Sorry 'bout that

I may or may not have dropped off the face of the Earth for the last few days weeks. Let's see...what happened?

Meh, not much. ( :

Family.
Friends.
Sleep.
Friends.
Family.
Sleep.
Family.
Friends.
Road trip.
Family.
Sleep
Family.
Road trip.
Family.
Friends.
Sleep
Family.
Friends.
Flight to NC.

Yup, that about covers it.
[Please assume that "friends" is synonymous with coffee and laughter.]
[Please assume that both "friends" and "family" are synonymous with eating.]

I feel that I should tell you that I baked a lot. However, I took exactly zero pictures of what I baked. I did confirm my love affair with butter though.

I will now share with you a pie I made with Vivi at Thanksgiving.

Yes, that was a long time ago.

Stop judging me.

No, seriously. Stop.

OK, fine, judge away. I'm a slacker.

A happy slacker with happy apples.

Over turkey break Vivi and I made an apple pie.

It was lovely.

The thing is, the apples were...meh. Nothing too special in my opinion. Not spectacular. Not terrible. Crispy, tart, sweet, cinnamony, but not eyes-rolling-to-the-back-of-your-head amazeballs.

The crust however. DIVINE. Let me tell you:
1. Flour-approximately 2 cups
2. Butter (the salted variety)-cold, 2 sticks
Combine the first two ingredients using a pastry cutter until crumbly. Avoid touching the butter/flour combo with your hands because any touching will add heat which defeats the whole purpose of using the cold butter.
3. Water-icy cold, added 1 tsp at a time
Once you start adding the water mix gently, but quickly. You want to keep everything as cold as possible. When the dough just starts to come together, turn it out onto the counter, divide it in two and roll one half until it is large enough to fit in your pie plate. DON'T TOUCH IT!  Don't touch it to turn the dough, don't touch it to shape it, don't touch it to put it in the pie plate.
DON'T. 

TOUCH. 

IT. 

Yes, I was skeptical. And possibly slightly annoyed at the non-touching. How the heck are you supposed to get it to look like pie crust?!?! Well you're not. You're going to use a large spatula to mauver the dough over to the pie plate and then you are going to press it into the plate (I'll admit to using my fingers for this, but you could use the back of a spoon.)

Dump in your filling.

Roll out the other crust and piece it together on top of the filling. Things will be very loose and flour-y. It will be OK. Trust in the power of butter.

Pie crust is an art. I'm not anywhere close to being in a place where I would claim confidence in pie baking. I've always used the roll out crust variety. I'm glad that I have made a successful crust though.

I see a glimmer of hope for my pie future.

Peace out peeps.
Thanks for sticking with me when I was a lame-brain.


Happy 2011.



Someday I'll post again.






Bye.