This post has nothing to do with pie

I got back late last night from a much needed weekend getaway out west. Southwest, to be more specific. I had the pleasure of taking a mini round-trip road trip from Denver, CO to Albuquerque, NM, and filled my five days with beautiful vistas, rising mountains, kitschy travel lodge signs, and endless and empty roads. After many (many) months of not leaving the overcrowded and often really smelly subways and streets of New York, this was a much needed respite. I was able to find some pie (that'll be discussed and dissected in a later post), but I basically spent the time flipping through magazines, enjoying the unraveling scenery and taking a bajillion photos. Here are some of my favorites :)

Disclaimer: It was unfortunately and uncharacteristically cloudy for the first two days of the road trip, so I took that opportunity to experiment with some fun photo filters. The following pictures were taken with my iPhone and edited with the pretty fantastic PhotoToaster app.

Downtown Denver

Black and white tree outside of Red Rocks

Walkin'

Roadside signs abound

Rural New Mexico

Finding art at the Denver Art Center

Drivin along in my automobile

Things you don't get to see in Manhattan

Looking down at Red Rocks Arena

Church in Santa Fe, NM

Old sinage in Madrid, NM

Technicolor New Mexico

Outside the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History

Such blue skies

More Santa Fe church

Pretty doors

Not sure if/when we actually drove on this road, but I took a picture nonetheless

So pretty

Along the Rio Grande

More pretty

These are the skies I came to see

Looking up - Taos, NM

My favorite lone tree

Lomo-fied road

Endless road.

Sunset time

Mountains help to pass the time

A final view from seat 3A

Leavin' on a jet plane

Image courtesy of http://thatgreatlittlespot.com/

Hey all,

Just a quick note to let everyone know that I am not escaping forever, but the posts will be a little thin this week - I'm headed out on a little vacay (even pie bloggers need to rest!) and I am not (I repeat, NOT) bringing my computer along. However, be sure to check out my twitter feed (@Pies_Etc) for what I'm sure will be some completely awesome pics of the great southwest and maybe even some tasty pie pics thrown in along the way. And who knows. A friend I'm meeting up with in New Mexico has already started talking about getting me to to eat and/or make and/or discuss some sort of red vs. green chile thing and then put said chiles into a pie...I really don't know. I'm a midwestern girl at heart and current East coast transplant, the whole other half of the country is a giant mystery to me (disclaimer: just now I had to look up the correct spelling of chile. It turns out there's more to this discussion than I thought.)

So for now, may your week be sweetly filled with the sweet fillings of some delicious slices. Take care!

My soon-to-be-view

Pie Run 2012 - Shepard's Pie

Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of heading to Philadelphia to collaborate on a blog post with my friend Sean from Phat Man Running. We wrote wrote of our individual experiences on each others' sites (I talked of and showed photos from the 20 minute run we went on, he discussed the caloric breakdown of the pies we made), but I realized that I still had a phone full of pictures just begging to be uploaded. And, since no self-respecting pie blogger would ever let well-lit pictures go unposted, here's the first of the two pies we made. (Note: some of the measurements are a bit general, we didn't have access to many measuring cups so we eyeballed a lot of the cooking process)

(Note #2: I was really excited about having someone else do the cooking because that meant I could take a lot of action shots. Please excuse the slightly excessive amount of photos.)

(Note #3: When we were at the Trader Joe's buying groceries, we almost bought pre-made apple pie and called it a day. But we didn't. That's how much we honored the sanctity of our PieRun Mission.)

Pie Crust
Since Sean was running the kitchen for this portion of the day, we used his pie crust recipe - flour, salt, and butter (instead of shortening) - and made enough for two 9" crusts.

 

Ingredients
Butter for sauteing 
2 cups chopped onions
2 cups chopped carrots
8oz. can of corn
1 lb. ground beef
1 cup vegetable stock
A few splashes of red wine
Mashed potatoes as topping
     5-6 large potatoes, peeled and chopped
     1/2 stick butter
     1/2 cup buttermilk
     Salt/pepper to taste
Parmesan cheese as topping
9" pie crust

How to
Melt butter in large skillet. Add onions and carrots, saute until soft.

Add ground beef, cook until brown.

Stir in the stock and wine.


















Add the corn.

It will be soupy; cover and simmer for about 20 minutes.

While the meat is simmering, roll out half of the pie crust and place in the bottom of your pie plate. Excess crust may be consumed.

When the mixture has reduced to your liking, remove from heat and pour into the pie plate.

Spread the mashed potatoes over the meat mixture.

From a homemade piping bag, add decorative potatoes in the shape of a labyrinth. If you so choose.

Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese

Bake at 375 for about 30 minutes, or until potatoes have browned.

Then thrown yourself a very classy dinner party.

Delicioso.