Pie Crust!

I used to make pie crusts in the food processor. (hangs head in shame)
That is unnecessarily time consuming and messy, not to mention overkill on a dough that should be worked gently and briefly as possible.

Pie crust is easy! Almost as easy as opening a box, cutting the plastic, and unrolling the already-made stuff.
Its also cheaper, and I would bet you, flakier!

All you need is:
2 cups AP (thats short for all purpose flour)
3/4 cups lard
1 tsp. salt
3 oz. ice water

(I fill a small glass with ice water, and leave it there until I'm ready to measure the water, then pour 3 0z. into my measuring cup)
(btw, 3 oz. is 6 tablespoons)

What you do is:
measure your flour and salt into a bowl. Add the lard. now take your hand and work the lard into the flour. When you have worked it in enough it will resemble a very coarse meal. I just work it in until theres no great big globs of obvious lard.
Now, pour in your ice water with one hand and work it in with the other. It may not take all of it! But it will take almost all. You want it to come together into a ball, a workable ball, but not a gooey-sticky ball. Once its a ball, let it alone. Dont overwork it.

At this point, you can roll it out on a floured surface, or refrigerate for a few hours then make your pie.

Either way, this is really good pie crust.

Pie Crust!

When life gives you stale bread....

MAKE BREAD PUDDING!!! you need bread that is stale or dried out. It can dry at room temp. just by hanging around a bit past its prime, or, you can dry it in a low oven. This is a very tasty way to use old bread. you need 6 to 8 slices. Can use white, whole wheat, or a mixture of different breads. I used homemade Oatmeal bread. Mmmmm..... Bread pudding is a very frugal, homey thing. Its not fussy. Just use what you have. Anyway, the bread needs to be "dried out". Then cut it up into cubes. Throw them in a 8" or 9" square pan that you have buttered. Throw in a handful of raisins. Or other dried fruit. Oven at 350*. In another bowl, pour 2 cups heavy cream. Or milk. Whatever. 4 eggs, beaten 3/4 cup brown sugar 1 tsp. vanilla 1 heaping tsp. cinnamon Whip this mixture up good with a wire whip. Pour it over the bread and raisins in the pan. Pour a little melted butter over the top. Put it into the oven for around 45 minutes. Its good warm, cold, alone, or with this WONDERFUL caramel sauce I found the recipe for the other day. That caramel sauce.... you really need to click on that and make some. Don't let the buttermilk scare you. I feel the same way about buttermilk. Anyway, I had some of the sauce left over from waffles Sunday morning, and it is delectable on the bread pudding. GOOD STUFF! Good eating!

Meat Loaf

My dear daughter Tabetha called today asking for my meatloaf recipe. This presents a bit of a problem. Which one? I use a variety of recipes, and I also use no recipe. Meatloaf is: meat, some sort of bread, eggs, seasoning, tomatoes (or not).

With these basic ingredients you can make meatloaf. Add to it, take from it as you wish.
But there are several recipes that I also use. I will start with this one, your basic Mom-style meatloaf. This one comes from one of my favorite cookbooks. Farm Journal's Country Cookbook. I got it used, and the covers have since fallen off. But it has some great recipes!

Meat loaf:
2 lbs. ground beef
1 medium onion, diced (recipe says sliced, I always dice)
2 eggs, unbeaten
1 1/2 tsp. dry mustard (you will find it in the spice aisle)
1 tsp. chili powder
1 1/2 c. stewed tomatoes (I just use the smaller can of diced tomatoes, no worries)
2 slices bread, broken into pieces
2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
4 strips bacon

*combine all ingredients except bacon. Pack into a 9X5X3 loaf pan. Place bacon strips across the top.
*bake in preheated 350* oven 1 1/2 hours
Makes 8-10 servings
(leftovers will freeze)

Enjoy, sweetie!

A great pot of (pinto) beans doesn't have to take hours!

We eat a lot of pinto beans around here, as I'm sure you can tell from my posts. They are inexpensive, versatile, delicious, and keep indefinatly in their dried state.



But they take forever too cook. Used to. Not anymore.



I can start a pot of beans from dry, unsoaked, and they will be done in just about an hour.



Enter an old freind... the pressure cooker.


I know we have all heard horror stories of lids blown off and food permanently embedded in the ceiling. Modern pressure cookers are safe! More safety gadgets on them than a nuclear power plant.



Mine however, is about 20 years old. It has 2 safety gadgets. One locks the lid when there is any pressure at all, so you can't accidently remove the lid when you shouldn't. The other is a small rubber plug that will blow before anything else if there is a problem.



The best safety with mine is keeping close by and keeping a keen ear tuned to it. Once it has pressre and the regulator begins to rock, the sound (spt, spt, spt) should continue. If it stops making noise, it needs your immediate attention!



Now for the beans. Note, different size cookers can safely handle different amounts of foods. In mine, with beans, you never want to fill it more than half full, beans AND water.



Sort and wash your beans. Place in cooker, and cover with 2" of water. Remember, the beans and water should not fill the cooker more than half-full. Add salt and pepper, and some sort of oil. This keeps the foaming down, you do not want to omit this. I use bacon grease, about 3 tablespoons.

Place the lid securely on the cooker and bring up to pressure. Once it reaches operating pressure, on my cooker, I reduce heat to the point where the pressure regulator on the top of the cooker is gently rocking. Once operating pressure is reached, set your timer for 50 minutes.

When the timer goes off, shut off the heat and let the pressure drop on its own. When the pressure is all gone, remove the lid to reveal your pot of beans, ready to enjoy!

Serve with warm corn bread, or use the beans in other recipes.