Pie and pickles

While I am an above average cook, my baking skills are less than stellar when it comes to anything other than bread. Pie crusts in particular have long baffled me - too crumbly, too dense, too tasteless - and for years I have used refrigerated Pillsbury pie crust dough. So when I saw a pie crust class listed in the local continuing education flyer for OCM BOCES, I decided it was time to give the Doughboy a break and learn to make a decent pie crust.

Chef Ann of The Gingersnap Bakery was the instructor for the evening class, and before demonstrating good pie crust technique, she explained the science that takes place when making a good pie crust. I learned why the flour needs to coat the fat (butter, shortening, or some combo of both), why the water needs to be cold, why you need to handle the dough as little as possible. I really liked that she had us put our hands into the demo dough to experience how the dough should feel, in addition to seeing how it should look. She explained the different types of pie tops, why hot filling should be cooled before being poured into a crust, how to bake a blind (empty) crust, and so on. We then broke into small groups to make our own pie crusts, and tried out a variety of fillings.

When I asked James and Aidan what type of pie I should make first, Aidan immediately said Aunt Tammie's delicious blueberry pie, which he had eaten at their house during his summer visit. Tammie graciously sent me the recipe and I made my first completely from scratch pie in years:

I am proud to say that the pie was delicious, and Aidan even said that it was almost as good as Aunt Tammie's pie! Because the filling is not baked in the pie, I could not do a fancy lattice top. Instead, I made a rope border around the edge and then blind baked the crust. The crust tasted great, although I made the border too thick in places and it was difficult to cut. All in all, I am very pleased with my first pie crust effort and will likely never buy another pie crust again. Take that, Doughboy!

James brought in the last of the peppers and tomatoes before our only frost so far this fall, but most of the tomatoes were green. Our friend Phil suggested that James make green tomato pickles and came over one night to get him started. They sliced the tomatoes along with the various peppers and some onions, layered them with salt and left them overnight with a heavy weight on top to press out the liquid. James then rinsed the produce, made a concoction involving vinegar, water, sugar and various herbs/spices, and packed it into jars:

We will soon be able to sample his first attempt at making pickles and if they are half as good as the ones that Phil gave us, then we will be happily munching pickles all winter.