Pi(e) Day 2010

Perhaps you have been feeling a void in your life lately and thinking "Gee, it's been a while since those gals at the Stoned Soup Club made up a wicked awesome holiday..." well friends, we are one step ahead of you, except that the holiday already happened and I have been lazy about posting so in fact we are probably a step behind. Know that this is only because the SS Club has a lot of things in the works for the month of April, and our energies have been devoted elsewhere-- more on this soon.

Speaking of March, what a long pointless month! No long weekends, 31 days of heartbreaking

fake out almost-spring weather, and aside from St. Patrick's day, nary a holiday in sight. That is until we combined out love of pie with our hazy memory of high school mathematics and Eureeka! Pi(e) day was born. We have set aside 3.14 (March 14th) to be an annual celebration of eating pies and we set the bar with our first one.

On the menu were 2 savory pies (a vegetable pot pie courtesy of Vegetarian Times and a mushroom and goat cheese pie made up by mac whose recipe follows below) and 2 sweet pies (vegan chocolate with a granola crust, and a heavenly apple cream pie made by

some SS Club associates). But the true beauty of pie day is that you can never have too much! Pi is an infinite number.

Other things that make a party fun: having a crafty project for your guests. We cut a bunch of pie-wedge style flags out of brown paper bags, invited guests to decorate them, and then sewed them together lickety split to create these charming banners. Particular love goes out to an SS Club favorite who took the time to look up Pi online and wrote out as many decimal places as would fit on his wedge. Which also caused us to realize that the 5th year anniversary of Pi(e) day will be 3.14 2015, and you may or may not know that the next two digits of pi are? Yep, 3.1415. We have already dubbed this highly anticipated future event Super Pi(e) day. Where will YOU be on future 3.14s? Hopefully taking some time out from the middle of a tedious month to celebrate the fact that winter is almost over, and eat some delicious pie with friends.

Mushroom Goat Cheese Pie

Crust: Okay, so I think the reason that a lot of people get intimidated by pie-making is the crust. It seems like such a process to make one, but let's face it, store-bought crusts are a cop out and

you know it. And home made crusts are really a lot easier than you think. Here's all you need:

2 sticks of butter, really cold, cut into small chunks

2 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

a few tablespoons of ICE COLD water. I am serious. put some ice cubes in a cup of water.

rolling pin

wax paper

Why all this

coldness? Because the secret to a good flaky pie crust is to not work up the gluten in the flour, and keeping all things cold (plus handling the dough as little as possible) will keep that gluten at bay.

Combine the sugar, salt, and flour in a bowl.

Add your chunks of butter to the flour, crumbling it together with you hands. Some people use a pastry-cutter type tool for this. If you have one, knock yourself out. But as we like to say in our kitchens "Hey, fingers work just fine!" Try not to knead the butter and flour too much, in fact it is okay if there are some small lumps of butter still left in tact, but you do want it to be mixed pretty well before adding your ice water, a table spoon at a time-- less water also equals lower gluten work up, and a dryer, flakier dough. You don't want your dough to be sticky, it makes the next step trickier.

The Next Step:

Divide your dough into equal portions. Place one on a sheet of waxed paper, then cover with an equal-sized sheet of wax paper. Use your rolling pin to smooth the dough out evenly between the pieces of wax paper. (It is a fun under-the-influence activity to control the direction the dough spreads in via the power of your mighty rolling pin, but again, we urge you to not get too wrapped up in this and discover that you have spent the last 20 minutes rolling the dough into a layer so thin that you can see through it)

Set aside the dough still within it's wax paper (in a fridge is ideal) and give portion #2 the same treatment.

Remove the half you first set aside in the fridge, peel one side of the wax paper off carefully, flip the exposed-dough side down into your pie pan, and peel off the other layer of wax paper. There are all manner of techniques to make the edges of your crust pretty. I like to just roll the dough up so that it is all on the edge of the pie pan (not hanging over the sides) and then pinch it between my fingers at regular intervals.

The second layer that you set aside will eventually become the top layer of crust after you have added your filling. Usually I like to get the bottom crust installed in the pan, then put it all back in the fridge to deal with the filling knowing that the stressful part is over.

The beauty of pie is that you can fill it with whatever the ding dang dong you want! For this recipe I sauteed a bunch of shitake, porcini, and white mushrooms in some butter with an onion, thyme, rosemary, sage, salt, and pepper. I also added a splash of sherry. Mmm. Mushrooms release a lot of water as they cook, so don't be afraid to cook them uncovered even if they seem dry at first. Also, let them stand for a few minutes and cool before pouring it all into your crust.

Once you have filled your pie crust with mushroomy goodness, top with some medallions of goat cheese, and the top layer of crust. Bake it at 350 for 25ish minutes.

Eat with pride that you have mastered the elusive (but not really that complicated) art of the crust.

*A final serving suggestion: yes, pie on its own is awesome, but pie with mashed potatoes is even better. Ours were roasted garlic and we threw in a sweet potato, too.