Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is the second one of these I have purchased. The first one was 18 dollars and I thought it great deal. Picked the second one up here for 12 dollars which almost felt like a giveaway. First of all I love making pies in these. I do chicken and beef pot pies on a regular basis and have corning ware pie pans and these. I love these. I think that they give just that little bit better pie when pre-heated and used. I did lightly add to the existing cure when I got them. Just wipe with your preference in oil and heat in oven for a while or even just put on stove top and keep wiping a think layer of oil on the hot pie pan as it smokes/dries on. doesn't take much. Honestly because you are using a pie crust that has a lot of buttery or other oil incorporated into it actually adds a little every time you use it. I have never had it stick, burn or be hard to clean with more than a rinse at the sink and a quick wipe. Then heat on stove top to dry and wipe thin coat of oil on it. Here is my crust recipe and then below it my pie recipe. It is really hard to mess these up and really easy to make. rolling the crust is the hardest and most time consuming part. If you use a pre made crust you could have a pie in the oven cooking in 5 or 6 minutes. Takes more time to pre-heat the pan than to make the pie. Doing your own crust is a 20 minute add on time wise but for me it is well worth it (clean up of flour and mixing bowl and cutting board I roll the dough out on is my biggest irritant. My family begs me to make these on a regular basis and even if there are leftovers they get eaten the next day. Basic Pie Crust Serves: 4 Ingredients • 2 cups all-purpose or bread flour (You can even use a self rising flour if you want it to rise a bit thicker.) • 1 teaspoon salt • 2/3 cup butter • 5 to 7 tablespoons cold water • Sugar 1 tablespoon (optional) (I do not use sugar in my pie crusts for non desert recipes such as chicken pot pie etc..) Directions I recommend sifting the flour first but have made pie crusts without sifting. In a large bowl combine flour and salt. Cut in butter to flour and salt mixture. (I have a trick I use for cutting in the butter. I take a cold or frozen stick of butter and a hand grater and grate it with the coarse side of the grater. This allows for a very even and easy incorporation of the butter. Which will make the crust flakier.) Add water and mix until all the flour is damp/wet. The least amount of water that does the job is best. Dump out dough on to a floured surface and roll out to approx 1/8 inch thick. If your going to make a lot of pies I suggest making a round templates of the right size to cut out the tops and bottoms of your pie crusts. I have also just turned my pie plate upside down over the dough and cut out the bottom crust by cutting around the plate about 1 ½ inches from the pie plate. For the top crust I cut against the pie plate. Fill pie with filling of choice :) apple pie, chicken pot pie, etc.. Now take top crust and place over pie. Go around outside edge and crimp together edges of bottom and top pie crust. Most people use their thumbs to push down on the edge just slightly overlapping each thumb press to make a good seal as the crust is joined. This is why pie plates have a wide flat or scalloped edge. It gives a nice wide flat area to crimp the edges together. I have used cast iron skillets to do pies in but a straight thin edge such as the lip of the cast iron skillet does not work nearly as well. Cut 4 to 8 small slits in the top of the pie crust before baking. It is hard to go wrong with the baking. Pre-heat your oven. Depending on your oven you can bake the pie at between 375 to 400 degrees F. Baking time can run between 35 to 50 minutes. A lot of recipes just say bake until crust browns. This is for pies that have a top crust. Open pies without a top crust you need to follow the recommended cooking directions for that specific recipe. One option with the dough once it is mixed is to just drop it in a container or zip log bag and leave in the fridge overnight. I even roll excess dough out and then place wax paper over it and roll it into the wax paper and put it in the freezer for later use. One other option is to make your pie all the way to just before cooking it and then freeze it for use later. If you want it to last longer frozen take it back out after freezing overnight and vacuum pack it and place back in freezer. Chicken Pot Pie Serves: 4 Pie Ingredients • 1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup (substitute 1 Can Cream of Chicken Soup) • ½ cup milk (substitute with heavy cream in whole or partially) • 1 Can chicken breast meat (substitute 1 Can Beef) • ½ can Canned Corn • ½ can Canned Sweet Pea’s • ½ can Canned Carrots or 2 carrots diced up. • About 1 cup broccoli cut into size of smaller stalks/heads (substitute cauliflower.) • Pepper and Salt to taste Crust Ingredients • 2 cups all-purpose or bread flour (You can even use a self rising flour if you want it to rise a bit thicker.) • 1 teaspoon salt • 2/3 cup butter (substitute lard, crisco, solid coconut oil, etc) • 5 to 7 tablespoons cold water (substitute cold milk or cream) • Use a 9 to 10 inch Pie Pan ( I have used everything from a cheap disposable tin, to pyrex, to cast iron pie pans. I love my cast iron but have yet to make a bad pie no matter what kind of pan I used. Directions For Crust I recommend sifting the flour first but have made pie crusts without sifting. In a large bowl combine flour and salt. Cut in butter to flour and salt mixture. (I have a trick I use for cutting in the butter. I take a cold or frozen stick of butter and a hand grater and grate it with the coarse side of the grater. This allows for a very even and easy incorporation of the butter. Which will make the crust flakier.) Add water and mix until all the flour is damp/wet. The least amount of water that does the job is best. Dump out dough on to a floured surface and roll out to approx 1/8 inch thick. If your going to make a lot of pies I suggest making a round templates of the right size to cut out the tops and bottoms of your pie crusts. I have also just turned my pie plate upside down over the dough and cut out the bottom crust by cutting around the plate about 1 ½ inches from the pie plate. For the top crust I cut against the pie plate. Fill pie with filling of choice :) apple pie, chicken pot pie, etc.. Now take top crust and place over pie. Go around outside edge and crimp together edges of bottom and top pie crust. Most people use their thumbs to push down on the edge just slightly overlapping each thumb press to make a good seal as the crust is joined. This is why pie plates have a wide flat or scalloped edge. It gives a nice wide flat area to crimp the edges together. I have used cast iron skillets to do pies in but a straight thin edge such as the lip of the cast iron skillet does not work nearly as well. Cut 4 to 8 small slits in the top of the pie crust before baking. It is hard to go wrong with the baking. Pre-heat your oven. Depending on your oven you can bake the pie at between 375 to 400 degrees F. Baking time can run between 35 to 50 minutes. A lot of recipes just say bake until crust browns. This is for pies that have a top crust. Open pies without a top crust you need to follow the recommended cooking directions for that specific recipe. Directions for Pie Filling Preheat oven to 375 to 400 degrees F Mix all ingredients in large bowl until chicken is no longer in large lumps and the cream of mushroom soup and milk are evenly mixed. Stir in a bit of salt and pepper. Don’t go crazy you can add more after it is cooked to the individual taste if needed. Follow basic Pie Crust Recipe for the pie crust. Bake 35 to 50 minutes or until crust browns. This recipe is very adaptable. I have used dried carrots instead of canned or fresh. Basically you can substitute any canned ingredient for any fresh or visa versa. Also you have a fairly wide latitude to change the filling ingredients, beef instead of chicken, cream of chicken soup instead of cream of mushroom. Your imagination is the limit with the vegetable fillings. I once forgot to add the can of chicken when making this based on the above instructions. I only remembered on seeing the can of chicken sitting there unopened as I was pulling the cooked pie out of the oven. That is what you get for cooking while exhausted, however the pie was a huge hit with everyone that tried it. It would be hard to mess this recipe up. You can freely change contents of the filling or the proportions of them. Though I would keep the proportions of the liquids such as the milk, cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup fairly even with the total vegetable and meat proportions if I could. If you don’t like carrots just add more corn and peas. If you don’t like broccoli then add some cauliflower. As you substitute more fresh ingredients for the canned ingredients it will probably dictate a longer cooking time. Instead of 35 minutes push it to the 45 or 50 minute time frame, or simply sauté those ingredients ahead of time. This recipe was designed to be an easy recipe to do with minimal work with nothing but canned ingredients other than the crust.