Humble Pie... Crust- 4/9/09

The culinary gods must know when I'm getting cocky. Just when I start to feel like I'm really getting the hang of this cooking thing, along comes a simple pie crust to make me humble again. Tonight, I made the Ricotta Polenta Pie recipe on page 12 of April's Gourmet magazine. I've never been a confident pie crust maker and today was no different. After chilling the dough for the crust overnight as recommended and then taking it out to warm up (I don't get that!), I tried to roll out the dough. The operative word was try. The crust cracked in numerous places and even with frequent flouring, little pieces kept coming off the crust and sticking to the rolling pin. I finally got a large enough circle of dough and turned it over into the pie plate. Again, the crust broke into many small pieces and I had to squish the pieces together and the whole bottom looked like a rather monochromatic patchwork quilt. I should have taken a picture but that would have been embarrassing so I'll just tell you about it. I did do a little better with the top crust but the pie still looked like it had a huge scar where one large piece cracked while I was putting it on top.
Other than the crust's visual issue, the flavor of the cake was really interesting. The filling was ricotta with some dried fruit in it. I thought the pie was a bit dry but I could see where the flavor would be a holiday tradition to look forward to each year. This pie was in the reader requested section and developed at the Crossroads Bake Shop in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. The bakery's website tells customers that the recipe for this classic pie is available for the first time courtesy of Gourmet.


For dinner, I made the easy and fairly quick Spinach and Red-Pepper Calzones on page 64. You'll notice in my picture that my calzones got a little brown. Sorry, I was outside on the hammock with Eyrleigh reading a cooking magazine that came in the mail today. It was another beautiful day outside. The calzones used store-bought pizza crust and jarred roasted red peppers to save time. I thought they were good, not great but Richard disagreed. He thought these were excellent. We'll compromise at a B+.

Spinach and Red-Pepper Calzones-B+
Cost- $14.72
Calories per serving-550

Ricotta Polenta Pie-B
Cost-$9.55
Calories per serving-500

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