I'm working on...

..perfecting a homemade version of a Nutrigrain bar. Or in my case, the 365 brand "all natural" version of it.

The first attempt came out tasting good but was a pain to put together. I can see definite possibilities.

Stay tuned!

The Pie Ends (a la Fred)

A customer of ours, Fred, started a conversation with me at work about my enjoyment of baking and just before Thanksgiving he shared a tip with me that I thought was cute. He suggested I make "roly poly's" with the ends cut off of an unbaked pie shell. I don't remember the exact details but I'm pretty sure it involved rolling them up with cinnamon and sugar and baking them. He shared that his wife makes this for the kids and it's been a big hit. Results were delicious!

My Dad's Spaghetti Soup (sans spaghetti)

My dad's soup was such a big hit in my house that when I stopped at Whole Foods on my way home from a trip to the city, I snagged another pound of the grass fed ground beef so I could make another batch.

However upon starting the batch, I realized that I was out of thin spaghetti. Hence the substitution. It still came out nice and it's a bit easier for my youngest children to eat. Upon soaking up in the fridge a bit, it's more like an "American Chop Suey" stew. I put two bags of it in the freezer. Yum.

Pecan Pie (sans corn syrup)

Thank you again, Mrs. L for finding me a Pecan Pie recipe that was exactly what I was looking for (natural ingredients. no corn syrup. no crisco)! I'm so appreciative of my baking helpers. It makes it really fun! If you would like the original recipe, it can be found here at All Recipes.

Ingredients:

1 9" pie crust

1 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

1/2 c melted butter

2 eggs

1 TBS flour

1 TBS milk

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 400%

Make pie crust.

In bowl, beat eggs until foamy. Add butter. Stir in brown sugar, white sugar and flour and mix together well. Add milk, vanilla and nuts.

Pour into unbaked 9" pie shell.

Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes then turn the heat down to 350 degrees and bake for another 30-40 minutes. Mine was done at 35 minutes.

It came out spectacularly!

Pie Crust (Rolled)

I'll start by saying that I'm not crazy about making rolled pie crust. It's not that it's any more work than anything else. There's just something about it that makes me have a tiny bit of "ugh, I have to make a real crust for this." Maybe, it's because it's a bit messy. I'm not really sure. But I finally worked it out so my crust comes out decently now. I used to overmix the dough terribly and now that I've been a little more patient, I seem to do o.k.

I start by weighing the butter. A one crust pie calls for 1/3cup plus 1 tablespoon of butter. More easily is to weigh out 3.2 ounces. Here is what 3.2 ounces of butter looks like (above).


In a bowl, mix 1 cup of flour with 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Cut up your butter into chunks and sprinkle into the flour/salt mix tossing the pieces as you go.

Using a pastry blender (or two knives criss-crossed), cut the butter into the flour.

Most recipe books will tell you to cut the butter in until the pieces are the size of peas. I don't know about the rest of you but I've never ended up with nice neat "pea sized" bits of flour coated butter in my dough. I usually get uneven, variously sized bits. And that's been o.k. This is just about what it looks like when I get to the "I'm done cutting in the butter" stage. (above)

Most recipe books also tell you to sprinkle 2-3 tablespoons of cold water onto the mix one tablespoon at a time. Fluff with a fork until the dough "just" starts to leave the side of the pan. I've never gotten by with only 3 tablespoons. If I don't add at least 4 tablespoons, my dough doesn't gather. This isn't a good picture, but what I do is after the 3-4 tablespoons I try to see if I can press the dough into a ball with my hand and move it as one lump. This is what I consider done.

I get the best results when I stick the bowl and dough in the fridge for 30 minutes. It makes it easier to roll out. It's not a requirement but it really does help.

My dining room table is one slap of wood and it makes the surface nice and large to roll out a crust. I liberally flour the table and the dough and start working on it with the rolling pin. If it starts to break along the edges, you can patch it with end pieces as they stick out. It takes quite a bit of flour and a couple of flips for me to keep it from sticking to the pin and the table. If you don't flour enough, you might find that big hunks of butter pull out of the dough, and that's a pain to work back in (you usually can't)

My fully rolled crust, ready for putting into a 9" pan, with some extra bits to make some little treats with.

For a two crust pie, double the recipe and split the dough into two batches before chilling.