospel.  Use your local telephone directory or a search engine instead.  Still, it was helpful of them to provide a starting place.  While the recipes may be a little basic, I really enjoy this book and use it as a launching pad for many of my own recipes.  I'd recommend it to anyone curious about Indian food or to a novice cook.

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Recipe: Pistachio Pie

Pistachio pie, top view 2 I was sitting around and trying to come up with something to make for my own blogging event, the Triple Play event.  It had to involve the three ingredients of rosewater, pistachios and cardamom.  I didn't want to make something obvious, because where's the fun in that?  We were having some friends over for dinner and I had to make a dessert anyway.  One of my husband's favorite desserts in the whole wide world is pecan pie.  That's when it hit me: I was going to make a pistachio pie.  Now, this had two potential issues.  First, I've always had trouble with pie.  It's the crust.  I'm not very good at it.  Second, I had never even seen a pistachio pie before.  I'd seen - and made - pecan pie.  I decided that this would be my starting point.  All the pecan pie recipes I've seen have called for corn syrup.  Not only did I not have any corn syrup, I'm kind of uncomfortable with it.  I'm not exactly a zealot for eliminating corn from the American diet, but really, almost everything contains corn syrup and it doesn't even add much flavor!  Honey, now - that's a tasty, tasty treat.  It's a little healthier than corn syrup, or at least I believe it to be healthier and that's what counts, and I actually had it on hand. 

 

I made the pie, and it came out okay.  Since I've always had trouble with crusts, I decided that I was going to try a technique I'd seen before on Good Eats.  I Pistachio pie, side view put the dough in a plastic zip-top bag - the same one I'd stored the dough in after making it the night before.  I left the end unzipped, and then I took my rolling pin and I rolled it out - inside the bag.  Then I took scissors and cut down the sides of the bag.  I put the dough in the pie pan, then peeled off the plastic.  This worked like a charm!  I think that the dough might have baked a little longer than it ought, though, because it became very flaky indeed and crumbled into dust at the slightest contact.  The texture of the filling was exactly like that of pecan pie.  The rosewater wasn't overpowering - in fact, I barely noticed it at all, which was a little disappointing to me since it's one of my favorite flavors.  The cardamom came through nicely toward the end of the bite, but wasn't excessive.  The dominant flavors were the pistachios and the honey, which was mellowed a bit by the cooking. 

 

Pistachio Pie (serves 8; approx. $1.37/person)

1 recipe Fearless Sweet Shortcrust Pastry

3 eggs

1 cup light-colored honey (I used orange blossom honey.  The lighter color yields a milder flavor; I think buckwheat, for example, would be overpowering in this dish.) 

1/4 cup turbinado sugar

1 stick (8 oz) butter, melted

1 1/2 cups shelled, unsalted pistachios

1 tablespoon rosewater

1 tablespoon cardamom

Equipment:

  • Pie plate (9")
  • Baking sheet
  • Mixing bowl
  • Pie weights (I used dried black beans)
  1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
  2. Poke a few holes in the bottom of your pie crust and bake for about 10 minutes, weighted.
  3. In a mixing bowl, combine the eggs, honey, sugar, butter, 1/2 cup of the pistachios, rosewater and cardamom.
  4. Pour the mixture into the pie crust and smooth out the top.
  5. Spread the remaining 1 cup of pistachios over the top of the filling.
  6. Reduce the heat of the oven to 375 and bake approximately 55 minutes.  Important Note: every oven is different.  After about 45 minutes, check the pie.  It is done if the filling is puffy and appears to be mostly set.  The filling will deflate as it cools. 
  7. Allow to cool and serve warm or at room temperature.  Keep the pie away from the dog. Pie, post-dog