Just Ordinary Skies with no Pi? #SkywatchFriday

On this Pi Day,3-14 (as we write dates in the United States) I have no pie or Pi) to offer you, only skies.   (But if you click on the link, you'll see a recipe).

Maybe to you these are ordinary skies, but to me, they announce the coming of spring and the end of ceaseless (or almost ceaseless) gloomy days.  Enjoy these pictures from earlier in the week.

Wispy skies.

Trees and river.
 

Trees in a row.

Sometimes, ordinary is so welcome. 

Happy Pi Day to all who celebrate.

Joining Yogi and other skywatchers for #SkywatchFriday.

Pi Day 2024

Today is Pi Day, 3.14 as we write the date in the United States.

Pi Day, March 14, is a day to celebrate mathematics. In the American method of day numbering, today is 3-14:  March 14.  Or, the first three digits of the mathematical value "Pi".  3.14. 

It also would have been Albert Einstein's birthday. (March 14, 1879).  145 years ago today.

Pi Day honors the number representing the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its radius.  Pi is an infinite number: it goes on indefinitely, but, not only that, it is a non repeating decimal.  And it is always a constant - each and every circle, no matter its size, has that same ratio.

That ratio had been calculated by ancient mathematicians with good accuracy.  With our supercomputers, we've computed Pi out to over 62.8 trillion digits (it may be more now).  Try memorizing that.  Some people have. I've read that the record for memorizing the value of Pi is around 70,000. digits. 

In the United States, Pi Day has become an unofficial celebration of all things circular, especially pies and pizzas.  Pizza parlors and bakeries run specials.

Today, we are not going to bake any pies, but I'm thinking of some pies of my spouse's youth.

My late mother in law used to make two types of pies for Easter - what she called a "grass" pie, and a "pizza rustica".  These are both savory pies. When she was younger, she hand made these.  In her older age she bought from bakeries where she used to live near New York City.  She traditionally served them for Easter.

The grass pie, may I reassure you, is not made from grass.  In Italy, it is known as  "torta pasqualina". The green is usually swiss chard.

 Easter is coming early this year and, as rarely happens, doesn't coincide with Passover, so I can actually eat these savory pies at the Easter table.  So I'm trying to talk my spouse into making at least one of these pies.  They are work intensive but I'm hoping he will do it. 

 Of course, he probably remembers the first time we (joint effort) tried to make a Pizza Rustica.

We'll see what happens.

Pi Day 2023 Is Coming

Tuesday will be  Pi Day, March 14.  In the midst of so much bad news (weather disasters in parts of the world, the continuing Turkey/Syria earthquake tragedy, the Silicon Valley Bank failure, the war in Ukraine, train derailments, just as some examples) we have something fun coming up on Tuesday.

March 14 is a day to celebrate mathematics. In the American method of day numbering, today is 3-14:  March 14.  This is also the first three digits of the mathematical value "Pi".  3.14

It also would have been Albert Einstein's birthday. (March 14, 1879).  144 years ago today.

Pi Day honors the number representing the radio of the circumference of a circle to its radius.  Pi is an infinite number: it goes on indefinitely, but, not only that, it is a non repeating decimal.  As of 2021, its value had been calculated to 62.8 trillion digits.

Now, it has become commercial, with pie places advertising Pi day specials. 

I'm not sure what we will do this year, but it will be homemade.  It will probably be some kind of quiche, possibly made with frozen spinach and fat free feta, something I haven't eaten in a long time.

Here are some pie recipes from my blog.

Spinach Pie 

Blueberry Pie

Pizza Rustica

"Grass" Pie (from my spouse's childhood) 

A Mock Pumpkin Pie I call Memory Pie

Why not have some fun with math?

Will you celebrate Pi Day? 

P.S. If you are looking for my 2023 Blogging from A to Z Decision and Reveal If I'm Participating, that will post on Tuesday.

Pi Day Spinach Pie

 Looking for my Music Moves Me post for this week?  Look no further - click here.

Today is Pi Day, 3.14 as we write the date in the United States.  It is time to make a different spinach pie, one that is one of my son's favorite dishes. 

Pi Day, March 14, is a day to celebrate mathematics. In the American method of day numbering, today is 3-14:  March 14.  Or, the first three digits of the mathematical value "Pi".  3.14

It also would have been Albert Einstein's birthday. (March 14, 1879).  143 years ago today.

Pi Day honors the number representing the radio of the circumference of a circle to its radius.  Pi is an infinite number: it goes on indefinitely, but, not only that, it is a non repeating decimal.  

No pattern to Pi has ever been found.  This website shows Pi computed to 100,000. digits.

To several decimal points:  3.14159265358979323846....

Many people celebrate Pi Day by eating pizza, and that's what we are going to be doing tonight - a frozen pizza.  Others celebrate with sweet pies.  Let's go with a savory one today.

Let's make a somewhat unusual spinach pie.  Or, as we will call it today, Spinach Pi.

Years ago, we lived for several years in rural Northwest Arkansas.  We had gotten into some wild foods, including lambs quarters, and wanted to see if we could make a "spinach" pie out of these nutritious wild greens a pen pal told me about.  But there were no filo leaves to be found anywhere local.

But we could find egg roll wrappers, and that's what we ended up using.

We haven't eaten wild greens in years, but the recipe remains.  Our son grew up on this spinach pie (OK, technically, not a pie) and, as I mentioned, it is one of his favorites.

This makes one eight inch square cake pan's worth.  Yes, a true Pie for Pi Day should be round but...well, this is our tradition.  You should also be able to make this in a pie pan.  One other note, this is so simple a child who enjoys cooking could help with this.

Ingredients

1 1/2 frozen chopped spinach (10 oz each) blocks

About 7 or 8 egg roll wrappers

6 oz feta cheese, crumbled (you can buy a block and crumble it yourself)

1 tbsp light butter style spread such as Olivio or real butter, as you prefer

1 tbsp (approximately) of breadcrumbs

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (I think Celsius folks would use a 170 degree oven.)

Defrost the spinach.  Melt the spread.  In an 8 inch square cake pan, lay down a wrapper and brush with a small amount of the spread.

 

Spread some spinach, then some crumbled feta cheese, top with another wrapper, and brush with the spread, similar to how you assemble a lasagna.

 

End with a wrapper, brush with spread, sprinkle with small amount of breadcrumbs.
 

Here is the assembled Pi.  I suppose you could make this "round" if you are a stickler for Pi Day celebrations.

Bake at 350 degrees F (170 C) for about 45 minutes. 

 

Serve warm or at room temperature.

One more note - this 8 inch cake pan belonged to my mother, who passed away back in 1965.  It is one of my most prized possessions.

Other Pi day posts

Memory Pie.

Several Pi Day links to other bloggers' Pi Day efforts.

Links to two other savory pi's my spouse has made.

Spinach Pi (With a Recipe)#PiDay

Today is Pi Day, and it's time to make a different spinach pie, one that is one of my son's favorite dishes.

Pi Day, March 14, is a day to celebrate mathematics. In the American method of day numbering, today is 3-14:  March 14.  Or, the first three digits of the mathematical value "Pi".

It also would have been Albert Einstein's birthday.

Pi Day honors the number representing the radio of the circumference of a circle to its radius.  Pi is an infinite number - it goes on indefinitely, but, not only that, it is a non repeating decimal.  No pattern to Pi has ever been found.  This website shows Pi computed to 100,000. digits.

To several decimal points:  3.14159265358979323846....

Now, about that spinach pie.  Or, as we will call it today, Spinach Pi.

Years ago, we lived for several years in rural Northwest Arkansas.  We had gotten into some wild foods, including lambs quarters, and wanted to see if we could make a "spinach" pie out of these nutritious wild greens a pen pal told me about.  But there were no filo leaves to be found anywhere local.

But we could find egg roll wrappers, and that's what we ended up using.

We haven't eaten wild greens in years, but the recipe remains.  Our son grew up on this spinach pie (OK, technically, not a pie) and, as I mentioned, it is one of his favorites.

This makes one eight inch square cake pan's worth.  Yes, a true Pie for Pi Day should be round but...well, this is our tradition.  You should also be able to make this in a pie pan.  One other note, this is so simple a child who enjoys cooking could help with this.

Ingredients

1 1/2 frozen chopped spinach (10 oz each) blocks

About 7 or 8 egg roll wrappers

6 oz feta cheese, crumbled (you can buy a block and crumble it yourself)

1 tbsp light butter style spread such as Olivio

1 tbsp (approximately) of breadcrumbs

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

Defrost the spinach.  Melt the spread.  In an 8 inch square cake pan, lay down a wrapper and brush with a small amount of the spread.

 

Spread some spinach, then some crumbled feta cheese, top with another wrapper, and brush with the spread, similar to how you assemble a lasagna.

 

End with a wrapper, brush with spread, sprinkle with small amount of breadcrumbs.
 

Here is the assembled Pi.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes.  Serve warm or at room temperature.

One more note - this 8 inch cake pan belonged to my mother, who passed away back in 1965.  It is one of my most prized possessions.

Do you have any plans for Pi Day?

 

Here's another one of my Pi Day posts, if you need further inspiration.

Keep Calm and Eat Pie - Pi Day 2020

Oh, do we need some comforting, we in today's United States. We don't know where to turn, and wherever we do turn, there are reminders of us living on the knife's edge (to use a cliche) of uncertainty.

On top of that, today is Pi Day.  You know, in our numbering system 3/14.  Or 3.14.  We are supposed to celebrate by eating, or making (or both), pizza pie, any type of pie.  Pie, yummy pie.

But something not funny happened on the way to the store.  Yesterday, spouse and I went to our local supermarket at 8:30 am to pick up a prescription and get a couple of bagels for breakfast (I had taken the day off of work).  The parking lot was packed, and as we went into the store we felt like salmon swimming upstream, as we passed shoppers pushing carts out of the store, loaded with...well, anything.

This is what I found at the entrance.

The natural remedies section.

Toilet paper.

Wet wipes.

I didn't check the pie section but the bakery area had another hand sanitizer station.

I think we've all seen enough.  It's time to make Pi.

Here are a couple of my posts from previous years, if you need something to get in the mood.

Pizza Rustica
Grass Pie

A link to various (not mine)  "pi" recipes, too.

Guess what, though.  I'm not going to make Pi today.  Spouse and I did get out and take a walk and we went into a store and got something I'll make tomorrow for my son.  Tonight, spouse is making some beef broth and we are going to have onion soup from some of the strawberry onions we bought the other week.

It's hard not to give in to fear, to find that line between social distancing and loneliness, and to remember that there are lots more people in a bad way than we think.  Let's think of our senior relatives and neighbors, or those who are immune-impaired, or the disabled among us with health issues.  Let's wash our hands, not hoard.  Think of someone today.  Call or email them.

Let's turn to music when all else fails.  Let's remember we are the human race.  We are all one.  Our human race has faced adversary before.  We will face it again.  We will get through this.

Too many times, we do forget that.

Pi Day - Pizza Rustica

Tomorrow, March 14, is Pi Day.  In the method Americans use write dates, tomorrow is 3-14 - the 14th day of March, and first three significant digits of the mathematical constant π.

I won't have this "Pi" tomorrow, but it would make a nice project for lovers of savory pies. (Pie - pi...get it?)

Pi Day has become a "thing" in the United States. In Wichita, Kansas, where the Pizza Hut chain started, many pizzerias are offering pies for $3.14 - way below what they would normally charge.

My offering for Pi Day:

Pizza Rustica is a savory meat and cheese pie traditionally served in Italian households for Easter and there are many variations.  Some put both sausage and ham into it.  Some will put hard boiled eggs into it.  Some people use a yeast dough for the shell, some a pie crust.  Back when I first published this, I used a store made pie crust, since I am not noted for my pie crust making abilities.

But, as my regular readers know, I am not much of a cook.  So I enlisted my spouse, the family cook, in what turned out to be a lot more of a project than we had bargained for.

This is the recipe I used for the pie.  Sorry, metric readers, you are on your own today.

Some of the ingredients

This is how it would have worked for anyone who knew what she was doing.

First, ingredient assembly.
1 package (2) store made pie crust - unwrap,  Line a 10 inch pie pan with one crust.  Prick dough with a fork.

Now the filling:
1 1/2 pounds cooked ham, diced
2 lb ricotta cheese (we used part skim)
12 ounces mozzarella cheese, diced
5 farm fresh eggs
1 tbsp chopped fresh Italian flat leaved parsley
1/4 cup freshly grated romano cheese

Method 
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large bowl, combine ricotta, mozzarella.

Add eggs one at a time.  Beat with a wooden spoon. 

Add the other ingredients and stir well.  Now, pour your mixture into the pie pan and top with the second crust.

Bake the pie for 15 minutes in preheated oven, then lower the temperature to 325 and bake for about (well, read on).

Now, for what really happened.

I made the ricotta cheese mixture, after spouse chopped all the ingredients.

Then, I took the pie crust package out of the fridge and I unrolled the pie crust.  Or, I tried to.  It started to immediately crack and crumble.  I turned to my spouse. "It's all dry!" I cried. "We have to take it back to the store." (Experienced pie bakers, please don't laugh too loudly).

Spouse disagreed.  He read the directions.  "Take package out and let sit for 15 to 20 minutes. Then roll out crust...". So what we ended up doing was putting the box on the stove top, nice and warm from the preheated oven.

That did the trick...sort of.

Then he looked at the bowl of ricotta cheese mixture I had prepared. He looked at the pie pan. He looked at the bowl of ricotta cheese mixture again. "That's never going to fit in that pie pan", he observed. "There is way too much."

He took out a springform pan and said "This will probably work".

So, after much fumbling and patching of holes, we (and it was "we") got the first pie crust in.  I poured in the mixture.  After more fumbling, got the top crust in.  Brushed it with egg mixture.  Put it in the oven, followed the directions.  The hour of baking ended.

It wasn't anywhere near ready.

So we ended up cooking this a lot more, until the crust was a bit past golden brown.

And it was delicious.  Really.

Just perfect for Pi Day.

Winter Wonders - Pi Day 2018

In the American method of day numbering, today is 3-14:  March 14.  Or, the first three digits of the mathematical value "Pi".

Today we celebrate Pi Day, in honor of the number representing the radio of the circumference of a circle to its radius.  Pi is an infinite number - it goes on indefinitely, but, not only that, it is a non repeating decimal.  No pattern to Pi has ever been found.  This website shows Pi computed to 100,000. digits.

To several decimal points:  3.14159265358979323846....

Some pizza chains have specials on Pi Day to celebrate pizza pie.

Other institutions serve pie.  Why not? It's a circle!

Pi day even has a website devoted to it.

Here is the history of Pi. 

Today, to celebrate Pi Day, two pie recipe posts from my blog.  Enjoy!

Pizza Rustica.

Torta Pasqualina (grass pie). 

Do you plan to celebrate Pi Day?  Do you have a favorite pie you are baking today?  Or, will you be working with children to teach them about mathematics?

A Thanksgiving Memory - #FlavoursomeTuesdays

A while back, in 2015, I shared the below memory with you of my young adulthood, when my spouse was in the Air Force, and we were spending our first military Thanksgiving, together with other people serving, away from home.  At that time, I couldn't find the recipe for my Memory Pie, which is a soybean pie (no, really, please keep reading) that tastes like a pumpkin pie.

But, thanks to a decluttering project, I have found the recipe.  This was my second copy of the cookbook - I had worn the first one to shreds.

So what happened when I found the recipe?

I offered to make it, but my spouse took one look at the recipe, and said "no". When we went to our local supermarket, I couldn't even find dried soybeans.  So I am not going to bake a pie for you.

I will leave you, instead, with a link to the recipe, which is available online.

But I will not leave you with the pie.  Just a memory for FlavoursomeTuesdays, a weekly meme started by two bloggers.  Here is my memory:

It was the mid 1970's and we were over a thousand miles from home.  It was my spouse's first Thanksgiving in the military.  He was undergoing technical training in Texas.  And he had friends in his class, all of whom were far away from home, too.

For the most part we were in our late teens or early 20's, but among us was a slightly older man.  Sgt W. was from Iowa and he was a soybean farmer.  As I recall, he had joined the National Guard and was training with my spouse's Air Force class.

Sgt W. had never eaten a soybean.  He had never sampled the crop he grew.

In the mid 1970's, soybeans weren't common the way they are today.  But I had become an on and off vegetarian in college, and I had fallen in love with a couple of books - Diet for a Small Planet and Recipes for a Small Planet.  As I wasn't working at the time, and my spouse was making the tiny salary of an airman, money was tight and we used the methods explained in this book to stay healthy.  We ate whole grain homemade breads, bean and rice casseroles, and even dishes made with the healthy soybean.

In one of these books was a recipe for a mock pumpkin pie made with pureed soybeans, pumpkin pie spice and other ingredients I can't remember (nor could I find the recipe in a long Internet search last night). 

My spouse invited several of his classmate friends, including Sgt W., to Thanksgiving dinner.  And, an idea hatched in my mind.  Why not make something with soybeans for him?

We had a turkey, and other items no longer remembered.  It was one of the happiest Thanksgivings I remember, because we were all away from home but not lonely, and I remember our companionship much more than I remember the food.

Except for one thing.  When I served my "pumpkin pie", Sgt W. dug in, and said he liked it.  So did everyone else.  I even liked it, and I don't like pumpkin pie.

So I admitted to him that his "pumpkin pie" was really soybean pie.  And he didn't seem to mind.

I wonder what he said when he returned home to Iowa when his class was over.  We never saw him again after that.

I don't know where Sgt W. lives today, or if he is even alive.  Sadly, I  know at least one of the young men at that dinner passed several years ago.  So I don't know if W. remembers the young woman he had Thanksgiving with, in an apartment near an Air Force base in Texas in the mid 1970's, and the soybean pie she served him.

If you are out there, Sgt. W, Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.

Join Bellybytes at Mumbai on a High and Shilpa Gupte at Metanoia at #FlavoursomeTuesdays.

Happy Pi Day 2017 - Weight Watching Shepherd's Pie

Today is Pi Day, so named because, in the American way of writing dates, it is 3-14, which is also the first three digits of the value of Pi.  Here is a brief history of pi, which is the relationship of the radius of a circle to its diameter.  No matter how big or small the circle is, pi is the same.  Additionally, pi never repeats because it is an irrational number.  This, in fact, was first proven in 1761.

Hence, it has become a day for celebrating science, and pie...I mean, pi.

Today, I feature my spouse, the family cook, and his first attempt yesterday at a Weight Watching Shepherd's Pie. This serves two as a main course.  If you aren't weight watching, you may want to make more.

My spouse has been cooking for over 50 years, so he is someone who doesn't measure.  All of this is approximate, so don't blame me if it doesn't come out right.

Ingredients
3/4 lb peeled and cooked (boiled) potatoes
1 oz  butter (yes, butter. Why? Because the rich taste of butter enables the cook to use other calorie-friendly ingredients).
3 medium cloves garlic (or to taste), crushed against the flat edge of a cleaver
1 medium onion, chopped into small cubes
1/4 lb baby carrots, chopped into small cubes
1/2 a large stalk of celery (optional)
1/2 a large sweet pepper, your choice of color, chopped into small cubes
About 1 cup combined almond milk and concentrated turkey bone broth (spouse couldn't estimate how much exactly)
8 oz cooked turkey, chopped into small cubes

The ingredients, assembled

We didn't have peas in the house, but if you wish, you can add 1/2 a cup of frozen peas.  However, on Weight Watchers, you would have to charge points for the peas - we would rather spend the points on the butter.  (Since we use an older Weight Watchers program, we haven't tried to calculate modern Smart Points.)

Raw veggies and garlic, assembled

Method

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

First, you are going to cook the vegetables.  Start by sauteing the garlic in about 1 tbsp of butter, for just a few seconds until it just starts to brown.

Immediately, add onion and celery and cook until they soften. Then, add the peppers and carrots. Let everything saute over medium heat, covered, for about 10 minutes.  Add the peas last, if you have them.

In the meantime, take the cooked potatoes, put in a saucepan with the rest of the butter,  Mash, and keep warm.

Incidentally, if you saw the sprouting eyes on the potatoes, you may want to note that these were German Butterball potatoes, bought at a local farmers market last fall. They showed some pretty good storage qualities!

Now, on medium low heat, make the sauce.


Sauce
Sprinkle 2 tbsp of white whole wheat flour or plain white flour onto the cooked veggies, and cook about two minutes, letting the flour get incorporated and slightly cooked (so it loses the raw taste it would otherwise have). You want to hear sizzling and see steam, but don't burn anything.  Let cook, uncovered, three to four minutes.

Now add liquid - part almond milk  a little at a time, stir, let thicken, until you have a sauce in the pan which is like a thin pancake batter.  Now, start adding the turkey broth and keep stirring.  You want this to continue to thicken.

Add the turkey.  Stir.

Now, pour the mixture into a pie pan.  Take the mashed potatoes and totally cover the top of the mixture, making sure there are no holes.  You are treating this as an upper crust.

Now bake at 450 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until crust forms on the potato and it is lightly browned.  Let set for several minutes.  It was a good first effort, but again, not highly traditional.

Enjoy, because enjoying food, unlike Pi, is quite rational.

Pie Report and St. Patrick's Day Crochet

Today, I repeat a post from years ago.

May the luck of the Irish be with you this St. Patrick's Day.  But first, I need to (as the expression goes) tie up a loose end.

Remember the pi, I mean pi, my spouse (with encouragement from me) made for Pi Day what some Italians call "grass pie" but is also called Torta Pasqualina?

I promised I would tell you how it tasted.  And then, I wrote two posts about my flowers.

So, in case you were wondering...

It was delicious!  The crust, made from pizza dough, was perfect.  It was even Weight Watchers friendly.  And here's a picture of the final result.  We gave some to my mother in law, and I hope she and my brother in law "B", who lives with her, enjoyed it, too.

Not quite a St. Patrick's Day dish but part of it is green.

And now for traditional St. Patrick's Day post.

St. Patrick's Day Crochet

I've been crocheting for some 45 years now.  I don't do as much as I used to, for various reasons, but I still crochet a gift or two each year. I also work on crochet projects when I am on the road, since my loving spouse does the driving.

I haven't blogged much about my crochet hobby, but crochet has been a treasured part of my life.  My Mom wanted to teach me to crochet but rheumatoid arthritis robbed her of her ability to do any needlework by the time I was old enough. Instead, a high school friend taught me, and I've never looked back.  But although she didn't teach me, I still feel a link to my Mom whenever I pick up a hook.

These are both projects I worked on 20 or more years ago.  I got the afghan pattern from a magazine that no longer exists, I believe.

I have no idea where I got the pattern for the Christmas stocking.  But there is a special reason why the stocking has shamrocks on it.

This has a special meaning for me and a certain family member.  I made this for his first birthday.

So, today, although I am not Irish, I will wear some green. And wish family member a happy birthday.

Is St. Patrick's Day special to you?

Pi Day - Torta Pasqualina

Today is Pi Day - March 14.

Pi is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, commonly approximated as 3.1415.  It was also genius scientist's Albert Einstein's birthday (March 14, 1879).  In recent years, in the United States, it has taken off as an unofficial holiday (March 14, or 3-14 as we write dates in the United States) where you are supposed to make - or eat - a pi.  Excuse me, a pie.

Pie bakeries now report that March 14 is one of the busiest days of the year for them.

I am not a pie baker but now, for the first time, I am swept up in this celebration.

My mother in law, and relatives before her, used to make two types of pies for Easter - what she called a "grass" pie, and a "pizza rustica".  These are both savory pies that are a part of my spouse's childhood and young adult memories. 

For Pi Day, I decided that I  my spouse would attempt the grass pie, also known as torta pasqualina.  We both follow the Weight Watchers diet (the old points plus system, not the current system) and wanted to make some kind of compromise that both we, and my mother in law, would enjoy.

There are so many versions of this pie and spouse decided to incorporate what he remembered from his childhood.  A lot of versions, for example, call for making indentations in the filling, cracking eggs and dropping the contents into the wells - this wasn't a part of the tradition he remembered.

This is what he did.  Note, the bacon is optional - we just happened to have some.  Also, for the crust of the pie, we were intending to use phyllo dough.  But, needless to say, we forgot to buy it.  So we decided to go to our local store and get some ready made frozen pizza dough, instead.  We made the pie yesterday, as we both had to work today.

Recipe:
(Metric folk, you are on your own. Sorry.)

1 bunch Swiss Chard
6 oz Tuscan kale (can use regular kale)
1/2 pound baby bok choy
2 oz arugula
(you can substitute other greens - traditionally this is made with swiss chard, and even early spring wild greens.)
1 teaspoon (tsp) oil of your choice - spouse used olive
2 oz thick cut local bacon (optional)
1 medium yellow onion, chopped and caramelized 
3 cloves of garlic
1 cup ricotta (we used a "small batch" part skim ricotta made in Wisconsin).
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
4 farm fresh eggs
1/4 tsp nutmeg (spouse uses a nutmeg and grates fresh but you don't have to)
1/3 cup parsley
1 package frozen pizza dough, thawed and cut in two equal pieces
10 inch spring form pan.

Method:

What we call Swiss chard in the United States

Chop the greens except the arugula.

and cook with enough water to cover, about 5 minutes.  Drain.

Meanwhile, saute the onion in about 1 tsp of oil with the garlic  until golden brown. then simmer on low heat to caramelize the onion.  Then add the chopped bacon and about 2 tbsp of water, mix together, cover, turn heat off, leave until cool.

When done, set aside greens and onion mixtures to cool, perhaps about 20 min. They must be cool enough to squeeze the greens out.  You can reserve this liquid for another use.

Add the onion mixture to the greens mixture, set aside.

Meantime, spouse grated the Parmesan cheese and set it aside with the ricotta.

Beat the four eggs (then set aside about three tablespoon of the beaten egg).  Make the cheese mixture by mixing the Parmesan, the ricotta, with the remaining eggs, and parsley.  Add the nutmeg and stir.

Now it is time to make the crust.  Take slightly more than 1/2 of the pizza dough, roll out. (the bottom has to be bigger than the top)

Set into the pan.

Add the greens mixture.

Add the cheese mixture.

Roll out the other half of the pizza dough, add it to the top.  There will be some dough from the bottom hanging over the side.  Take that dough and fold it over onto the top crust, then brush with the reserved egg. No need to make any vent holes.   Bake about 50 minutes at 350 degrees or until golden brown.  

Let sit at least 10 minutes.

The results?  We will have the pie tonight and I'll let you know. 

Happy Pi day!  Are you participating?

Pi Day Preparation, Easter Pies and Blog Roundup #9

Today I am keeping this short - I have a pie (or two) to research, because tomorrow, March 14, is "Pi Day" (3-14). Last year was a true "Pi Day" (3.1415....) but hey, who can resist a good pie?

My mother in law used to make two types of pies for Easter - what she called a "grass" pie, and a "pizza rustica".  These are both savory pies.  In recent years, she's bought them from a bakery from where she used to live.  But where she is living now, near us in upstate New York, I don't think there is any bakery that makes these.  So it will be up to...gulp, me, someone who is not known for her pie baking.  Or cooking in general.

The grass pie, may I reassure you, is not made from grass.  In Italy, it is known as  "torta pasqualina". The green is usually swiss chard.

My challenge is to make something easy and something in between "so Weight Watchers friendly no one else will touch it" and "heart attack in a slice".   Pi Day will be a test run for something I might make just before Easter so my mother in law can nibble on it on the days leading up to the feast.  That's what I am researching now.

The crust will need to be store made because it also needs to be edible.  I think I can handle the rest, with my spouse's help.  Hopefully, I'll report on what happened tomorrow in my Pi Day post (and it won't be a disaster).  Easter is coming early this year and, as rarely happens, doesn't coincide with Passover, so I can actually eat these savory pies at the Easter table instead of drooling while my Christian in-laws dig in. 

Are you gearing up for Pi Day?  If so, you may want to hop on over to Baking in a Tornado - at the bottom she has a link to 11 Pi Day pies.  And, this will be the first link I will share with you today - you'll also love her recipe for Pistachio Bread. 

At Cresting the Hill, we ask: Why do we blog? what do we get out of it?

Carol Cassara, several days ago, had a guest post:  it was one of the best blog posts I've every read, called "On the day I die".

And finally, from Dr. Roshan (a man, and that matters) in India, a powerful post about a subject too many of us close our eyes to (note, adult content - must read adult content).

Thank you for stopping by - and I would love to hear about your Pi Day Plans.