A good pie is pretty easy to find now days, and there are plenty of pie specialty places, Sylvia & Frans, Heather Brae, Pie in the Sky and Crescent Head Bakery, But you can make your own too!

I can’t remember eating a bad pie in ages, mainly because I have been spoilt by the efforts of the places mentioned above and won’t eat one from a petrol station oven.

But what is a bad pie? One where the main ingredient is missing. What annoys me most when I find a bad pie is that they have not put care into it. They have selected crap meat to save money, it’s chopped roughly into too-large chunks with bits of fat and sinew attached and the flavour of the watery gravy tastes like a rendering plant due to all the gelatine. Another pet hate is soggy pastry due to runny gravy making it impossible to eat without it running down your arm. Then theres the lack of imagination when selecting fillings. (STEAK, STEAK & ONION, STEAK & CHEESE, BEEF AND BACON and CHILLI if you are lucky)

I like pies, I like beer, I really like pies made with beer like a Guinness Pot Pie which is something that I just have to order if it’s on the menu, same goes for Kangaroo and eggs benedict some things I just can’t say no to.

So you should be able to put anything in a pie if you think about it a bit and compliment it with some veggies, spices and creative sauces so I’m going to try it.

Now that I can make pies I would like people to come up with some ideas and I will design, test and review the creations

Not having made pies before I went looking for a pie tray in Big W but no luck the closest thing was a Texas Muffin tray so I just bought this gadget

Diced round steak from the butcher was too chunky and contained some sinew

So I chopped it into smaller sugar cube sized chunks

I also dismembered a chicken and kept the scraps to use later in a pie but it didn’t eventuate – see below

Fry up some onion and the brown the meat

Add some beef stock, tomato paste, red wine, worcester sauce, salt and pepper and simmer for about 1 hour

Then add some corn flour and water to thicken the gravy before use

When the meat is almost cooked get out the pastry sheets to defrost 1 x puff (lid) and 2 x short crust (base)

The Pie maker came with a pastry cutter that puts slits in the base so you can overlap and fit the base into the mould, It’s a bit tricky as the pie machine is on and bloody hot

Spoon half a cup of filling into the base and put the puff pastry top on and close the machine which then crimps and seals the pies

Cook for about 12 mins, i checked after 10 and they looked done

The one on the top left mustn’t have had  enough filling – still tasted good though

The finished product

Verdict – Excellent especially with beer and potato crisps

So I had some leftover chicken  and pastry scraps and was going to make a chicken pie for Emma but she didn’t want it and went off to Venturers after having 2 min noodles as usual

I thought a dessert pie was on the cards so I chopped up about 1/2 cup of banana and then topped up with thin sliced apple

I chucked it in the base and then spooned in some peanut butter and some raspberry jam and topped it with some Rum & Raisin chocolate and brown sugar

Banana and apple cooked in raspberry jam and peanut butter with chocolate melting on top!

Oh It was horrible !… don’t ever make one !… really it was crap….. I’m not lying…i had to give it to the dog … no need to experiment people… stick to boring old beef  ….don’t try anything new  😉

Now seriously it tasted UNREAL…However you could virtually chuck anything in there and it would taste good

I am going to ask for suggestions and do some experiments, give me some ideas,  let me know what I should try next?