Corn and Tomato Pie plus 1 more

Posted: 08 Sep 2011 04:14 PM PDT

With fresh local corn in season I certainly have been enjoying a lot of it! In particular I have been making my favourite hot corn dip a lot, maybe a little too frequently even, so I was thinking that I should change things up a bit. The first idea that I had was to try to use the flavours from the corn dip to make something else like a corn casserole to make more of a meal out of it. I searched for a recipe with a few of the ingredients that I wanted to use in addition to the corn and a few corn casserole dishes came up but the recipe that caught my eye was this one for a corn and tomato pie on Gourmet.

With field tomatoes being at their peak right now it was difficult to pass up on a pie that used them along with the corn that I had started the search for. Add to that the use of mayonnaise, cheddar cheese and fresh summery basil and you had a winner that was impossible to resist! I tweaked the recipe a bit replacing the chives with green onions and adding some applewood smoked bacon for even more flavour. The original recipe called for peeling the tomatoes, slicing them and then neatly layering them with the other ingredients but I wanted to keep things quick and simple so I skipped peeling the tomatoes, diced them and just mixed all of the ingredients together. The next interesting thing about this recipe is the biscuit crust which is a nice light alternative to your more standard all butter crust and I mixed some basil into it.

Corn and Tomato Pie

This pie defines late summer with its juicy and tasty field ripened tomatoes, corn straight from the cob and fresh basil. Of course the bacon, mayonnaise and cheese don't hurt either! :)

Servings: makes 6+ servings

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 40 minutes
Total Time: 50 minutes

Printable Recipe

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups corn, about 3 ears
1 1/2 pounds beefsteak tomatoes, about 4 medium, diced
4 strips bacon, cut into small pieces and cooked (optional)
1/4 cup mayonnaise or sour cream
2 green onions, sliced
1 handful basil, chopped
1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese, grated
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
salt and pepper to taste
2 pie crusts pastry or biscuit
1 tablespoon butter, melted

Directions

Mix the corn, tomatoes, bacon, mayo, green onions, basil, cheddar cheese and cayenne and season with salt and pepper.
Fit one of the pie crusts into a 9 inch pie plate, pour in the corn and tomato mixture and fit the remaining pie crust on top folding it over the edges of the bottom one and crimping to seal in the juices.
Brush top of the pie with butter and cut 3-4 1-2 inch slits in the crust to let out the steam.
Bake in a preheated 350F oven until the top is golden brown and the filling is bubbling, about 30-40 minutes.

Biscuit Pie Crust

Posted: 08 Sep 2011 04:23 PM PDT

Normally when I am making a pie I go straight for my standard all butter crust but I recently came across the idea of a biscuit like pie crust that was just begging to be tried. This pie crust starts out a lot like a biscuit recipe where butter is cut into a mixture of flour and baking powder to form a coarse meal like texture and then milk is mixed in to form a dough. From there, instead of forming a disc and cutting out biscuits the dough is rolled out into a thin pie crust. As you might guess after seeing the baking powder in the ingredients, this crust will rise a bit as it bakes and it forms a really nice light and fluffy and yet crispy crust. One of the things that is good about this pie crust is that it uses significantly less butter than a butter crust which makes a great alternative for when you are trying to eat lighter.

Biscuit Pie Crust

A light and flaky biscuit like pie crust that is a great alternative to the pastry pie crust that uses a lot less butter. To change things up you can add some herbs to the crust.

Servings: makes enough 2 pie crusts or 1 double pie crust

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 0 minutes
Total Time: 10 minutes

Printable Recipe

Ingredients

2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoons salt, divided
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold and cut into 1/4 inch cubes
3/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons basil, chopped (optional)

Directions

Mix the flour, baking powder and salt in a food processor.
Add the butter and pulse until it resembles coarse meal.
Add the milk and pulse until it forms a dough.
Split the dough in half and roll each out on a well floured surface one at a time.

Similar Recipes:
All Butter Pie Crust (Pâte Brisée)

Use in:
Corn and Tomato Pie