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Tips from Cooks Illustrated:

Between trimming, searing, and braising chunks of stew meat and then mashing and piping the potato topping, traditional shepherd’s pie is an all-afternoon project. Plus, it’s hefty fare. Here’s how we freshened up the concept and got dinner on the table in about an hour.

SWAP GROUND BEEF FOR STEW MEAT: Ground meat cooks in less than half the time required by bigger chunks and needs no butchering.

BROWN VEGETABLES, NOT MEAT: Browning ground beef turns it pebbly. Instead, we brown vegetables and tomato paste to create a rich fond.

LIGHTEN UP THE MASHED POTATOES: Less butter, milk instead of half and half, and sliced scallions lighten up the spuds.

Apple Pie

When sealing the pie in the pastry... Make sure to use enough apples to mound the filling so a large space does not develop between crust and filling during baking.

Use kitchen scissors to trim the overhanging edges of the top and bottom crusts to approximately one-half inch.

For a neat edge that stays sealed, tuck this rim of dough underneath itself so the folded edge is flush with the pan lip.

Finish the formation of the double crust by pressing the edges with a fork or fluting them (as shown) to seal them well.

Pies

Main Dish and Dessert Pies

With this Shepherd's Pie, you will build and serve the pie in one skillet. I used lean ground beef rather than braised chunks of meat. To keep the meat tender, I treated it with baking soda, which raised the pH and kept the proteins from bonding too tightly, and I simmered the meat in the gravy rather than searing it. To replace the browned meat flavors that usually form the basis of the sauce, I sautéed the onions, mushrooms, and tomato paste in the skillet until quite dark, and then deglazed the pan with fortified wine.

It’s difficult to produce an apple pie with a filling that is tart as well as sweet and juicy. We wanted to develop a classic apple pie recipe—one with the clean, bright taste of apples that could be made year-round, based on apple types that are always available in the supermarket. To arrive at the tartness and texture we were after, we had to use two kinds of apples in our pie, Granny Smith and McIntosh. The Grannies could be counted on for tartness and for keeping their shape during cooking; the Macs added flavor, and their otherwise frustrating tendency to become mushy was a virtue, providing a nice, juicy base for the harder Grannies. While many bakers add butter to their apple pie fillings, we found that it dulled the fresh taste of the apples and so did without it. Lemon juice, however, was essential, counterbalancing the sweetness of the apples. To give the apples the upper hand, we settled on quite modest amounts of cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice.

Here's a Coconut Cream Pie