My World & It's Full Of Books.: Pi Day and the Ides

The title sounds something like a one-hit-wonder band, doesn't it?

Yesterday, I made a pie, as I do on Pi Day:

This year's is pear and blackberry, combining recipes from an old favourite cookbook and baked in a 6"x3" springform because I don't have small-sized pie plates and didn't want a full-sized pie. Not for just me. I used the recipe for a single crust, mixing:

One cup whole-wheat flour
One half-cup all-purpose flour
Half a stick of cold butter
Enough cold water to make a paste

Then I rolled out about a third and cut a lid, using the pan as a measure. The remainder (and trimmings) rolled out to fill the pan. I chopped up about three cups of peeled pears to about the same size as the blackberries, and mixed them with not quite all of a six-ounce box of blackberries from the shop; a few went into the cook to determine sweetness of the filling. I added about a tablespoon of lemon juice, a tablespoon and a half of sugar (quite a bit less than the recipes said, because I do not like sweet pies), and about two tablespoons of all-purpose flour. Filling in, lid on, sealed, and the traditional π cut for juices to escape, although as you can see, they ran out around the seal as well.

Today, Ides of March, and I decided to pull out Apicius. Often I do roasted carrots, but I've had a carrot-based curry this weekend, so I decided to do something else. First to figure out what I can do with what's in the larder; a recipe for Pumpkin and Chicken intrigued me (ditto a more Thanksgivingesque option), but couldn't find poultry in the freezer. I did find a package of ground bison, and decided to split it between Roman food for the Ides and something for later in the week.

Some more browsing turned up recipes I may try in the future (especially a nut tart) but being limited to what is onsite, I decided to substitute a patty of bison for roasted meat, make a sauce for it, and have pumpkin on the side since I've got pumpkin. Changes I had to make was using ale instead of wine (because I have the former, and need a partial bottle later in the week) and skipping some of the greens I don't have, such as lovage, which to be honest I never have. The result is:

Broiled bison patty with a sauce of ale (4-5 oz), honey (about 2T), allspice (5 berries), and pepper (about 9-10 peppercorns), based upon a recipe for Roast Neck. Many of the recipes include cumin but since I have it in the vegetable, I looked for a different combination here.
Pumpkin (one cup) mashed with oil (1T), oregano (1/2 tsp.), cumin(1/2 tsp.), caraway (generous 1/2 tsp.), and onion (generous 1T minced), a combination of recipes 74, 78 and 79.
Salad, because I have a little, and the Roman dressing is oil and vinegar, much as today. I used olive oil and red wine vinegar.
Asparagus, because I have some, and Apicius mentions it just cleaned and boiled.

Overall, it's nice, although as noted the two green things didn't have much done to them. I simmered the sauce to about 3T and strained it over the meat. In the future, I would use half the cumin and caraway, as they overpowered the rest of the flavours in the pumpkin, but it wasn't unpleasant. The photo shows about half the pumpkin; the rest went into storage for lunch tomorrow.

It's definitely a week for creative cooking, since I'm staying home except for once or twice a week, important things like the dentist (an old crown needed replacing, with some infection underneath) and post office. Upcoming are St. Patrick's Day, and y'all know I don't do corned beef and cabbage, and St. Joseph's Day. Catching up a bit, I made boxty for the first-Sunday brunch this month:

..... remembering too late that it was St. David's Day and I should have done bara brith or some other Welsh thing instead. These, being similar to American biscuits, were well-received. Most boxty are a sort of pancake, but I have a scone-like recipe and used it.

A few days later was the North Texas Irish Festival, and despite COVID-19 becoming serious, I went. Good thing, as Performer Products (the area where I work) was understaffed - not enough volunteers, one manager flaked out, and another ended up in hospital with an allergic reaction. The rest of us pulled together and it all worked, and I got a few minutes to go out and see dogs in costumes, and stormtroopers in kilts, and hear music at stages other than the one next to our booth.