Saturday, February 9, 2008

The Upper Crust: Quiche + Pie = Dinner

The Upper Crust is a pie bakery, located in the lower depths of Pryde's in Westport (a kitchen and home store), that is only open on Fridays and Saturdays.

I called The Upper Crust about their pies. While on the phone, the kind lady mentioned that they also have two weekly quiches. I figured quiche + pie = easy dinner, so I took her up on the offer.

My quiche choices were Italian Cheese or Bleu Cheese Tomato. The Blue Cheese Tomato made me say "yum" out loud, so I ordered that one. They have too many choices of pie to list - see their website or call them.

The pies I chose were All American Apple and Lemon Meringue. I got two petite pies (1-2 servings), so I could try several flavors.

Fast-forward to dinner...

We had a friend over for dinner to sample the goods. The quiche was difficult to heat up. As suggested by The Upper Crust staff, I heated it for 10 minutes at 350 degrees, but it still felt cold in the middle. If I left it in the oven longer, I feared that the crust would cook too much. Finally, I resorted to the microwave (20-30 seconds per slice) and that worked wonderfully.

Friend and I had two pieces of quiche each. As I expected, it was yummy. Hubbie only had one slice, but I suspect he was saving up for pie. It was unanimous...good quiche!

When time came for the pies, Hubbie chose Apple, while Friend and I chose Lemon Meringue. It was thumbs-up all around for both pies. Not one to miss out on pie, I tried the remaining Apple pie for breakfast the following morning and it was indeed a good choice!

The All American Apple had a perfect crust (the most difficult part of the pie to get right, in my opinion) and the apples inside were sugared and baked to the perfect consistency.

The Lemon Meringue was a thing of beauty to look at. The meringue was a delightful tan color and stood up in curvy spikes a couple inches above the pie! Inside of being gooey, the meringue was springy. This resulted in a good mix of gooey lemon filling with springy meringue combined in every bite. This was seriously a great pie!

The Upper Crust also has a good selection of cookies and seasonal items (they had heart-shaped cookies for Valentine's Day the day of my visit).

I would suggest ordering ahead to make sure you get your first choices. My next choice will be German Chocolate Pie - I eyed it in the store and it looked delish!

website: http://www.prydeskitchen.com/store/the-upper-crust.html

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