A Year of Pies, by Ashley English

Oh happy. The team at 5 Minutes for Books were given the opportunity to choose from a new selection of cookbooks produced by Sterling Publishing for review purposes. We divvied up the list, each choosing cook books of interest to us individually. If you track with 5 Minutes for Books, you can see some of the new cookbooks being released. (There also might be a chance to win a few. *wink*)

At any rate, one of the books that I selected as wanting to try was A Year of Pies because, come on, who doesn't like a good pie? (By that I mean, "Who doesn't like a good home baked pie?" I'm not fond at all of pre-made pie crusts. My mother spoiled us rotten with delicious homemade pie crusts and so my own family will experience nothing but!)

Bookworm3, my current youngest and resident sous chef, was also delighted with this book on sight. ("Eat! Book! Eat!") We looked through it together.

First off, the book opens with a picture of a stack of colorful pie plates. That's to get you in the mood. And it worked. Then comes recipes for any variety of pie crusts, including: ye olde basic crust, chocolate cookie crust, gingersnap crust and a graham cracker crust, among a few others. There are pie dough tips set alongside lots and lots of pictures. Then comes the recipes which are divided up by season. Some of the recipes included in this book:

* lemon meringue
* buttered rum shoofly pie
* gingersnap key lime pie
* strawberry crumble
* peaches and cream crumble top pie
* sweet potato pie
* pumpkin pie
* chai spice apple pie

There are also main meal pies and things pie-like:

* winter greens and cornbread quiche
* chicken pot pie
* leek and potato tart
* turkey shepherd's pie

Pie! Pie! Pie! It's all so satisfactory. Now the question is: where to start first? We have some out-of-town guests this weekend and I'm thinking a yummy chicken pot pie is exactly what is in order. (I also have a ton of potatoes on hand at the moment so we might have to check out that leek and potato tart.) It is always a good idea to make pies when there are plenty of people to share it with! It lessens the risk of having too much pie to eat all by one's self.

A Year of Pies: A Seasonal Tour of Home Baked Pies is a beautiful book. It is paperback and so the pages do not lay down flat. That's probably the one and only drawback that I see, given the fact that pies, especially, involve messy hands and lots of flour! But otherwise this is a nice little treasure book of pies and I'm happy to be adding it to my home collection. If you check back with me after the weekend, I'll let you know in the comment section how any number of these pies that we tried out this weekend came out. We shall see!

Thanks to Sterling Publishing for sending a copy of this book my direction in exchange for my honest opinion.

You can check out another recipe book which I also reviewed over at 5 Minutes for Books today. The title (to tempt you with?): Coming Home to Sicily. (Linked to my review.)