Pie and Blasphemy

I finally got everything required to make a pie. I had planning on making Figgy Apple Hand Pies from Vegan Pie in the Sky for a few weeks, but kept having ingredient shortages. Over the weekend, I solved that problem, and got to work.

The pies were easy to make, even with a series of user errors that stalled the crust completion. Even the folding of little dough rectangles was easier than I would have anticipated.

They are lovely little pies, and the taste is completely pleasant without being cloyingly sweet. They almost seem appropriate for breakfast.

I will definitely make these again, but that's actually my chief complaint. I followed the directions and measurements perfectly. That includes filling the dough rectangles with a "scant 1/4 cup of filling." Well, it did until I immediately realized that I'd have more filling than necessary, and went with a not-so-scant 1/4 cup in each.

Even after that, I had only used half of the filling made. That means I had 2 entire cups of filling left over. Seriously? That's very annoying. I would have happily made a double batch of dough before I'd cleaned everything up. Hell, if it didn't need 40 minutes chilling time in the fridge, I'd have made a whole new batch right there.

It's one thing to have a little left over, but to have literally twice what you need gets wasteful. Of course I'll make another batch of pies, and yes, I know it could be worse. Nearly everything could be worse.

So I put a note in my book to make double the dough next time around, but I wonder if that should be my rule of thumb for hand pies from the book? I will make them again beyond this week to use up the dough. They'd be brilliant in kids' lunch boxes.

The thing is, this is the third pie I've made from this book. I didn't do a write-up on the Grasshopper Pie, but I wasn't really impressed with the texture or taste. I found the Apple Crisp a little ho-hum. Now I have a pie that's pretty good, but with an avoidable error in the recipe. This all makes me uncomfortable because I swear by Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar and Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I have never had a flop from either.

In fact, anything by Moskowitz or Romero has been a smashing success for me. Maybe such consistent high performance sets an unfair standard. Writing this, I couldn't help but feel guilty about criticizing the work of two people who I admire so much.

I know three pies from a book are not enough by which to judge, though. You won't see me over at Amazon, writing a lengthy review based on such a pathetic sample size. In fact, I'll be even more determined to try more pies, and to see what the book really has in store.

Vegan Mofo 13: Fig Lentil Soup

I almost skipped this one from 500 Vegan Recipes because it meant an expensive side trip to Whole Foods for dried figs, but my always-intrepid better half reminded me that it's not that big of a deal.

And as it turned out, Safeway had dried figs that were even on sale!

Out of the soups I've made in the past week, this was the most complicated as it called for two pots and had the longest ingredient list. Even still, soup is just easy, so this was no big deal to make. "Complicated" is a gross overstatement.

Listen, there are only so many ways that I can say that the stuff I make tastes good, and so I keep writing that dishes were great or delicious. This soup barely survived the night. I had to hide a portion quickly for my lunch today because it was just so delicious. It was a little spicy and a little sweet, depending on what was in each spoonful. I might have to make more today.

The recipe has you make a soup and a fig spread, but doesn't explicitly tell you how to combine them. For the first bowls, I tossed a spoonful of spread in each, but after the first bite, I realized that the figs would be even better if given a moment to mingle, so I stirred all of the spread into the pot. I figured seconds would be even better ... and they were!

However this soup really knocked it out of the park as breakfast. I had the portion I'd squirreled away, and the resting time allowed the flavors to mingle. Every bite tasted savory like tomato and rosemary, and sweet like figs! I would definitely suggest this as a holiday dinner soup. I might make a tureen of it to haul to my parents' place, where my sisters will be making a gluten-free holiday meal.