If you’re getting ahead of the game and baking pies in advance of when you want to serve them (or, should you find yourself with the exciting and rare predicament of having leftover pie), you may be wondering: What is the best way to store pie? How long can it sit out on the counter and when does it need to be refrigerated? Well, that depends.
The pie experts at Pillsbury suggest covering custard and cream pies with plastic wrap before refrigerating for up to two days. This is backed up by the USDA, which also recommends throwing away all perishable foods after they’ve been left at room temperature for more than two hours, since bacteria grow rapidly between the temperatures of 40ΒΊF and 140ΒΊF.
But the folks at Betty Crocker argue it’s OK to keep fruit-filled pies at room temperature, as long as it’s for two days or less; after that, the pies should head into the fridge.
Our advice? Be sure to refrigerate cream, custard, pumpkin, mousse, chiffon, or any other pies containing eggs or dairy as soon as they’ve cooled completely; they’ll keep for up to two days. (This includes savory pies like quiche, of course.)
Fruit pies can stand at room temperature for two days. If you need to store them longer, wrap them in plastic and put ’em in the fridge for up to another two days—but we hardly think they’ll be around that long.
What About Freezing Pies?
You can successfully freeze many kinds of pie, including fruit pies, pumpkin pie, and pecan pie, but more delicate mousse and custard pies will not fare well. Neither will meringue.
When freezing pie, we advise wrapping well in a layer of plastic, then a layer of foil, to be sure it’s protected from freezer burn. It should last for a few months.
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Taking cookies to the office party? Gifting them to a friend? Shipping them to a faraway family member? This guide has our 30 best cookies for the job and a guide to packing them up so they arrive safely.
Brown butter (or beurre noisette in French) lends a beautiful, nutty depth to any dish, sweet or savory; bakers swear by it for the extra caramelized notes it brings to cookies, cakes, and breads, and cooks love drenching everything from pumpkin gnocchi to seared fish in delicious brown butter sauce. Browned butter is easy to make—it’s what you get when you melt butter down until the water is cooked out and the milk solids separate and turn a golden brown.
While the process is simple, it’s also easy to mess up, chiefly by being impatient, trying to multitask, and leaving the pan on the heat too long and burning the butter. Don’t do those things.
You’ll also want to use a light-colored skillet or saucepan (depending on the amount of butter you’re browning); cast iron or dark nonstick surfaces will disguise the color of the butter, increasing the chances that you’ll burn it. A stainless steel pan or one with a light enameled finish is best. Aluminum is the right color but tends to make the butter stick.
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1. Place cold or room temperature butter in your pan or skillet over medium heat.Watch it melt. Do not step away at any point during this process.
2. Wait until you hear the butter crackle and pop.That’s the water coming out of the butter. Foam may appear as the butterfat releases the milk solids. Once the popping and snapping abates, the milk solids are forming. They’ll turn into light-brown little specks on the bottom of the pan.
3. Use a heat-proof metal, wooden, or silicone spoon or spatula to stir the browning milk solids.Stir gently; this helps the milk solids brown slowly and uniformly.
4. Remove the pan from the heat once you see the milk solids at the bottom of the pan turn golden-brown and the butter smells toasty and nutty.(If it smells burnt, that’s bad, but don’t automatically throw out butter that looks too dark—taste it first. If it’s not bitter, it’s still good to go; the French call this beurre noir.) The butter will continue to cook off the heat, so pour the butter from the hot pan into a heat-safe dish.
5. You can strain the butter through cheesecloth to remove the sediment if you want, but there’s lots of flavor there, so we prefer not to.
Now go forth and use your beautiful, fragrant, nutty browned butter in a recipe.
What to Do with Brown Butter
You can use brown butter cut with a bit of vinegar or lemon juice as a simple pan sauce on roasted, sauteed, or steamed vegetables, meat, and fish (try adding a few leaves of sage or another herb to the butter to add extra flavor); use it to sauce a simple pasta; use it instead of oil in a vinaigrette; or add it to baked goods that call for melted butter (just replace the plain melted butter with an equal amount of beurre noisette). Brown butter adds a great twist to classic chocolate chip cookies, or French crepes, for instance.
Or try some of these recipes with your browned butter:
A full stick of browned butter enriches this nutty stuffing lightened up by a bunch of fresh herbs (parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme). Get the Brown Butter Walnut Dressing recipe.
This is, in one sense, a lower-maintenance way of making brown butter—it caramelizes while the pan of potatoes bakes in the oven, and you spoon it back over so they absorb all the nutty flavor and get crispy on top; the butter is infused with thyme and garlic for good measure. Get our Brown Butter Hasselback Potatoes recipe.
Amber Wilson’s take on trout amandine is simple enough for a weeknight, but elegant enough for company. The brown butter intensifies the nuttiness of the pecans. Get the Brown Butter Pan-Fried Trout recipe.
Waffles are a great weekend brunch idea that you can make even better with browned butter in the batter. Of course we still love waffles with cold pats of butter that melt into the divots, but this way, you can show off its dark side too. Get our Buttermilk and Brown Butter Waffles recipe.
Allowing the butter and sugar to cook longer transforms a classic butterscotch pie into a toasty, nutty dessert that has some gravity to offset the sweetness of the caramel. Get our Brown Butterscotch Pie recipe.
Even without the toffee, adding brown butter to cookies brings a caramel-like flavor; why not amp it up with the aforementioned toffee? And add chocolate chips too. Get the Brown Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe.
While many people are busy celebrating Thanksgiving in theirs, or their friends’ or families’ homes, there are as many people taking their turkey, or avoiding it outright, in restaurants and bars. The reasons are myriad: perhaps a turkey disaster forced the festivities out; perhaps the extra long weekend was used for an excuse to travel. (Read: flee.) Or, there are plenty of American residents, as well as people visiting the U.S., who simply have no interest in Thanksgiving, with or without its perhaps dubious origin story.
Whatever the motivation, Thanksgiving may be a bank holiday, but it’s not a total shutdown, and many restaurants and bars keep their doors open to catch the orphaned, the travelers, the culinarily-challenged, the dishes-averse, the Thanksgiving-phobic, or simply the person in need of a drink and an hour away from the family.
Which then means, that for a subset of the country’s restaurant employees, Thanksgiving signifies something else entirely: another day at the office. The experience of working on Thanksgiving day inspires a veritable buffet of emotions from restaurant workers, myself included among them, ranging from: “My one and only Thanksgiving at work was enough to make me vow to get out of the business for good;” (Sheena Mohan, Houston TX) to: “I’ve worked the past three Thanksgivings, and now I have my family come to the restaurant to celebrate with me.” (Johnny Livanos, New York, NY)
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Family Meal of a Different Nature
In keeping with the genuine vibe of Thanksgiving—which is gratitude, in case anyone needs reminding—I’d like to start with something I am indeed personally grateful for, in my time spent working the Thanksgiving shift. With all due respect to both the talented cooks in my family and anyone else’s family I’ve ever spent Thanksgiving with, and also to many of the memorable Friendsgiving meals I’ve had in my life, it’s really hard for any of that to compete with a Thanksgiving dinner put up by a brigade of professional chefs.
So while I may have sacrificed spending time with friends and family in order to serve others on Thanksgiving day, enjoying a 2-Michelin star Thanksgiving meal made to reward those who are working the holiday—albeit at ten a.m.—is hardly a sacrifice.
Running the Marathon
But it can be a punishing shift, and a long one, so it’s damn near necessary to have made the most of the feast that ended even before the parade did. Rather than the separate lunch and dinner shifts that occur on normal days, many restaurants will keep “shorter” Thanksgiving hours. The restaurant where I work seats from noon to six p.m. on Turkey Day. While that sounds like a relatively short shift, what that means is that staff have come in earlier than that to set up, and any diners sitting at 6 p.m. can be expected to be there for at least a couple of hours. So while it may be an earlier night than usual in restaurant terms, it can be a shift of maybe 10 hours. Strength and stamina most definitely required.
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Taking One for the Team
Sometimes those working the Thanksgiving shift are looking out for their fellow employees who do have important Thanksgiving festivities to attend. Rather than roll the dice and leave it to the mercy (or lack thereof) of the scheduling gods, your Thanksgiving server or bartender may have actually volunteered to work. (All the more reason to treat them kindly.)
“There’s the joy of allowing some of my co-workers to spend the day with their family, alas—ours are too far away— and the thankfulness of guests who have a dining out option when most places are closed.” (Frederic Yarm, Boston, MA)
Guest Expectations
One challenge I have found in a Midtown Manhattan restaurant open on Thanksgiving, is that a lot of the diners that day aren’t necessarily American families trying to spare themselves a load of dishes at the end of the night, but rather international visitors to New York just looking for a place that’s open. They’re not approaching their dining experience like it’s a special occasion or anything out of the ordinary. Especially if there’s some sort of language barrier, communication can be made even more difficult when some of the dishes—especially those that feature heavily on Instagram—aren’t being served. It can be frustrating when you want someone to enjoy themselves, but they seem disappointed that the restaurant is not operating how they thought it was supposed to.
Spirit of Compassion
Unlike Valentine’s Day, which tends to engender a spirit of misanthropy among any romantically-challenged restaurant staff, it seems that Thanksgiving can foster a spirit of compassion, especially for those in need of company on such a family-centric holiday: “I’ve met several people who are alone and sad around the holidays and coming out and chatting to someone who will listen along with having some nice food and drink turns the day around for them. I’ve met some great people as well who are just so excited to be in New York for the day.” (Paula Fidler Lukas, New York, NY.) It’s hard to maintain a bitter edge in those moments when you feel like you are genuinely being of service.
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Escape Clause
But inevitably, sometimes the pressure from family and feasting turns to feistiness: “One night years ago, we were open for Thanksgiving and it was a disaster, angry people who had a bad family night, drunk college kids escaping their parents and the icing was the full family knock down drag out fight at 2:00 a.m.” (Lisa Cloutier, Bigfork, MT)
So, maybe this season, give thanks that you don’t have to work in a restaurant, and give good tips, for those who do.
Related Video: Etiquette Tips to Help You Survive Thanksgiving
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Here’s everything you need to know about sage, our favorite fall herb.
When it comes to the savory end of the warm and cozy fall flavor spectrum, sage is perhaps the quintessential taste of the season. Rosemary and thyme rank high too, but sage is the chief flavor agent in many a Thanksgiving turkey—not to mention the stuffing—and a classic partner to autumn’s most beloved (and prolific) produce: pumpkin and squash.
It also has a long and fascinating history as both a culinary and a medicinal herb. So let’s find out all there is to know about sage, the fall herb all-star.
What’s In a Name?
The Latin name for sage, salvia, comes from a word meaning “to save,” and the herb has been used medicinally for thousands of years, across several cultures (although the kind we eat, Salvia officinalis, is native to the Mediterranean). A saying that dates back to the Middle Ages roughly goes, “Why should a man die when he grows sage in his garden?”
Health FoodHow to Stock a Medicinal PantryWhile it definitely won’t make you immortal, sage does have several proven health benefits, so the ancients were clearly on to something. Sage is still used to improve brain function (scientific studies confirm it aids cognition, and are investigating whether it may be able to help fight Alzheimer’s and dementia); it can help settle the stomach and relieve muscle and joint pain; and it promotes oral health (long before toothpaste was invented, many people chewed sage leaves to clean their teeth, and modern studies show it does have antibacterial and antimicrobial properties—allegedly, it makes teeth whiter too).
It can also soothe sore throats, ease hot flashes and menstrual cramps, may help control blood sugar and weight, and possibly even reduce anxiety. Be aware, though, that while small amounts of sage in food are safe for everyone, it’s recommended that pregnant women and people with epilepsy should avoid using it medicinally.
As if its physical effects weren’t enough, some cultures also consider it a spiritual purifier; many Native American tribes burn white sage for the purpose of cleansing places, and Celtic druids deemed it a sacred herb.
Before refrigeration, sage was used as a food preservative too. Its strong flavor would have helped mask “off” tastes in aging meat, but its demonstrated antimicrobial properties could have actually helped keep it fresh for longer.
While we may appreciate sage most for its flavor these days—and more often than not, take it for granted as a simple, time-worn poultry seasoning—it’s been a highly valued plant for millennia, and is still worth celebrating.
Different Varieties of Sage
Grow Your OwnHow to Make a Fall Herb Garden, No Matter Your Living SpaceThere are over 900 different types of sage, most of which aren’t actually edible, although one (Salvia divinorum) is consumed as a hallucinogen. The kind we’re most familiar with is common sage, also known as garden sage or true sage (Salvia officinalis). Sweetly scented pineapple sage and golden sage are also readily available at plant nurseries, and are edible as well as attractive and fragrant in the garden.
Some of the more well-known non-edible sages that are planted as ornamentals and made into essential oils for aromatherapy or topical applications are clary sage and Russian sage.
If you want a ready supply of fresh sage, you can easily grow a pot indoors, or plant it outside if you have the space. It’s hardy and will survive well into the fall in most regions, and return the following year. “The Old Farmer’s Almanac” has more advice on growing sage if you’re interested.
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Sage belongs to the same family as rosemary, mint, and basil, but it has a particularly pungent earthiness with some astringency and a spicy, resinous character a bit like the smell of eucalyptus and pine (and some say similar to weed). It has some measure of inherent sweetness, but put too much in your food and it’ll overpower everything with an unpleasant bitterness.
The famed English food writer Elizabeth David likened the flavor of dried sage to “old blood” and said it “deadens” dishes. Use old dried sage and it will certainly taste lackluster and musty. But a judicious amount of fresh sage imparts a beautifully fragrant, warm fall flavor to all sorts of dishes, from pork chops to roasted vegetables to butternut squash soup.
Simply chopped, fresh sage is great sprinkled in moderation over fall pasta and soup, or stirred into softened butter for rubbing on meat or melting onto bread, rice, or vegetables. A few teaspoons will usually suffice to flavor a dish. However, there are plenty of other ways to use fresh sage.
Gently twist, rub, or muddle one or two fresh sage leaves to use as an ingredient and/or a fragrant garnish for cocktails with an autumnal bent. Sage pairs well with gin (try our Sage Advice cocktail, or our Madame’s Choice), but it also works well with bourbon (this Smoked Sage Cocktail includes sage simple syrup for an extra layer of flavor); tequila (try a Tequila Sage Smash sweetened with agave); and vodka (as in this Ginger Sage Martini).
Fried sage leaves make a fantastically crisp and flavorful garnish for pasta, soup, roasted squash and root vegetables, fried potatoes, egg dishes, white beans, risotto—pretty much anything, really. Frying the leaves also helps mitigate the bitter bite that can put some people off of fresh sage.
Letting fresh sage leaves hang out in olive oil, vinegar, honey, or even alcohol infuses the liquid with a lovely autumnal aroma and flavor. You can then use your infused creations in drinks (try Sage-Infused Honey Soda if you don’t do booze), salad dressings, pasta, dessert, and whatever else seems, well, sage.
Steeping fresh sage leaves in hot water makes a throat- and stomach-soothing drink that may also benefit your brain (there’s a reason it’s often called “thinker’s tea”), as well as your oral health and even your nerves. At the very least, it’s warm and cozy, and a little lemon and honey are nice additions. If straight sage doesn’t do it for you, try the Palestinian custom of steeping it with loose black tea.
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Notes on Dried Sage
You can dry your own sage if you have an abundance. (Another way to preserve fresh leaves is to wash them, pat dry, and store them in an airtight bag in the freezer for up to several months.) When buying dried sage—also labeled “rubbed sage”—get it from the bulk section of your store, or from a specialty spice shop if you can, so you know it’s as fresh and flavorful as possible. Buy it in smaller quantities too, since it loses its vibrancy fairly fast. Don’t even think about using that bottle left over from last Thanksgiving.
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Now’s the time to secure a new supply—preferably freshly picked leaves or your own personal plant—and start cooking up sage-scented fall food to soothe you during the chillier months. It may not cure everything that ails you, but it will undoubtedly comfort you with its festive, fragrant warmth.
Thanksgiving is prime time for pies, but it’s hard to choose—and not just between pumpkin and pecan. Luckily, it is possible to bake multiple pies at once, and this writer will tell you how.
“Why don’t we just bake all three pies ourselves?” asked my beau. I paused in the middle of my panic attack. My brother, who was hosting Thanksgiving dinner, requested that we bring pies from an amazing bakery by our home. Easy peasy, right? Well, it was…until I went to reserve them online and discovered they were already booked up and not taking any more online orders.
At the time I was frantically considering alternative options, and baking them ourselves wasn’t in the equation. Should I show up early to the pie shop on Thanksgiving morning and hope they had a few extra? Order from Baker’s Square? Swing by the Whole Foods bakery section?
I was skeptical. We both love to cook but we’re not really bakers. I work a full time job and didn’t plan on taking any time off around the holidays, so the only time we’d really have to do it was on Thanksgiving morning. In the end it was risky, but we pulled it off and our apple, pumpkin, and bourbon pecan pies garnered rave reviews. So if you’re in the same boat for your upcoming holiday celebrations, simply follow these six simple steps to wow your friends with three (or more) amazing pies, all completed before you start thinking about lunch.
1. Do your research, and don’t be a martyr.
Pies range from the super-simple to the uber-fancy. But you don’t need to fall on your sword to make something crazy and complicated to impress your family. In our seemingly endless research for recipes, we found many pies that were simple to assemble but had hundreds or thousands of five star ratings. Our apple pie, for example, used an apple cider syrup which gave it a little something extra, but was super easy to make with cider we already had at home. Beyond that, recipes were pretty straightforward and didn’t use hard-to-find ingredients. Take some time a few days ahead to find highly rated recipes with just a few steps. If there are ones where you can do some prep ahead of time (see number three below), even better, so you’re less rushed come baking day.
Along the lines of “don’t be a martyr,” pre-made crust is an easy shortcut when you’re short on time. That was a no-brainer for us: I don’t think I had ever made a pie crust from scratch before (or if I had, it’s been a really long time) and if I screwed it up, I wasn’t going to have time to re-do it. While there are some truly amazing pie crust recipes out there, and some people will argue that the crust really makes the pie, if your filling is wonderful nobody will notice that the crust is store bought. Pie crusts are easily found at any grocery store; simply let them warm up a bit, roll them out, and voila: You’re ready to go.
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I didn’t get home from work the night before Thanksgiving until after 7 p.m. and we had dinner reservations for our anniversary at 8 p.m. However, in that hour we quickly whipped up the pumpkin pie filling and left it in the fridge overnight so the flavors could develop–the recipe’s recommendation. The next day we simply poured it into the pie pan and popped it in the oven before we had our morning coffee. Pie number one was done in a flash.
When you’re on a tight time schedule, be sure to look at how much time each pie needs to bake, along with how much time each needs to be prepped. And make sure the timing is realistic! For me, any time a recipe says “30 minutes to prep,” I know it will take me an hour because I’m slow. Time your prep for one pie while the other is in the oven; for us, since the pumpkin was already mixed the night before, it went into the oven right away while we assembled the other two. Similarly, the pecan pie took less time to prep than the apple, so it was next in the oven, even though the cooking time was longer.
5. Have the right tools.
The Right StuffGuide to Essential Baking ToolsI was singing the praises of our glorious mandoline as I thinly sliced eight cups of apples for the apple pie. It would have taken me forever if I had to do it by hand. I only wish I had an apple corer, as picking out the tough inner core and random seeds from my giant bowl of sliced apples was a big pain and added an unexpected delay. I also dug out the rolling pin I rarely use but was soooo glad I hadn’t given away, as rolling out the dough using a makeshift pin (pint glass, perhaps?) would have been a time-consuming disaster as well. If you don’t have essential tools like these, they may be worth a purchase, as you’ll have opportunities to use them in the future. If you don’t want to buy them, chances are you’ll have a friend who will be happy to lend them to you. Especially if you promise them a slice later.
6. Leave time to cool.
Nothing will ruin well-made pies faster than if you wrap them up to take to a party before they’ve fully had a chance to cool. Fillings will collapse or remain watery, crusts will get soggy, and all that effort will result in mediocrity instead of fabulousness. So when planning your timing up in number four above, make sure to account for at least an hour or two to cool on a wire rack before you transport them.
Now that you have the plan, below are some examples of pies that should be delicious and fit the bill for easy, fast baking, starting with the three that we made. Get ready to impress your friends without taking up all your vacation time!
The little something extra in this recipe was the apple cider concentrate, also known as boiled cider, which gave this pie a super-kick of apple flavor. You can buy it in bottles, but we made it with cider we had in the fridge. Simply pour a generous amount in a saucepan, bring to a rolling boil, then turn down to a simmer until it reduces down to as little as 1/7th of its original volume. It will still be pretty liquidy, but once you remove it from the heat, pour into a glass container, and put in the fridge for an hour, it will gel into a delicious, apple-y syrup.
If we were to do this again, I’d make the concentrate the night before to save some time, but as long as you keep your eye on it, you can let it reduce down while you work on other steps. We skipped the vanilla, but as for the rest of the recipe, we followed it exactly. Get the King Arthur Apple Pie recipe.
This was so incredibly easy and the clear winner at Thanksgiving dinner. Mix all the ingredients the night before, let it rest in the fridge, then just pour it into the crust and into the oven it goes. I’d recommend brushing the crust with an egg white wash, made from whisking one egg white with one tablespoon water, to keep it from burning in the super hot oven. The flavors were perfect. Get the King Arthur Flour Pumpkin Pie recipe.
The recipe doesn’t actually call for bourbon, but my beau, who believes that pecan pie is “the greatest pie to ever be a pie,” wanted it, so we threw a few tablespoons into the mix. We overloaded on pecans so they didn’t sink to the bottom, but if that happens to you, simply layer on decorative pecan halves to the top before you put it in the oven. Get Ree Drummond’s Pecan Pie recipe.
Key lime pie is one of my favorite pies, so I look forward to making this one over and over again. This pie uses a graham cracker crust that’s actually pretty foolproof and easy to make, so if you wanted to give yourself a little bit of extra time to try a homemade crust this is probably the one to do. If not, premade graham cracker crusts can be found in the baking aisle, already pressed into disposable pans.
The key to key lime pie, so to speak, is actually making sure you’re using real key limes and not regular limes that you find in the grocery store. You’ll get a delicious tang along with the sweetness of the rest of the pie. Get our Key Lime Pie recipe.
Who doesn’t love chocolate in their pies (or really in any form, at any time of day or night)? Don’t be scared off by the supposed need for a stand mixer for this one. If you’ve got a little bit of elbow grease or a hand-held mixer, you’ll do just fine. The nice thing about this pie is that it’s a no-bake. Once you’re done you just throw it in the refrigerator for a while to set up while all the other ones are doing their thing in the oven. Get our Chocolate Mousse Pie recipe.
Fruit pies are always refreshing, and this one is a cinch to pull together. Simply mix and go. It’s also really easy to finish the different steps in this one, as you can prep the streusel while the main pie bakes and press it in as soon as it’s done. Get our Peach Melba Pie recipe.
Another refrigerated option! Cream pies lend a certain decadent mouthfeel and elegance, and banana and coconut is a winning flavor combination. You’ll need a thermometer and it will take a little time as you need to keep your eye on it, but as soon as this pie is done, just set it in the fridge and you’re good to go. Get our Banoconut Cream Pie recipe.
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