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Friday, August 28, 2009

A Donna Domestic day


Irene, I dedicate this blog post to you. You asked about the peach pie I planned to make, so you got it, complete with a photo of the finished pie shortly after it came out of the oven. Just don't go calling me Suzy Homemaker. If you could see this cluttered home, you'd know that's not the term for me.

I did have a Donna Domestic day, but only in a culinary sense. I didn't clean a damn thing, unless you count cleaning off the counter as I cooked. I did manage to put away a couple of things; purely unintentional, I assure you. It wasn't the day for an organizational or cleaning binge, it was a day spent in the kitchen. Meatloaf to make, potatoes to peel and, yes, peach pie to prepare.

So after all that work, was it worth it? In a word, yes. A thoroughly yummy dinner with a wonderful dessert. A whole pie for just the two of us is a bit much but it's fruit, so that makes it okay...right?

I know it would be a tease to post the photograph and not the recipes, so here's how to make the crust and the filling. With peaches in season right now, I hope someone gives it a try!

Heather's Martha's Pie Crust

I got this recipe from my sister-in-law, Heather, who got it online, from someone who got it from Martha Stewart. Not personally, I'm guessing. Heather uses it for chicken pot pies. The pie crust I usually make has both shortening and butter but I had no Crisco and didn't want to go out just for that. So, an all-butter crust fit the bill. I'll use this crust again; it was easy to work with and so tasty.

You'll need:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and very cold
1/4 cup to 1/2 cup very cold water

I only had salted butter in the house so I used that and just cut back on the salt a bit; worked out great. I also stashed my butter and the water in the freezer until I needed them, ensuring they were quite cold.

Put the flour, salt and sugar into your food processor and pulse a couple of times, then drop in the ice cold butter.
Turn the machine on and let it run until the mixture looks grainy; it won't take very long.
Now, through the feed tube, with the machine running, slowly pour in 1/4 cup of the cold water. You want to be able to squeeze a bit of the dough together and have it stay together, so stop the machine and check. If it's still too dry, turn it back on and add a bit more water. Today, I used almost 1/2 cup water; I was concerned I'd added too much but as it turned out, it rolled out perfectly and wasn't too sticky whatsoever.
Have ready a large piece of plastic wrap and dump the dough out onto it. Using the wrap to help you, push the dough together until it forms a large disc or square, then cut it in half and wrap each piece well in plastic wrap and store in the fridge to rest. The recipe says to let it rest for 4 hours before you roll it out, but I didn't wait that long; while a long resting time is, um, a good thing, it's not necessary (sorry, couldn't resist the Martha-ism). A couple of hours is, in my opinion, sufficient time for the pie dough to get a good rest.
And there you have it: pie dough for a double-crust pie.

As for the filling, I found the Simple Peach Pie recipe online. I used the full amount of flour in the recipe plus extra cinnamon. The recipe calls for sugar to be sprinkled on top, which I did, but I do it my way: after I had put the pie together and crimped the edges, I brushed the top with heavy cream and then evenly sprinkled the two tablespoons of sugar over the top crust. This gives the pie a delicious sugar crackle on top and I recommend you do that too.

3 comments:

Leslie Jane Moran said...

This is totally amazing. So am I to believe that you not only did all that cooking today, but managed to get out the camera, stage a food photo and then create something in Photoshop for a blog post??? I thought you should be LANGUISHING on salon chaises cup of tea at hand.
My scramble word is "dedreti"...read that as you should be dead on your feet woman! AMAZING. Now I have to make a freaking pie...you keep upping the bar....STOP! EAT PIE.

Lost Aussie said...

Looks yummy Lennie, I am going to have to give your recipe a try!
It was PIE day here too..only mine was bacon, broccoli and shitake mushroom....served with fresh beet salad....

Irene said...

Oh well now I need to have that bacon and broccoli and shitake mushroom recipe and most certainly the beet salad. I love peach pie. I too only have the two of us to eat it, so I think I'll be making it a bit smaller and making it two. My pie plates serve 8. thanks so much for you kind dedication. Maybe we should do this as a regular thing. I'm in my son's garage today to find my canning jars, I make a peach and pepper relish and I must do it this year, I do it every other year, just so we aren't bored. And I've scoped out my peach jam recipe, Cathrine Holman was freezing peaches, I've never done that, simply because Daniel eats them before I get to that point. I do can some just so I can have a low sugar fruit for cheese cake. Well we all know how I'm doing with my ten pound challenge, I walk 6km. a day and I've gained four pounds. Ok. off to look for jars.

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