Easy as pie

What do you do with your free time?

What pies do you want at Thanksgiving?

Apple
12
20%
Pecan
7
11%
Pumpkin
13
21%
Tollhouse cookie
7
11%
Key lime
10
16%
Cherry
12
20%
 
Total votes : 61

Easy as pie

Postby cmsellers » Sat Nov 21, 2015 4:50 am

American Thanksgiving is coming up, and of course I'm excited. It's my favorite holiday, and has been for years. I have a couple of aunts in Florida, and it's become a tradition that we stay with one aunt and make pies there, then have Thanksgiving at the house of another aunt. I'm excited, of course. I'm also thinking about Thanksgiving pie.

Apple, pumpkin, and pecan pies are of course traditional. Several years back my brother decided to make a Tollhouse cookie pie, and not to be outdone, I met him with a key lime pie. A few years after that, I started doing a black-bottomed key lime pie, which is basically a normal key-lime pie recipe from the back of the bottle, except with a ganache on the bottom and double the filling (since my aunt only has 10" pie pans). I really want to do cherry pie, but my my mother insists that six pies (my brother makes two Tollhouse pies because they're always the most popular) is enough for ~30 people.

I'm not sure why we continue to make pumpkin pie. It is nobody's favorite pie, and it's always the last pie to be finished off. I'd much rather have a cherry pie. (Cherry and key lime pie are my favorite pies, and together with cheesecake my favorite non-chocolate deserts. Which didn't stop me from adding chocolate to my key lime pies.)

As for pecan pie, my brother's tried new recipes for a few years, until he finally found one with bourbon that he loves. I think pecan pie and pralines are the only legitimate uses for pecans. Also I now live in Texas, where pecan trees are used as landscaping. They're gorgeous until their nuts drop. Then suddenly it's like the streets are paved with ball-bearings.

Also, people have different opinions on apple pie. Mine is that nutmeg, ginger, and allspice are as essential as cinnamon, that cinnamon should be true cinnamon rather than cassia, the crust should be a mixture of butter and leaf lard (though I don't do that at Thanksgiving because of vegetarians in the family) and that the best apples for pie are Northern Spy, hands down. You'll notice that this is quite different from Maddox's take, but then he's Armenian and I am to Turks what otaku are to the Japanese.

Also, I've decided to create a poll. Suggest your own options, multiple votes and revotes are allowed, and when I have a respectable number of options I'll add a "fuck pie. cake or death," option.
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Re: Easy as pie

Postby sunglasses » Sat Nov 21, 2015 4:58 am

i love pumpkin pie.

LOVE IT.

But not pumpkin pie cheesecake because cream cheese is ebil.
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Re: Easy as pie

Postby cmsellers » Sat Nov 21, 2015 5:03 am

What are you talking about sunny?
Cream cheese is the best "cheese" of all "cheeses" that aren't cheese. It's amazing on bagels, awesome on banana bread, and delicious in cheesecake.

Pumpkin pie cheesecake does sound horrible though; I'll give you that.
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Re: Easy as pie

Postby sunglasses » Sat Nov 21, 2015 5:08 am

I have an aversion to the very texture of cream cheese. Oh god thinking about it makes me want to yurk.
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Re: Easy as pie

Postby ghijkmnop » Sat Nov 21, 2015 5:09 am

Redacted
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Re: Easy as pie

Postby iMURDAu » Sat Nov 21, 2015 5:48 am

You gave me 6 options. I couldn't help but choose all 6. I wouldn't turn any of them down.
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Re: Easy as pie

Postby SilverMaple » Sat Nov 21, 2015 7:03 am

iMURDAu wrote:You gave me 6 options. I couldn't help but choose all 6. I wouldn't turn any of them down.


^What he said. With the exception of tollhouse cookie, because I have no idea what that entails. It does have the word "cookie" in it, which is promising, I suppose.

I've only ever had one pie I didn't like, and that was a Derby Pie that I made while visiting my now-ex-boyfriend in the US. Maybe it can only be made properly by the hands of a 'Murican or something, but I have the feeling that it's just disgusting by virtue of being filled with only chocolate chips plus walnuts (so basically pure sugar).
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Re: Easy as pie

Postby cmsellers » Sat Nov 21, 2015 7:25 am

@Maple:
A Tollhouse cookie pie is basically a pie crust filled with half-baked chocolate-chip cookie dough. My brother uses a recipe from a restaurant he used to work at, but this is close.

It looks like a Derby pie requires pecans, not walnuts, so there's your problem right there.

I feel the need now to bring up peach and rhubarb pies. I wouldn't make either one at Thanksgiving since fresh peaches and rhubarb are seasonal (apples are a fall fruit and cherry pie usually uses canned cherries), but I love them both.

I almost never actually make peach pie though, because I make peach cobbler instead. (Or rather my mother does. I used to make it, then she realized how easy it is and now it's one of her go-to deserts in late summer whenever I'm not available to make another desert for her.)

Also, I know that rhubarb pie is one of those things which people either love or hate. Which is why I think strawberry-rhubarb pie is kind of stupid: it doesn't appeal to rhubarb-haters, but reduces the rhubarb flavor for those of us who love it. Plus, strawberries don't cook up very well. They should be either eaten plain, dipped in chocolate, or put on biscuits and covered in whipped cream. Anything else is a waste of strawberries.

Oh, and one time in early fall I made a grape pie once with wild grapes. It was pretty good, but it's amazing how many grapes you need for one little pie. Sadly, the power company cut down the grape vines in front of our house so they wouldn't grow onto the power lines, which meant that I couldn't do it again the next year.
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Re: Easy as pie

Postby JamishT » Sat Nov 21, 2015 7:52 am

cmsellers wrote:They're gorgeous until their nuts drop.


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Re: Easy as pie

Postby Matthew Notch » Mon Nov 23, 2015 12:04 am

There are no cream pies in your poll, Sellers, and I don't understand why you hate America and Jesus so much that you would do something like that.

Coconut cream pie is a magical, magical thing. I mean it's basically vanilla pudding with coconut mixed in and then whipped cream on top in a crust, but when you have real vanilla and real coconut and real coconut milk and real good crust? Holy cats. Coconut cream pie is one of those pies of which I have never had a terrible piece. It's nearly impossible to mess it up but if you know what you're doing, the results are premium.

Year before last the wife and I were in Kansas City for a religious convention, and we met my cousin Jordan and his wife after we'd had dinner with some other family following the session. We ended up going to Rye, a James Beard award-winning restaurant for pie, and let me tell you, they had some phenomenal coconut cream pie, but Mrs. Notch got sugar pie, which I'd never heard of before that day but am a big ol' sucker for now. That's actually on my to-do list for this year; you really don't see sugar pie anywhere around here.

For years I hated apple pie. I didn't like cinnamon and apple mixed together in general. I used to be a lot more picky than I am these days, because my palate has matured quite a bit. Anyway I'm not really sure when it is I decided apple pie was okay, but I think part of it was just thinking about Apple Jacks, the cereal, which I loved. I mean it was the same concept, right? And of course it wasn't, because Apple Jacks don't taste like apple, but it was enough of a psychological magic feather that I got over my aversion to the tartness of fruit combined with the spiciness of cinnamon (or cassia powder, honestly I'm not that picky either) and now, while I wouldn't say it's my first choice in any situation, I don't turn it down when it's offered to me.

McDonald's, for a while, was selling a strawberry creme pie, which had strawberry preserves and cream cheese filling. Say what you want about McDonald's OR strawberries in pie, but I loved it dearly. My Grandma, whom I've spoken about at length on this forum, used to make me a strawberry and cream cheese sandwich on toast from time to time, and so that pie tasted like childhood. There's a Cuban sandwich called the Elena Ruz, which was named after a Miami socialite who used to frequent a certain cafe and had a sandwich made just her way: turkey, cream cheese, and strawberry preserves, all on medianoche bread (it's a bit like challah, or a sweeter version of the traditional Cuban bread). When the truck opens it's going to be a regular special. Anyway, the whole reason I bring this all up is, another thing that I think falls under the umbrella category "pie" are sweet empanadas. My Grandma, again, used to make pumpkin empanadas for my father and uncles, and they are always looking for something similar to that, because that tastes like childhood to THEM. I will probably also serve those in my truck, as well as a version that has cream cheese and guava paste, with a glaze over the crust.

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Re: Easy as pie

Postby cmsellers » Mon Nov 23, 2015 12:18 am

@Jamish:
I decided to make a quip about nuts dropping because it was amusing (which is the only amusing thing about having all those fucking pecans on the street unless I get to watch someone else slip on one).

I'll admit I didn't exactly think through how the sentence as a whole sounded.

@Notch:
Would you eat a cream pie at Thanksgiving? That's why I didn't include rhubarb and peach pies.

Also, I assume empanadas are made with uncooked masa that you fold over and fry? Based in empandillas, which I assume are just small empanadas.

First time I visited Puerto Rico, we had so much fun stuffing cheese and meat into empanadilla shells and frying them up that my brother and I each brought a stack back. I got through security fine with my little stack of round shells, but my brother decided to bring the rectangular shells, and his whole suitcase was unpacked before they determined he wasn't carrying a huge chunk of plastic explosive.

I know that a lot of parts of Latin America do guava paste with cheese, but I find guava paste rather on the overly sweet side. I never thought of putting them in an empanadilla though.

Also, your empanadas look delicious. After you get your food truck up and running, I must take a road trip to Kansas.

Edit:
Also, "I must take a road trip to Kansas," seems like it would belong in this thread if I weren't for the fact that I just said it.

Edit2: Empanadas are pastries, but they're not pies. At best, they're turnovers.
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Re: Easy as pie

Postby sunglasses » Mon Nov 23, 2015 5:07 am

Yes, empanadas are like turnovers.

Also, I'm ready to receive your hatred over the cream cheese. I need it to survive.
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Re: Easy as pie

Postby Matthew Notch » Mon Nov 23, 2015 6:16 am

cmsellers wrote:@Notch:
Would you eat a cream pie at Thanksgiving? That's why I didn't include rhubarb and peach pies.


Well... I wouldn't eat any pies at Thanksgiving because I don't really celebrate it :P but you have a point. But then again, cream pies are amazing, so I guess SO DO I

Also, I assume empanadas are made with uncooked masa that you fold over and fry? Based in empandillas, which I assume are just small empanadas.


Pretty much. It's not corn masa, usually, if that makes a difference. And yeah, they're more often used in savory applications. In many ways they're like meat pies, which, you know, has the word pie, soooooooo :)

I know that a lot of parts of Latin America do guava paste with cheese, but I find guava paste rather on the overly sweet side. I never thought of putting them in an empanadilla though.

Also, your empanadas look delicious. After you get your food truck up and running, I must take a road trip to Kansas.


I'm going to level with you: I have actually never had it. Apparently guava paste on saltines is a very popular snack in oceanic Latin America, and I'm also planning to make a barbecue sauce that uses a guava paste base for my chicken pinchos. I should... probably try it first, huh.

sunglasses wrote:Yes, empanadas are like turnovers.

Also, I'm ready to receive your hatred over the cream cheese. I need it to survive.


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Re: Easy as pie

Postby Tesseracts » Mon Nov 23, 2015 6:18 am

This thread makes me want to bake a pie for thanksgiving.

And... cookie is a pie flavor? That makes no sense.

The best pie is OBVS blueberry and you're all wrong.
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Re: Easy as pie

Postby Revolving Royal » Mon Nov 23, 2015 6:46 am

As much as I love all fruit pies, Pumpkin Pie for Thanksgiving is the way to go. It's a celebration of fall flavors and the humble squash, as we should rightly celebrate the Pumpkin, and I won't tolerate any smack said about them. Nature's best produce.
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