 It’s been rather crazy around here. Much, much traveling with back-to-back trips. One trip was to Georgia so that Mr. Fix-It could do some training while I got to spend time with my precious Aunt Lois and Uncle Ed and see the new cottage that they are building. It is next to what will be their daughter’s home. They are in a retirement home right now and all I can say is that I am THRILLED that they are getting out of there and into their own place. I am not lying. I felt 90 years old when I left that retirement home. No smiles. No laughter. No sound. No nothing. Very dismal. It is so gratifying to see how my cousins are willing to give their parents the support, encouragement and help that honors the sacrifices that my aunt and uncle made for their children over the years.  Of course, if one is in Georgia during peach season, one MUST buy peaches and that is exactly what Mr. Fix-It and I did at the most enormous peach orchard I’d ever seen. There was no end to the peach trees and it just made me tired to think of all the work that goes into dealing with that many peaches. This family-owned orchard also supplies homemade peach ice cream to perspiring customers who brave the heat and humidity to purchase baskets of huge fruit. And what fruit it was! “Like candy,” comes to mind.      Mr. Fix-It and I came home to an even hotter Oklahoma of 110º – 114º days with no rain. We watched as grasses dried to a crunchy carpet of brown and trees slowly died, even though Mr. Fix-It diligently watered everything as best he could. Fires raged in nearby areas and the thought of leaving again was not really an option. But I had a high school class reunion to attend and I am sure that y’all can imagine that Mr. Fix-It was chomping at the bit to attend it with me!! This reunion, I am willing to admit, was my 40th year shindig. Yep. My classmates are all old. I’m not old, but they are! Fortunately, we Okies got about an inch of rain to alleviate any fears of leaving home to the fires and so Mr. Fix-It got his wish to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to a party where he was to converse with people he’d never met, didn’t know and who played absolutely no part in his world. As for my part, I agonized over what to wear. You know: “What outfit will make me look like I stepped out of Vogue even though, I don’t know what Vogue is or how one steps out of it? What jewelry will give the appearance that the Queen of England felt obliged to give me the crown jewels? Sandals or dress shoes? Heels or flats? Teeth whitening or ventriloquize through closed lips?” And my Thyroid Eye Disease tends to make me look like I’m either drunk or shocked at the sight of everything – wide, red, watery and exaggerated – how was I going to downplay that? Let me tell you, if you make it to your 40th reunion, you no longer care what the guys think. You simply want the girls…er..women..er…mature females…to look at you and gush, “Oh MY! You haven’t changed a bit! Why, you are just as cute as a bug’s ear and pretty as a peach,” while thinking, “Oh my gosh. I’d have never known her without a name tag. Her hair is platinum (remember?! We don’t say gray!) and I thought she used to be thin! I’m thinkin’ she’s eaten one buttermilk pie short of a bakery!!” And so I chose my wardrobe carefully to reflect only half a bakery and settled for a raid on James Avery for jewelry. There was nothing to be done about my eyes, except to keep them closed – along with my lips. The trip was uneventful – 15 hours of driving through drought-stricken Oklahoma and Arkansas and a stop at Trader Joe’s in Nashville, Tennessee. Trader Joe’s is my favorite. I’ve begged them to come to Oklahoma but was told by a number of their young, geographical geniuses that it isn’t possible to get over the Oklahoma mountains. What part of “wind comes sweepin’ down the PLAINS” do they not get?? We rolled into Knoxville to the home of our dear friends, Clyde and Mary, and settled in for the evening. It was then, that my vanity reared its ugly head. (Yes, admitting one’s flaws is a direct road to continuing them without embarrassment.) I had taken my wedding rings off. I wanted to wear these beautiful gifts from Mr. Fix-It the next day, to prove to my classmates that I had really talked somebody into sharing his paycheck with me on a regular basis, but my ring finger knuckle had swollen twenty times its normal size. Not to be deterred, at 11:30 that night, with Mr. Fix-It and our host and hostess already in bed, I decided to make sure that I could wear the rings. I don’t know why. Don’t even ask me. All I know is that I was determined. I slathered a ton of hand cream all over my hand and finger and got the rings to the knuckle and then, with tongue stuck out between my unwhitened teeth, I forced them the rest of the way into place. There!! They were on. And as I happily looked at them, my finger began to swell more. Oh no. I knew that my finger was going to turn blue. I tip-toed in to Mr. Fix-It, at midnight, and woke him up to inform him that my rings were stuck. You can imagine the sense of compassion and urgency he felt. He said, “I really wish you hadn’t done that. It’s midnight.” Long story short, he watched as I walked around the room with my hand over my head, stuck my hand in the freezer, ran cold water over my finger and tried another round of lotion to no avail. Clyde and Mary, stayed asleep, I think. By 12:30 am, the swelling had at least stopped and since my finger had not fallen off, Mr. Fix-It chose sleep over panic and I slept on the couch with my hand on the back cushions to keep it elevated. About 2 am, Mr. Fix-It came in to check on me, scared me to death and said, “I really wish you hadn’t done that. It’s 2 in the morning.” The next morning, finger still immensely swollen, our friends recommended their family jeweler, Lamon Jewelers, for rescue and I was driven to a very painful experience of getting my rings cut off of my sausage finger. It hurt!!!! And when my precious jewelry had finally been removed, it lay in a bent and twisted heap of metal and jewels that looked nothing like a set of wedding rings. I didn’t cry, but I wanted to. However, this afternoon, I signed for a FedEx package that contained my repaired and glistening rings, shipped all the way from Tennessee and they look just like new. Thank goodness for skilled craftsmen!!! The day of the reunion was full of fun, including a luncheon with a group of my former girlfriends and an afternoon spent with my friend, Robyn, traipsing through old neighborhoods to find the homes in which we had grown up. We found them and shot pictures of ourselves in front of the structures and even met the people who currently live in them. I found out that my old home is haunted – yep – that’s what they tried to tell me – and Robyn traded email addresses with the lovely woman who now calls her place “home” in order to send photos of the house from 50 years ago. The reunion was grand and I so enjoyed seeing the gang that I ran around with in high school, some of whom read this blog and were eager to meet Mr. Fix-It to verify that he is truly the wonderful man portrayed! They were in agreement. The trip back to Oklahoma the next day was also uneventful except for the moment that I came out of a restroom stop and calmly entered the car, wondering where Mr. Fix-It had gone, only to see him sitting in another car nearby. I was in the wrong car. He was laughing his head off. 1900 miles in four days is a bit rough, but it was worth it and I will treasure the memories of seeing so many people from my past. I thought that I would show those of you who haven’t ever made a peach pie before, how I do mine if I am not using my homemade peach pie filling. That was the case with the peaches from Georgia. I froze them in slices and thawed a gallon to make a pie, but I also use fresh. I figure that I’ll be ready for the next reunion where they can say that I only look like I’ve been eating one peach pie short of an orchard. Much healthier, I think. 1 gallon sliced peaches 1/2 cup flour 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/4 tsp nutmeg 1 double pie shell 2 pats butter cinnamon sugar Make your pie crust. My recipe for multiple pie crusts is great for a quick pie.  Put peach slices into a large bowl with flour, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg and toss until pieces are coated.  Pour coated peaches into an unbaked pie shell  Wet the edges of the bottom crust with ice water and lay top crust on top.  Roll bottom and top crust edges together to form a coil around the edge of the pie.  Flute the edges by using a floured knife end and pushing the pie dough into the pinched fingers of your opposite hand  Cut slits in the top of the pie dough to vent the pie  Sprinkle cinnamon/sugar over the top of the pie crust and dot with butter. Bake in a preheated 400º oven for one hour or until golden brown and filling is bubbling. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a rack for an hour before cutting.   |
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Posts Tagged ‘pie crust recipe’
Random Thoughts: Reunions and Things
Thursday, August 30th, 2012
πr²? – no – Pie r Round
Monday, September 28th, 2009
It’s Fall and that means that Thanksgiving is on its way! And Thanksgiving makes me think of pies. Yes, most people would say that they think of turkey – I’m sure that’s #1 on the board on Family Feud – but I think of pies – well – and yes – sweet potatoes.
I love pie. I won’t go out of my way for a cake, but give me a pecan pie or an apple crumb pie and I’m grinning. One of the readers asked for a good pie crust recipe and so I thought that this would be a good time to jump into the subject. Time to roll up our sleeves and prepare for the coming feast and to give thanks for God’s provision and grace no matter what our situation. These times are hard, but we can know joy in spite of hard times when we realize that God has it in His hands. Make this Fall and Thanksgiving one that your family remembers with fondness and joy! Good food helps!
Pie dough is really easy to make. The secret to great pie crust is in the shortening – plenty of shortening. You can’t be stingy. Of course, my grandmother, and probably yours, made the flakiest, lightest crusts because she used lard, but with today’s sermons on cholesterol I won’t even go there! Ask any southern cook, though, and they’ll all tell you that a crust isn’t a crust without lard.
So I use the next best things – Crisco and butter – real butter. It is also important to keep the ingredients cold. Having an Oklahoma Pastry Cloth ™ in the freezer is a plus! My recipe makes enough for quite a number of crusts and can be kept in the freezer to be measured out in 1 cup measures per pie shell or top. My recipe is an adaptation of one given to me by my mother many years ago, which I then recorded in the back of my grandmother’s Fannie Merritt Farmer Boston Cooking School Cookbook of 1951. Below, you will find the recipe and directions with pictures and then the directions for some wonderful tarts made with the pie dough.
Pie Crust Mix
4 1/2 cups flour
1 cup shortening – cooled in refrigerator
1 cup butter – also kept cool
2 tsp salt
6 tablespoons ice water (to be added to 2-3 cups of mix for double crust)
1 tsp white vinegar
Put 4 1/2 cups flour into a large bowl. Add salt.
Add shortening. Here, I am using the handy Adjust-a-cup that will be available on the shopping page in just a few weeks.
Cut butter into small slices. Add to flour, salt and shortening.
Using a pastry cutter (available at the shopping page) cut the butter and shortening into the flour.
Continue cutting until the mixture resembles small peas.
This mixture can be stored in a freezer bag in the freezer and used as needed. 1 – 1 1/2 cup = 1 pie crust round (depending on the size of your pan) so 2 to 3 cups for a bottom and top crust. Add 6 tblsp ice water with the vinegar added, a few at a time and stirring until dough pulls away from the side of the bowl and forms a ball. (Don’t be afraid to make it a little sticky. You don’t want your dough to be too dry)
Tarts
4 oz cream cheese
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup cool whip
1 1/4 cup strawberries
4 tbsp glaze
Measure out 1 3/4 to 2 cups pie crust mix and in a bowl, add one tablespoon at a time of ice water to equal six tablespoons along with 1 tsp vinegar and mix until a soft dough is formed as you stir.
Roll pie dough onto Oklahoma Pastry Cloth™ to about 1/8″ thick. Cut with flower shaped cookie cutter. This one is 3″ across and an entire set of them is coming your way with the other utensils. Check the shopping page in a couple of weeks!
Place “pie flowers” into Pam-sprayed muffin tins. Bake at 400° for approximately 8 minutes or until browned on the edges. Set aside to cool.
In a mixing bowl, place 4 oz cream cheese and mix until creamy. I like to use my old Sears hand mixer. It’s that 60’s-70’s retro gold color and still works like a charm. There’s just nothing like the high whine of an old hand mixer.
Add powdered sugar and cool whip. Blend until creamy. You will use around half of this for the tarts or double the number of tart shells to use all.
Spoon mixture into the bottom of the cooled tart shells. For more stability and to avoid breakage, this can be accomplished while the shells are still in the muffin tins.
In a bowl, place fresh strawberries and toss with strawberry glaze. Or you may also use any type of canned fruit pie filling.
Spoon fruit mixture over cream cheese mixture. Makes approximately 18 tarts
Arrange on tray and serve. Aren’t they pretty? They taste wonderful too!
Thanks to Kathy, for donating her tart recipe.
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