Reflections on Pie

This Christmas, I made my first pies.  In true me-style (the style that overdoes everything and makes things as difficult as possible), I planned to bake the pies from scratch.  I used recipes from Food Network magazine and went to work.

My little helper assisted with pouring all the ingredients.  However, she had to leave to room before I turned on the food processor since she is still afraid of the noise.

I found the mixing of the dough and making of the fillings pretty easy.  However, when it came time to roll out the dough, I had to resist the urge to throw my rolling pin across the kitchen.  I floured all my surfaces, the dough was cold and still it stuck to the rolling pin.   As the pin rolled across my miscreant pie crust, it would pull out little divots and potholes my dough resemble a road in need of repaving - not my idea of a holiday pie.

Josh came into the kitchen and found me on the verge of tears.  I threw down the rolling pin and thought of how I could still make it to the store, buy a frozen pie crust already perfectly molded to the tin and fill it with homemade filling.  Resisting the urge, I turned to the internet instead.  Other people must have had this problem.

Helpful hint:  Place your pie crust between two pieces of waxed paper and then roll it out.  You can then take the waxed paper, turn it upside down and place it your pie plate.  If I had known this before, I would have saved myself an hour.


The pies were a hit!  I made an apple crumble and a pecan pie.  Although I still have to work on making the crust a little prettier,  I'm happy I stuck it out.

More culinary Christmas adventures:

Christmas Breakfast:  I made homemade granola with eggnog yogurt and a fruit salad.

Our Christmas dinner spread.  Due to hosting 16 people, we decided on a buffet style.