Pot Pie But Tiny

Macy's had a useless kitchen appliances clearance a few months back, and on the tables of stuff were several of what looked like little pot-pie makers. My now mother-in-law, seeing my excitement, decided that I should get one for the wedding. In fact, little pot-pie makers are exactly what they were. Tiny tiny pot pie makers. One maker can make up to four pies at once, just make the dough, cut it out, and add a dollop of your favorite filling.

Well, I took that pie maker home and in the hubhub, there it sat off to the side on my kitchen floor, still in its box. That just wouldn't do, so when I finally found the time (and a temperature low enough that made cooking in the kitchen comfortable), I made up a batch of chickpea stew, sans the dumplings. The stew went straight into pyrex and got shoved into the fridge for later pie-making use.

TIny Pot Pies a la Useless Kitchen Appliance Pie Maker

For the crust, I used the family recipe, that involves combining flour, water, and Crisco, among other things, in a (washed and empty) sealed ice cream tub and shaking them into a ball. The idea behind the recipe is fairly brilliant. However, the concept does not extend so well to square-shaped containers. I know this well now, because I had no ice cream tubs handy. The only big, lidded tub we had was a rectangular prism. The binding agents in the mix cling to the corners and the whole thing just never balled. I had to open it up and mix by hand, but it never really recovered. I had to finagle that dough into shape and then doctor it when it kept cracking.

Consequently, if you want a pie maker of your very own, it recommends just buying some pre-made crust and to heck with it. I admit to feeling temptation for this method of pie crust creation.

Anyway, the pie maker comes with cutters to cut your dough to just the right size circle. Then the filling goes in and you close the maker until the pies are done. That's it. And you have pie. Each one only has about a five inch diameter but hey, easy pie is easy pie.

With the extra pie dough, I made a piggy roll. I'm not sure if this is a real thing or something my grandmother made up at some point. Either way, it's a family tradition that all dough already rolled but not baked in a pie should be turned into a piggy roll.

Piggy Roll

1. Put all the dough scraps into a new ball of dough and roll it out thin.

2. Slather the top in butter, spread sugar across the whole of it, and sprinkle cinnamon over that.

3. Roll it up into a long tube.

4. Pop it in the oven at 350 until starts to brown at the edges.

5. Cut it up and eat, but do yourself a favor and let it cool first.

It makes a simple but tasty dessert.