Fabulous No Roll Pie Crust

I just had to drop by today to share the BEST recipe I have ever discovered (okay, I discover great recipes all the time, but this is in the Top Five, DEFNITELY)! For me, desperation is usually always the mother of invention. Since, I am generally always trying to squeeze at least three seperate things in the same time increments, desperation is USUALLY my middle name. If multi tasking were an Olympic sport, I would be in the running for the Gold! Anyway, I digress.

I had an obscenely large amount of browning apple slices left over from a little party I hosted over the weekend (more about that later).  Of course, you all know that throwing said apples away would pain me GREATLY! Unfortunately, all efforts to feed the unattractive apples to my Dear Family, backfired! Apparently, eating brownish orange apple slices did not appeal to them. On to Plan B, then! I will just turn them into pie! Oh, wait! I only have nano seconds to throw a pie together........STINK! What to do? What to do?

Allrecipes to the RESCUE! No Roll Pie Crust is one of the best inventions, EVER in my book! It as easy as can be.  Spray your pie plate with cooking spray. Toss all the dry ingredients together  in the pie plate. Then stir in the wet ingredients. Pat the dough along the bottom and up the sides of the pie plate. Fill with your favorite fruit filling. Top with a crumb crust (so the apple don't dry out), and bake for 350 degrees for 50 minutes. No chilling, no rolling, no swearing.......it's FOOL PROOF, and flaky, too. I don't think I will be going back to the old fashioned, labor intensive pie crust, any time soon.

Fool Proof Pie Crust
(makes enough dough for one 8 inch pie)
Find original recipe HERE

1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons milk (I used half and half)

Follow the directions above. If you want to bake the empty crust , bake at 450 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes, or until golden brown. Don't forget to prick the crust all over with a fork, cover crust with aluminum foil, and fill with dry beans to keep it from shrinking and bubbling.

You may have noticed from the picture at the top of the post, that nobody had a problem eating the icky apples once it was turned into pie.

P.S, For the crumb topping, I sifted together:
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Then I cut in 3 tablespoons cold butter until it resembled coarse crumbs.

Baking Day

Well, I should have been scrubbing toilets and catching up laundry today. That was the plan anyway, but we ran out of bread this morning. Bread is a necessary evil at our house, so I decided to make a batch of bread. Which, of course, always leads me down the path of a baking free for all (BONUS:  I watched the highlights of the Royal Wedding on the kitchen television while I baked)!

I did bake bread:

In fact, I doubled the recipe for Potato Bread, and turned a fourth of the dough into buns for tomorrow's dinner. Hopefully, it will warm up enough here, so I don't freeze to death while I'm grilling hamburgers and hot dogs.

 I just happened to have a few frozen blueberries in the freezer that needed to be used. Blueberry Sour Cream Muffins seemed like the perfect recipe.

 Lastly, I have been trying to tackling my baking Nemesis', lately. I can bake and cook many culinary creations, but certain things still kick my posterior! From scratch brownies would be one. Since, I am avoiding box mixes in favor of their from scratch counterparts, and brownies are a FAVORITE, I bit the bullet and had another go. This time I was actually successful (see it IS good to face your fears)!

The recipe came out of a cookbook I got as a bridal shower gift (21 years ago). This cookbook has served me well. So well, in fact, that many of the pages are covered in greasy spots and are falling out.  Darling Daughter has informed that she will be inheriting it when I pass on. I did find the recipe I used on the BH&G website. You can find it HERE.

I think baking day was successful, but now I need to go finish cleaning up the mess that I made (and maybe consider scrubbing those toilets). If only cleaning up was as fun as making the mess!

Baking Day

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was going to start baking more from scratch. I came to this decision for several reasons: it's healthier (Dear Daughter's emergency gall bladder surgery in December has really gotten me thinking about all the additives in the food we eat.), it's cheaper ( I like bread with some body to it, and all the kinds we like to eat have gone up in price. I can bake a loaf for about $.67 or buy a loaf for $1.67. Plus if  I have odds and ends of  fruits and veggies, they can be pureed and put in muffins or quick bread.),  baking for me is a stress reliever ( I know that sounds  bizarre, but measuring, mixing, and seeing the end result makes me a Happy Little Camper. Plus, kneading that bread helps vent those frustrations!) Yesterday was the official baking day for the week. At the end of the morning I had baked:

 Parker House Rolls

I shaped half the dough into larger rolls to be used for buns. Child #4 likes to take the "buns" slathered with peanut butter and jelly in his lunch.

Whole Wheat Bread

I have a confession! It is not totally whole wheat, yet. I figured if  I exposed my family to the joys of  TOTALLY WHOLE WHEAT bread suddenly, they might have a stroke. Instead, each week I am going to substitute one more cup of whole wheat flour vs. white flour into the recipe. TIP: If you make Totally Whole Wheat bread adding one tablespoon of Vital Wheat Gluten for each cup of whole wheat flour will help keep your bread light and fluffy (and increase the chances of your family eating it). 

Oatmeal Cinnamon Bread

I found this recipe on The Frugal Girl's blog.  I consider her a baking guru, and I haven't found a recipe of hers I didn't like. The family gave this bread a two thumbs up, in fact, one of the loaves disappeared. as soon as the kid's got home from school.  It tastes just like a cinnamon roll (delish!!!). If you notice the ugly loaf in the middle, the recipe says it makes two loaves, but when I rolled the dough up to put in the loaf pan it seemed awfully large.  I ended up cutting  part of the dough off of the ends and smooshing them together into a third pan. If you make this recipe plan on three loaves ( I'm sure you have a neighbor or friend who would LOVE to take the extra loaf off your hands!).

As, I mentioned in this week's menu post, I used the leftover mashed potatoes from Sunday's dinner in the dough for the whole wheat bread and the oatmeal cinnamon bread. I added one cup of mashed potatoes into the wet ingredients before adding them to the dry ingredients (you may end up adding in about an extra half cup more flour as you mix the dough together). Adding potatoes into yeast bread dough helps make the bread soft, and it will stay fresh much longer. If you don't have leftover mashed potatoes, just add 1/2 cup of potato flakes in with the first cup of  flour.

Fabulous Baking Tip

I came across this handy tip in a cook book I was reading this weekend (call me weird, but I like to read cook books at bedtime. They help put me to sleep!). It suggested that you place a shallow dish filled with warm water (a glass pie plate works great) on the rack underneath your muffin pan or loaf pans of quick bread when you place them in the oven to bake. Since I had my inevitable black bananas to use up; I thought I would give it a try. Wow! What a difference it made. My muffins came out taller with a nice rounded crown (just like the pictures in food magazines), and they were light and fluffy (not always the case when I make muffins or quick bread). I baked the first batch for the normal time called for in the recipe,and they were a little too brown. The second batch I baked for 3 minutes less, and they were perfect!