Pi Day - Pizza Rustica

Tomorrow, March 14, is Pi Day.  In the method Americans use write dates, tomorrow is 3-14 - the 14th day of March, and first three significant digits of the mathematical constant π.

I won't have this "Pi" tomorrow, but it would make a nice project for lovers of savory pies. (Pie - pi...get it?)

Pi Day has become a "thing" in the United States. In Wichita, Kansas, where the Pizza Hut chain started, many pizzerias are offering pies for $3.14 - way below what they would normally charge.

My offering for Pi Day:

Pizza Rustica is a savory meat and cheese pie traditionally served in Italian households for Easter and there are many variations.  Some put both sausage and ham into it.  Some will put hard boiled eggs into it.  Some people use a yeast dough for the shell, some a pie crust.  Back when I first published this, I used a store made pie crust, since I am not noted for my pie crust making abilities.

But, as my regular readers know, I am not much of a cook.  So I enlisted my spouse, the family cook, in what turned out to be a lot more of a project than we had bargained for.

This is the recipe I used for the pie.  Sorry, metric readers, you are on your own today.

Some of the ingredients

This is how it would have worked for anyone who knew what she was doing.

First, ingredient assembly.
1 package (2) store made pie crust - unwrap,  Line a 10 inch pie pan with one crust.  Prick dough with a fork.

Now the filling:
1 1/2 pounds cooked ham, diced
2 lb ricotta cheese (we used part skim)
12 ounces mozzarella cheese, diced
5 farm fresh eggs
1 tbsp chopped fresh Italian flat leaved parsley
1/4 cup freshly grated romano cheese

Method 
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large bowl, combine ricotta, mozzarella.

Add eggs one at a time.  Beat with a wooden spoon. 

Add the other ingredients and stir well.  Now, pour your mixture into the pie pan and top with the second crust.

Bake the pie for 15 minutes in preheated oven, then lower the temperature to 325 and bake for about (well, read on).

Now, for what really happened.

I made the ricotta cheese mixture, after spouse chopped all the ingredients.

Then, I took the pie crust package out of the fridge and I unrolled the pie crust.  Or, I tried to.  It started to immediately crack and crumble.  I turned to my spouse. "It's all dry!" I cried. "We have to take it back to the store." (Experienced pie bakers, please don't laugh too loudly).

Spouse disagreed.  He read the directions.  "Take package out and let sit for 15 to 20 minutes. Then roll out crust...". So what we ended up doing was putting the box on the stove top, nice and warm from the preheated oven.

That did the trick...sort of.

Then he looked at the bowl of ricotta cheese mixture I had prepared. He looked at the pie pan. He looked at the bowl of ricotta cheese mixture again. "That's never going to fit in that pie pan", he observed. "There is way too much."

He took out a springform pan and said "This will probably work".

So, after much fumbling and patching of holes, we (and it was "we") got the first pie crust in.  I poured in the mixture.  After more fumbling, got the top crust in.  Brushed it with egg mixture.  Put it in the oven, followed the directions.  The hour of baking ended.

It wasn't anywhere near ready.

So we ended up cooking this a lot more, until the crust was a bit past golden brown.

And it was delicious.  Really.

Just perfect for Pi Day.