WHEATLAND – After receiving a scholarship and earning a culinary degree from the prestigious culinary arts school, Johnson & Wales University in Denver and a two-year business degree, Lanay Meyer who is known locally as the woman who creates homemade cowboy cuisine has added an extra meal per week due to the coronavirus confining many families to their homes. Many people do not know that she has been cooking up this passion for 17 years.
According to Meyer’s website, she publishes, “At The Pie Tin, catering and baking is our passion. We use only the finest and freshest ingredients to create dishes and pastries that will fill your belly and warm your heart.”
Although Meyer does it all, from catering to cooking to baking to delivery, catering has been her main forte. With her music playing in the background, she glides effortlessly through her kitchen working at a fever pitch to complete the daily orders. Being the only employee, she has stamped the entire operational process with her tireless and confident work ethic and upbeat spirit.
“I started off in Colorado for the first five years and then we’ve been here for 12 years,” Meyer said. “I really don’t have a specialty. Anything that you want, I can probably do for you.”
Meyer provides a different culinary delight each day and she posts her menu on her website.

“I do what they call casual cowboy cuisine,” she said. “What that is, is like take and bake meals. I have two sizes, one being a 2-3 person and the other is a 4-6 person. Every month I rotate a different menu.”
Presently Meyer has bumped her food prep and delivery to four days a week which is one more day than she has been doing.
“Right now, I am doing four days a week because of the pandemic and all of the shortage of food, and for people to just help them out as far as dinnertime,” Meyer said. “Usually I do it Tuesday through Thursday, but now I have added on Mondays.”
Many people have come through the pandemic with a greater sense of need for those around them, and Meyer is no different, having asked herself what could she do in the crisis.
To order from her menu, customers can either call or go online and place their orders, and the orders must be in by 5 p.m. the day before the meal is delivered. Payment is easy with the options of using PayPal, credit card, check or cash. Each day, after preparing the food, Meyer becomes the delivery driver, delivering to four designated spots in Wheatland or will deliver to a business location in town. Meals are delivered between 4 and 5 p.m.
Meyer said that the meals come cooked, but cold, so they can put them in the refrigerator until the next day if they like. The meals come in foil pans, so the ease of just putting it into the oven without a mess to the customer pots and pans is a plus and saves time on cleanup.
There is a set price on the casual cowboy cuisine. The 2-3-person meal is $14.99 and the 4-6-person meal is available for $29.99.
For that price, there is an entrée, a side and a baked item, such as a fresh pumpkin chocolate chip bread or perhaps gingersnap scones.
In addition, there is a baking menu and a catering menu on the website where you can pretty much order your add-ons.
Meyer who said that she has always liked to bake and cook, and was mentored by some very good German-based family cooks. To this day, she still uses some “grandma recipes” in her cooking. She cited May 21st as a day to watch for on the menu as an old family standard, Kraut burgers and red potato salad are being prepared.
Not only does Meyer cater for events, and weddings, but also makes the wedding cakes and some baked goods that are time consuming and sometimes difficult.
“A lot of the wedding cakes take a lot of time,” she said. “The ones that are very monotonous are the crème puffs. It takes a lot of steps and you have to make them exactly the same each time. They are so frustrating because you have to make the crème puffs with paste, a choux filling, first. Sometimes if your oven isn’t right or if you look at them too soon they fall. It’s definitely the most difficult of the delicate desserts.”
According to The Pie Tin Bakery and Catering website which can be found at https://www.thepietin.com/, “There is no party too large or cake too small and will accommodate every event need. Meyer grew up in Byers, Colo. and graduated from High School in 2000. She graduated Summa Cum Laude with an AAS Degree in Culinary Arts in 2002 and a BS in Foodservice Management in 2004. During Meyer’s education, she worked at two major hotels, including The Omni Interlocken in Broomfield, Colo. There, she worked side-by-side educated chefs from across the country and increased her knowledge in the bakeshop and pastry department. The Meyer family moved to the area in 2008 and she is married to Greg Meyer. The couple have four children, Keegan, Maxx, Cooper, and Sophia.”
Stay tuned in the next few weeks as the entire interview with Meyer will air on our “Homespun” web-based digital podcast format. The link will be posted on www.pcrecordtimes.com.