Pie Squared: Irresistibly Easy Sweet & Savory Slab Pies

by Cathy Barrow

Overview

James Beard Award Nominee 2019 for Best Cookbook: Baking and Desserts

The delicious new food trend of slab pies that makes it easy to serve sweet or savory pastry to a crowd-or just your family!

For those of you who aren't up on your Pinterest food trends, slab pie is just like regular pie-only better (and bigger)! Instead of crimping and meticulously rolling out a round crust, slab pies are an unfussy twist that are perfect for a potluck or dinner party or just a family dinner. Baked on sheet pans, slab pies can easily serve a crowd of people dinner or dessert. Pie Squared includes seventy-five foolproof recipes, along with inventive decoration tips that will appeal to baking nerds and occasional bakers alike. And this fresh, uncomplicated take on pie will surely pique the interest of those who have previously been reluctant to take out their rolling pin.

Barrow didn't invent slab pie, but she definitely thinks outside of the crust. In addition to traditional pie dough, she offers more than a dozen crust recipes-from cracker crusts and cornbread crusts to cookie crusts and cheddar cheese crusts. Using these as a base, Barrow then entices readers with both savory and sweet slab pie creations, with recipes like Spinach, Gorgonzola, and Walnut Slab Pie and Curried Chicken Slab Pie to Sour Cream Peach Melba Slab Pie and Grande Mocha Cappuccino Slab Pie. The first book of its kind, this will appeal to lovers of easy food trends like sheet pan suppers and dump cakes. Don't be surprised when you start spying slab pies at your next potluck!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538729144
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	10/23/2018
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	1,094,367
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Cathy Barrow is a freelance food writer, cooking teacher, and food preservation expert. Barrow writes the "BRING IT" column in the Washington Post's food section. Her first cookbook, Mrs. Wheelbarrow's Practical Pantry, won the prestigious IACP award for best single-subject cookbook in 2015. She has written for the New York Times, Garden and Gun, the Local Palate, Saveur, Southern Living, Food52, All Recipes Magazine, NPR, and National Geographic, among others. Cathy lives just outside Washington, D.C. with her husband and two rescued terriers.

Editorial Reviews

10/01/2018
Barrow (Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Practical Pantry) devotes an entire, glorious book to the subject of slab pies, which are made in a half-sheet pan. Barrow pushes the buttery, crusty envelope with her tempting recipes—both savory and sweet options for every meal of the day, whether it’s breakfast (Good Morning Cheese Danish Slab Pie); lunch (a reuben slab pie with rye crust); dinner (Moroccan shepherd’s pie); or dessert (a banana pudding pie with vanilla wafer crust). Barrow innovates with each recipe, whether it’s carbonara and zucchini-noodle slab pie; blackberry, sweet corn, and basil pie; or one with raspberry and rugelach. Creative recipes can feed crowds at the holidays, too, such as After-Thanksgiving Turkey Slab Pie and Christmas in London (a kind of French-Canadian tourtière). There are nontraditional pie crusts options as well, such as smoked fish with a caramelized onion crust, eggs florentine in a hash brown crust; and fried green tomatoes with a Ritz cracker crust. The most challenging part of this fun and inviting cookbook will be choosing which recipe to make first. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

My favorite new cookbook of the year . . . These aren't the gooey fruit oozers I associate with the American classic — in fact, half the recipes are savory, and many of the "Sweetie Pies" don't even involve fruit.
—Hellen McAlpin, The Christian Science Monitor

This richly illustrated work brings a fresh, creative approach to slab pies; essential for weeknight meals and potlucks.
—Library Journal

Barrow devotes an entire, glorious book to the subject of slab pies . . . The most challenging part of this fun and inviting cookbook will be choosing which recipe to make first.
—Publishers Weekly

Pie Squared is a collection of creative and ambitious-yet-approachable recipes that, in aggregate, argue that just about any dish can be turned into a slab pie.
—The Austin Chronicle

[A]n inventive collection of sweet and savory pies baked in rimmed sheet pans. Unlike round pies, slabs have twice as much crust and half as much filling. So pastry lovers can check out the 14 different crust recipes, including one built around caramelized onions and another using hash browns. Ingredients are measured both by volume and weight. Lots of creativity here.—Minneapolis Star Tribune

From the Publisher