A Year of Pies Book Giveaway
Monday, August 13, 2012 at 8:00AM
I was elated when my friend Ashley asked if I’d share a recipe in her new book, a book all about pies. I said yes immediately, of course, and have anticipated seeing the finished product since those hours I put in last summer testing my gluten-free streusel top apple pie.
I’ve long loved Ashley’s blog and book series, Homemade Living, which includes Home Dairy, Cannning & Preserving, Keeping Chickens & Keeping Bees, and even got to spend some time with her during my book travels last year.
My prolific pal has put together a lovely book, chock full of beautiful, informative photos.
;)
Fabulous seasonal recipes I can’t wait to try. These in particular:
;)
The pecans are green and bunching, nearly time for harvest here in Texas.
And this is definitely happening next year, when our blueberries come in:
;)
I like Ashley’s book for its seasonally-minded sections, her great how-to photos and descriptions for the hard parts of pie making and for incorporating all kinds of great guest recipes, including many gluten-free options!
The publisher mailed me a few copies, so I’m giving away two of them, one via the comment section below and another here on my author site’s new blog feature. You may enter twice if you’d like.
US & Canadian residents please enter by leaving a comment on this post by Monday August 27, midnight CST, telling us about your best (or worst) pie experience, either making it or eating it. (If you don’t include your email address in the specific box where asked on the comment form you won’t win because I can’t get ahold of you.)
Good luck!
Reader Comments (109)
In my edition of Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, the recipe that my mother swears by, for Oil Crust, has a typo which discouraged this first time piemaker, many moons ago, from making another pie for 15 years. It lists 1T of salt, instead of 1t of salt.
Mom finally found the error for me, and I'm back on track. lol
My favorite pie was the one I made for a dear friend when his father passed away. It was a fantastic caramel apple pie that he and his wife found delightful in the midst of sadness. Best pie ever.
Best pie is my husband's cheesecake pie, a family recipe that he makes every Thanksgiving. It's one of the few things that is HIS to do in the kitchen and he's so proud of it! (And it's delicious!)
I adore pecan pie and Boston cream pie, but am embarrassed to admit I've never made a pie of any sort! I think this book would be just what I need to get over my intimidation.
Just this last weekend I bought some Colorado peaches and made 6 individual-size peach pies for dinner with friends. Big hit! I added a little vinegar to the pie crust ingredients and that made the crust feather light.
My best pie experience is using the leftovers from making holiday pies with my Mom to make cinnamon pinwheels.... such a yummy special treat it always was!
The best pie I ever made was a no-bake lime cheesecake. It has three ingredients: cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk, and the zest and juice of two limes. Delicious and easy. My kind of pie.
One year for a family gathering I wanted to do something healthy so I made a tofu fruit pie. It was absolutely beautiful with the fruit on top and the instructions said it would taste just like a cream tart (I should not have believed it). I didn't tell anyone what it was and after everyone oohed and ahhed, my brother-in-law took the first bite and actually spit it out asking what the heck it was. No one else even tried it and even though that was at least 20 years ago it is brought up every time I bring a pie to a family party!
How fortuitous this post is! I was literally JUST emailing a friend about my terrible pie-making experience.
Recently we had a dinner with close friends. One made a delicious homemade strawberry pie. It was SO delicious that I asked for the recipe and made two the next day (one as a gift). I cheated and used store-bought crusts and OF COURSE they were nowhere near as good as my friend's pie had been.
I then used her crust recipe (secret ingredient--at least to me--vodka!). I let it sit overnight and then baked it the next day after a LONG and not good day at work, because, what else do you do at 11 pm, right? DISASTER! Not only was it thin in some places and thick in others, but it was just burned to a crisp. Woe is me (or how it seemed then, though CLEARLY overdramatic. it was just one of those days). I admit, I started crying (while laughing). I couldn't even make a daggone pie crust right! :) We did break off the not burnt parts, scooped some filling and whipped cream on and had "deconstructed strawberry pie", so all was not lost. In fact, it was quite tasty, just not really a pie. I'm trying again. I will master a pie from scratch. :)
I love pie!!! I've had a few pie disasters...crusts that stuck to the bottom of the pan, filling running all over the oven and eventually burning on the outer crust making it inedible, misreading an ingredient amount (tsp for Tbsp) ....but when I have success it is wonderful! Fruit pie, cream pie, nut pies they're all delicious :)
Pie! Pie pie pie pie pie. :) My friend Joann makes the best pies I've ever eaten. We first tasted them at a pie night something like seven years ago--at which nearly everyone's jaws hit the floor when they first saw her towering blueberry pie. Who can make a blueberry pie four inches high? Joann, that's who. :)
I love pie! Those recipes look sooo good!
oh my gosh. yesterday i found the juiciest, ripest strawberries at the market. i bought three boxes and made them all into a pie. it took a few hours, for sure. i left out the sure because i was certain they were sweet enough without it. but... this pie that took all day and used all of those precious strawberries turned out to be so, so sour. the worst!
i would LOVE to win this book! (obviously i need some help in pie-making.) thanks for the chance!
When I was 13, I thought I would surprise my family and make a pumpkin pie while they were away and I was home alone. I had never made a pie of any sort before, but I found a recipe for a pie and one for a crust and went to town. I didn't know what a "double crust" recipe meant, but I made it for my pie.....my family came home and my mom asked me what sort of pie I had made. I was thinking it was obvious what sort of pie I made, but then my mom reminded me that pumpkin pie has no top crust, lol, and I then learned what a double crust meant :) Anyway, the pie tasted fine, there was just a lot of crust with it!
When I was six years old and wanted a doll I couldn't afford my mom told me to earn money by taking the excess dough from pie crusts and make tarts to sell to the truck drivers at the nearby truck stop/cafe. I rolled out the dough leftovers into flat almost round shapes and sprinkled them with cinnamon and sugar and sold them for $1 with my mom to the truck drivers in the parking lot. My first and only successful bakery enterprise!
When my older daughter was born, she was very premature so she had to stay in the NICU for five weeks. The day I got discharged, two days after she was born, was the worst day of my life--leaving my baby behind. My wonderful friend baked my husband and me a pie and left it at our home. It was such a small gesture, but it was exactly what we needed to calm some of our grief.
Many years ago, my husbands grandmother had the family over for dinner. She told us that she had apple pie for dinner. I saw another pie in the kitchen and asked about it. I was told it was a minced meat pIe made especially for Louise (her daughter). II love minced meat pie and I just about drove her crazy begging for a piece. She finally cut me a big ole piece and served everyone else apple pie. I took a huge bite, only to find that this was really minced meat pie with the works, not the apple raisin variety I was used to. I could not not enjoy it! It took Five glasses of tea to get down that one
slice of pie! HahHa.
I remember my first taste of plum pie. mmmm..... I have tried to make my Aunt's great peach pie and have never been able to have it taste the same!
OMG.....the pictures are awesome....the pies look wonderful.
My daughter in law brought a pie she had made for our desert (a family dinner....)
It was the best pie I have ever had...the crust was flakey, melted in your mouth and the apples were sweet with just the right amount of tartness....OMG
I started making all these funny noises while I was eating...she thought I was nuts - I was too busy enjoying the delicasy to argue. (I insisted she leave me all that was left)
I wish I could make an edible pie!
Thanks for sharing
hugs
My best pie experience is the memory of eating my dad's apple pies! He would chop the apples very small, almost diced, so they had a very specific texture that was his style.
Ooooh that looks delicious!
I don't normally bake. My grandmother and mother always made pie crust using lard. So being the good granddaughter/daughter I followed their recipe. Well, if you could call it a recipe. Use a small hand of lard is not a measurement I understood. I make that dough about six times and each time it was aweful. I could not figure it out. Now I just buy my dough.
At Thanksgiving one year, we went to my parents house along with our little shih tzu. We all left for church and my mom left the pie on the kitchen table. When we returned home from church, we discovered a half eaten pie. Our dog had got up on a chair and had a little pie. We thought it was quite nice that he at least saved half of it for us!
My favorite pie experience was around the holidays last year when I was assistant pastry chef-ing at my former job, a cafe in Brooklyn. In charge of making weekly specials, and loving anything to do with pie and miniature, I decided to do individual buttermilk pies, the way you'd bake cupcakes. I'd wrap the pate brise into the pans and blind bake, then fill in the custard and bake it twice. The hardest part was making sure they were set...BUT OH SO DELICOUS. A lovely holiday treat.
My worst pie experience comes from making my very own. My first pie crust was a disaster. Because just trying something new wasn't enough, I decided I wanted to scale it down. A big mistake.
Now armed with the correct tools (and measurements) I'm ready to try again!