Tag: Savoury Pie

July 2004 – No A’s

Hello friends and welcome to today’s Twenty Years Ago Today Post where I am creating a meal from the pages of Delicious magazine from July 2004. But, as usual,  the menu comes with a challenge – this month the challenge was to create a meal where none of the recipes contained the letter A. In the event that you ever have an Alphaphobic over to dinner, I have you covered with this one.

And, even if I do say so myself, July 2004 did not disappoint in the taste department. Last week I mentioned that the Grapefruit Oat Brulee was Top Ten in the things I have cooked this year. And this week we have another, not one but two contenders for that list! Life is good – at least in the eating department!

Minestrone2

Pop Culture – July 2004

We’ll get along to the deliciousness soon but here’s a little reminder of what was big in July 2004 to help set the scene. Looking first at films, Spiderman, I Robot and The Bourne Supremacy where respectively 1-3 at the box office. Personally, I would have been more interested in Anchorman, Fahrenheit 9/11 and The Notebook at 4, 5 and 7.

In books, the Da Vinci code was yep, you guessed it still number 1! Will the reign of this book never end? Angels and Demons also by Dan Brown was sitting at #7 this month so we might be looking at a Dan Brown double next month! And speaking of doubles, Usher had the number 1 and 2 songs on the Billboard charts with Burn and Confessions Part II.

And now we’ve set the scene, let’s take a look at our menu!

The No A Menu – July 2004

 

Menu July 2004

Minestrone

This was, without a doubt the best Minestrone I have ever eaten.  I made a huge pot of it and ate it everyday for my lunch for the entire week.  Now usually when this happens by Thursday I am starting to get a bit bored and by Friday I am dreading the meal,  Not so this time, I would have eaten this for another 5 days if I had more! 

This Bill Granger recipe is a little different from most other minestrones for two reasons.  First, it has meatballs made from Italian sausages and second it has no pasta.  It is also LOADED with veg so, outside of those little meatballs, it is also very healthy.  This minestrone was definitely worthy of being on my Top Ten for the Year!

Minestrone 1

Minestrone Recipe

Minestrone Recipe 1 (1)

 

Smoked Fish Pie

Smoked Fish Pie 1

The Smoked Fish Pie was also delicious! I used smoked trout in my pie and it was really yummy!  This one is definitely something I will make again!  We ate our pies on a frosty cold winter’s night and it was perfect comfort food!

Smoked Fish Pie Recipe

Smoked Fish Pie Recipe (1)

 

Lemon Meringue Muffins

Now…I could have sworn I took photos of these but no…not on my phone.  Not in the cloud….and not enough time to remake them!  Also, to be honest, these were probably the weakest part of the meal.  They were ok but a little dry.  This though, could have been my fault.  I cooked the muffins until they were nearly ready but then I had to go out.  I left them in the turned off oven to finish the cook and cool.  Maybe they were in there a bit too long.  I did  however love the little secret stash of lemon curd in the muffin and the meringue top was delightful.  

I thought for want of my own photo, I would include the photo from the magazine as inspiration.  However, there wasn’t one.  The recipe was included as a reader asked why there was a recipe for Lemon Meringue Muffins indexed in April 2004, however there was no such recipe in the magazine.  The editors explained that the recipe had been pulled for space at the last minute.  

There certainly seems oto be something slightly cursed about this recipe!  

Lemon Meringue Muffins Recipe

Lemon Meringue Muffins (1)

My Nigella Moment  – Baked Brie with  Braised Cabbage

For first-time readers, this refers to the moment at the end of Nigella Lawson’s cooking shows when she sneaks back to the fridge to have another bite of something delicious.  In these Twenty Years Ago posts, it is something contained in the magazine that does not fit with the overall menu theme but I’m sneaking it in because it is too good not to share. 

Oh wow…this was sooo good!  This was the other recipe that is Top Ten so far this year.  There is so much to love in this – warm oozy cheese, salty crispy pancetta, the sweetness of the apple in the cabbage….this was luscious!  Baked Brie with Braised Cabbage

 

Baked Brie with Braised Cabbage Recipe

Baked Brie Recipe1 (1)Baked Brie with Braised Cabbage2

Well, for me Delicious Magazine from June 2004 was great.  Shame about the muffins….but maybe they should have been left out of this issue too!  

Have a great week! Signature2

My, My, Belgian Onion Pie – Pieathalon 2

My, My, At Waterloo, Napoleon Did Surrender

It seemed quite appropriate that I made my Pieathalon pie on Eurovison weekend.  After all, my pie was a Belgian Onion Pie with French Pastry Dough. And in 1974 ABBA won Eurovision with their song Waterloo which draws its inspiration from the site in BELGIUM where the Brits defeated the FRENCH army lead by Napoleon.

The coincidence is almost spooky.

Belgian Onion Pie

But would this pie take me down like a diminutive French General?  Or, like a bearded drag queen was I going to “rise like a phoenix” to Euro glory?

 And I Have Met My Destiny (In Quite A Similar Way)

A few weeks ago, the lovely Yinzarella put out the call and 19 bloggers answered.  We were going to take part in a global event to rival Eurovision, Pieathalon 2.

Pieathalon

  The History Book on The Shelf (Is Always Repeating Itself)

My recipe, which came from S.S. over at A Book of Cookrye is taken from The Cotton Country Collection from 1972:

Pieathalon BookWhich looks and sounds like it comes more from the Mississippi Delta than any field in Flanders I ever saw.  Which is fine, I just finished reading Miss Hazel and The Rosa Parkes League for bookclub.  I’m feel like I’m down with the M, I, crooked letter, crooked letter….

I also recently made a French Apple Flan, so my credentials for France are also solid.

  • I have driven through Belgium on a bus.
  • I have watched “In Bruges“.  Twice.
  • They have waffles.  And chocolate. And smurfs.

And that’s pretty much the sum total of my knowledge about Belgium.  If there’s going to be a weak link here, it’s bound to be Belgium…is Pieathalon going to be my Waterloo?

My, My, I Tried To Hold You Back (But You Were Stronger)

French Pie DoughI feel like the The French Pie dough recipe is very French.  And by that I mean both annoyingly pedantic in some details (Triple sifting flour?  Really?) and then just gives a big Gallic shrug and leaves others mostly up to your imagination.  The implication being if you are that much of a dummy to not know what spices and liquid to use in your pie dough, you probably shouldn’t be making pie dough.

My imagination told me to use a pack of French Onion Soup Mix for both –  a spoonful of the dry mix as my dough spice, then make up the rest of the soup and chill it down for my liquid.

My imagination is a psychopath.

The soup mix made the pastry quite salty.  If I had added more salt by adding the soup, I’m pretty sure it would have become inedible.  So, after a moment of panic and some highly creative swearing I used some pear cider as my liquid.  Purely because I happened to be drinking it at the time of making.

2015-05-17 00.17.00

And you know what?  It worked!!!  Really well.  The sweetness took out some of the salt and I think the bubbles helped to make the pastry really light and crisp.

I loved this pastry.  It had a real French Onion Soup flavour.  I am going to make it again but into “cheese” straws to have with dip. And I will probably use Pear Cider as my go to chilled liquid again too!

Now to the first way I “tweaked” this recipe…you may know that  have a weakness for small round food.  I’m also very much of the mind that more is more. So, why make one pie when you can make a lot of pies?

French Pie Dough 3
French Pie Dough 3

And Now It Seems My Only Chance Is Giving Up The Fight

I was actually pretty confident with the filling.  Because pastry is the hard part of any pie right? And honestly, I nailed that French pie dough like a….like a….French hammer…Yeah…just like that.  (Note to self, find some better metaphors).

So bring on the filling….

Belgian Onion Pie Filling Recipe

First up -looking at this very cute picture made me think the pie was baked in onions.  I’m not actually sure HOW you would bake a pie in an onion but I do know I want to find out.  Another entry into the bucket list of weird food I want to make. I think it also may have sub-conciously influenced my idea to make party-sized pies instead of one big one.

Then? Chopping three large onions?  There were tears before bedtime.  Then I weighed the butter.  Half a pound of butter seemed like an awful lot. I checked my measurements from ounces to grams and weighed it again.  No, my measurements were right and that was still a, pardon me for using a very technical baking term, a shit ton of butter.

Belgian Onion Pie - ButterSuddenly my mountain of onions seemed like barely a hill next to that Everest of butter.    In the end, I couldn’t do it.  That skyscraper of butter was too overwhelming.  I cut off about a third of it and stuck that back in the fridge.  I felt really bad about this because I had wanted to follow the recipe exactly.  But I was convinced this was just wrong.

And I could just add some extra butter if I needed, right?

Then I started to saute my onions. I was a bit worried that the onions would suck all the butter up and it would be too dry.  It seemed ok when the onions were sautéing, however once I added the flour the butter problem became apparent….

Belgian Onion Pie 4

Far from being too little butter there was still too much.  WAY too much…it was pooling everywhere…

Belgian Onion Pie5I made the decision to tip some more butter out….turned out to be about another two tablespoons.

Belgian Onion Pie 6I was kind of worried about doing this but as soon as I added the milk and cream, it all came together perfectly and I knew I had made the right decision.  Look how lovely and smooth the filling looks.

I only had filling for ten little Belgian onion pies so I ate the additional pie shells.  That pastry was awesome!!!!

Belgian Onion Pie 7
Belgian Onion Pie 7

And half an hour later they came out like this. Puffed up, golden brown, the Belgian Onion Pie babies looked like little golden buttercups!!!

Belgian Onion Pie 8
Belgian Onion Pie 8

I was so happy with these.  And not only were the baby Belgian Onion Pies so pretty to look at, they were delicious too – the light crisp pastry, the creamy filling, they were gorgeous!!!!  And they tasted just like French Onion Soup!

You could almost say they were souper!

Gahhh…….Thankfully,  the Belgian Onion pies tasted better than my puns!!!!!

Belgian Onion Pie 9

 I Feel Like I Win….

So despite a couple of hiccups, Pieathalon 2 was a total success.

Huge thanks to S.S. for the recipe and Yinzerella for the opportunity.  I LOVED it!  Here is my slightly twisted Muriels Wedding thanks to you both:

“I used to sit in my room for hours and listen to ABBA songs. But since I’ve met you and moved to Sydney joined in Pieathalon , I haven’t listened to one Abba song. That’s because my life is as good as an Abba song. It’s as good as Dancing Queen”

High praise indeed!

And as a fitting finale to this Pieathalon, Ladies, Gentlemen…bring out your best moves and your favourite satin jumpsuit  and join me, Toni Collette and Rachel Griffiths in a little celebration of all things Pieathalon.  Feel free to sing along with my ever so slightly modified lyrics below as you bust a synchronised move…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U4kDzwZAMk

 Pieathalon, Belgian pie with butter galore,

Pieathlon, promise to love you for ever more

Pieathalon, couldn’t escape if I wanted to,

Pieathalon, Knowing my fate is to be with you,

Whoa, whoa, whoa, Pieathalon,

Finally facing Pieathalon!”

The entire list of bloggers and pies are here.  Please check ’em all out but check out Sarah who made my Fiesta Almond Peach Pie recipe first!

Mandee from Vintage Recipe Cards  – Peach Pizza Pie
Susie from Bittersweet Susie  – Blueberry Cream Pie
Ashley at A Pinch of Vintage – Pecan Pie
Saucy Cherie at cookbookcherie.wordpress.com – Prune Whip Pie
Kelli from Kelli’s Kitchen – White Christmas Pie
Heather from Yesterday’s Menus – Pasta Cheese Pie (link no longer works 7/11/21)
Jenny of Silver Screen Suppers – Magic Cream Pie
Kelly from The Velveteen Lounge Kitsch-en Web Series – Swiss Pie with Hot Dogs
Dr. Bobb of Dr. Bobb’s Kitschen – Mincey Peach Pie
Sarah from Directionally Challenged Cooking – Fiesta Almond Peach Pie
Clara at Heritage Recipe Box – Cottage Cheese Apple Pie
Poppy of “Grannie Pantries” http://granniepantries.blogspot.com – Brandy Alexander Pie
RetroRuth from Mid-Century Menu – Cheese Pie
S.S. of A Book of Cookrye – Gowanda Pie
Emily aka Yinzerella  from Dinner is Served 1972 – Melton Pork Pie
Erica Retrochef from Retro Recipe Attempts – Steak and Mushroom Pie
Catherine at  Battenburgbelle –  French Onion Pie

Have a great week, and go eat some pie!

Signature 1 Vintage Valentine Quick as Wink2