Perfect Pie Crust

My mom and I have a tradition that every Thanksgiving Eve, we bake pies together for the next day. How fortunate that just last month, I found a recipe for perfect pie crust while making a chicken pot pie. This dough was beautiful: pliant, easy to work with, and with all the best qualities of both butter (rich flavor) and shortening (flakiness and holding its shape). This makes 2 pie crusts.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Perfect Pie Crust

1/2 c. vegetable shortening
1/2 c. cold unsalted butter
3 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 c. ice water

Mix the shortening, butter and salt into the flour with a pastry blender until very crumbly. Add water until the dough comes together into a ball. Cover dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour, or as long as 24 hours.

When ready to make pie, roll the dough out on a floured surface until it fits your pie pan. Fold in half, then in half again, and transfer to the pie pan. Now unfold it. Do the same with the top crust, tucking the extra dough under and crimping the edges. Bake as indicated in your pie recipe.

The Gratitude Journal

Have you ever kept a gratitude journal? A good friend of mine, while suffering from depression, received counsel from a therapist to begin regularly keeping a gratitude journal. Every day, she was advised to turn to a blank page in a designated notebook, and write down at least 10 different items she was grateful for, without repetition.

Gratitude is indeed a natural antidote to depression. I have a vibrant green gratitude journal that energizes me every time I look at it. I haven’t written in this journal regularly for some time, for which I blame my husband for making my life too wonderful.

But this week, to honor Thanksgiving, I plan to write down as many things as I can each day that I have to be thankful for. My goal is to reach 100 items by Thanksgiving Day. I hope that this year's holiday will be my most grateful one to date!

Pear Pie

My Thanksgiving pear pie turned out well, so I am going to post the recipe on my blog. It's actually a combination of 3 different recipes - hope you like the results! (Shout out to my friend Sydnie Speer for first introducing me to the concept of pear pie, and just how delicious it could be.)

Pear Pie with Streusel Topping

Crust:
1 ¼ c. flour
¼ tsp. salt
3 T. butter, cut into small pieces
1 T. shortening, cut into small pieces
½ T. fresh lemon juice
Ice water

Lightly spoon flour into measuring cups; level with knife. Combine flour and salt in a large bowl; cut in butter and shortening with a pastry blender until mixture resembles course meal. Add lemon juice. Sprinkle surface with ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time, and toss with a fork until moist and crumbly. Shape dough into a ball, and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill 1 hour.

Filling:
3 T. flour
¼ tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp. salt
2/3 c. plus 1 T. sugar
2 ½ lb. firm-ripe Bartlett or Anjou pears, cored and peeled, each cut into 8 wedges
1 T. fresh lemon juice

Whisk together flour, nutmeg, salt and sugar. Gently toss with pears and lemon juice.
Roll out dough and fit into a 9 ½ inch glass or metal pie plate. Fill shell with filling and sprinkle with topping.

Topping:
½ c. sugar
1/3 c. flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
¼ c. butter

Mix all together and crumble evenly over pie.

Bake pie on a baking sheet for 20 minutes at 400F, then reduce oven temperature to 350F and cover pie edge with a pie shield or foil. Continue to bake until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbling, 50 to 60 minutes more. Cool pie on a rack to warm or room temperature, at least 2 hours. Makes 8 servings.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving has arrived, and with it, delicious fall flavors. The night before Thanksgiving, my mom and I always get together to bake pies. This endeavor has evolved over the years, although we still use Libby's recipe from the back of the can of pumpkin. (What? I still find it to be the best tasting recipe. Maybe that's just because I grew up with that taste? Also, I am in the camp of cooks who prefer recipes that use evaporated milk vesus condensed milk, which I feel adds an odd flavor.)

Growing up, my mom used frozen pie crusts, which I always thought to be chalky and flavorless. I usually ate around it in order to reach the irresistible pie filling. In college, I learned how to make decent pie crusts from scratch, and after I taught her this skill, we never went back to frozen. (Although I am still open to experimentation when it comes to crust. The best I've made so far combines shortening and butter. If anyone has an excellent crust recipe or secret, please share!)

Our family can be rather competitive when it comes to baking. One year, my brother (who also loves to cook) and I held an apple pie cook-off, which was officially declared a tie. Our two recipes were so different, it was like comparing apples and oranges- although we were really comparing apples and apples. This year, we are baking traditional pumpkin as a joint effort, and, since my brother claimed the apple, I am going to do a pear pie with a streusel topping. The recipe needs to be tweaked a little, but I will post it later.

In the meantime, we celebrated the holidays at work yesterday with our annual Pumpkin Potluck. Every dish revolves around the surprisingly versatile squash we so often relegate to pies only. My contribution was the following smooth, delicious soup. If you like mushrooms, you will love it! There's nothing better than a hot bowl of comforting soup when the weather is cold and damp. Enjoy!

Curried Pumpkin Soup

½ lb. fresh mushrooms, sliced
½ c. chopped onion
2 T. butter
2 T. flour
½ tsp. curry powder
3 c. vegetable broth
1 can (15 oz.) solid-pack pumpkin
1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk
1 T. honey
½ tsp salt
1/4 tsp. Pepper
1/4 tsp. Ground nutmeg

In a large saucepan, saute the mushrooms and onion in butter until tender. Stir in flour and curry powder until tender. Stir in flour and curry powder until blended. Gradually add the broth. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Add the pumpkin, milk, honey, salt, pepper and nutmeg; heat through. Serves 7.