I’m not much of a baker and I’m also usually not much for things like celebrating “Pi Day” with pie. However, when we were invited to a “Pi/Pie Day” potluck this weekend there was no way I was going to pass up the opportunity to eat some of the pies and tarts from a bunch of complete ringers among the other guests, a couple of them professionals in all but name. Of course, this meant I had to bake a pie too.

Despite my new-found proficiency with rolling chapatis and parathas, pie dough freaks me out completely and so this led to much paralysis as I canvassed everyone I could think of for ideas for idiot-proof dough (the filling I was not worried about). Finally, I settled on using the galette dough from the excellent Baking with Julia book (the recipe is by Flo Braker and is available here). I’ve made galettes using that dough (galettes don’t require precision rolling) and so figured I would be able to handle it. Things didn’t go quite as smoothly as I”d hoped on the dough/crust front (for details on which see the captions in the slideshow below). However, the filling came together very nicely: I improvised a spiced meat filling using ground beef from the portion of the cow we bought last month, Indian spices, raisins and dried cherries. Continue reading →