Double-Crust Pie Dough

We're on the countdown to Thanksgiving now!! I've got 3 great posts lined up for you this week, and we'll be doing it a bit differently. Instead of the typical Monday, Wednesday, Friday line-up, I'm going to post Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday instead. :-)

For years, I've been trying to make pie crust. My mom has a fabulous pie crust, but whenever I try her recipe, it's been a total flop. Last Thanksgiving I was in tears (seriously...) because the pie crust was just horrendous. It was either too flaky and wouldn't roll out without crumbling or it was too tough. My sweet hubby suggested I look in our trusty America's Test Kitchen cookbook to see if they had a pie crust recipe instead. SCORE! This is SO easy, especially compared to my mom's recipe. Apparently my mom is the only one that can get her recipe to turn out perfectly. ;-)

Ingredients:
2.5 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling out the dough
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
8 tablespoons Crisco, cut into 1/2" pieces and chilled
12 tablespoons (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1/4" pieces and chilled
6-8 tablespoons ice water

Process the flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor until combined. Scatter the shortening over the top and process until the mixture has the texture of coarse sand, about 10 seconds. Scatter the butter pieces over the top and, using short pulses, process the mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs, about 10 pulses. Transfer to a bowl. Sprinkle 6 tablespoons of the ice water over the mixture. Stir and press the dough together, using a stiff rubber spatula until the dough sticks together.

If the dough does not come together, stir in the remaining water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until it does.

Divide the dough into two even pieces and flatten each into a 4 inch disk. Wrap the disks tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour. Let the chilled dough soften slightly at room temperature before rolling it out and fitting it into a pie plate.

To make ahead: The dough can be refrigerated, wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, for up to 2 days or frozen for up to 2 months. Let the frozen dough thaw on the countertop until malleable before rolling.

Stay tuned for a fantastic apple pie recipe tomorrow!

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Cream Cheese Carrot Muffins

This is another recipe that I got from Full Bellies, Happy Kids. My kids LOVED these! I think her recipe is actually missing an ingredient, because when I mixed up the ingredients as written on her site, the batter wasn't batter-y at all. It was totally crumbly, and there was no way it would have worked. So I just added a bit of milk, and it was perfect.

Another change I made was that I used fresh carrots instead of canned. I don't use canned carrots at all, so I just sliced and steamed my own. I ended up using 4 carrots, and I just used my steamer basket and steamed them for around 10-15 minutes until they were soft.

After I mixed up the batter and went to pour it into my muffin tin, I couldn't find my muffin tin. I have NO idea where it got off to, and my kids were all conveniently clueless as well. So I just poured it into a baking dish, topped it with the filling, and cooked it for an extra 20 minutes or so.

This could easily be served for breakfast, brunch, or even as dessert. It's super yummy!

Ingredients:
1 15-ounce can sliced carrots, drained
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cloves
2 eggs
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened

In a food processor, blend the carrots until they are smooth. After carrots are smooth, add in 1 egg, the oil, and the milk. Then, in a large bowl combine the flour, 1 cup of the sugar, salt, and spices. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix until combined.

Once batter is prepared, combine cream cheese, 1/4 cup of sugar, and 1 egg. Mix until smooth. Fill 12 greased muffin tins 1/3 of the way full with the batter. Then put a large spoonful of the cream cheese mixture into the center of each muffin. Top with remaining batter.

Like I said, I improvised. So here's what mine looked like this morning:

Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes (or if you did it like I did, then around 45 minutes), or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Where is the strangest place you've found something you've lost?

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Cheesy Pinwheel Rolls

This recipe was inspired by a friend of mine. Her blog is private, but she posted about how she'd taken her dinner roll recipe and made a loaf of garlic bread out of it. I always have tons of garlic on hand, and at that time I also had some leftover cheese I needed to use up, so that's how this recipe was born. I just used my regular dinner roll recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book (which I thought I'd already posted, but I guess not!), then added a couple extras to make it more spiffy.

If you're reading this, thanks for the inspiration, Jenn!

Ingredients:
4 1/2 - 4 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 package active dry yeast
1 cup milk
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter, plus extra for spreading on rolls
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, beaten
garlic, minced
mozzarella, shredded

In a medium mixing bowl, stir together 2 cups of the flour and the yeast. In a medium saucepan, heat and stir milk, sugar, butter and salt just until warm and butter almost melts (120-130 degrees). Add milk mixture to dry mixture along with eggs. Beat with an electric mixer on low to medium speed for 30 seconds, scraping sides of bowl constantly. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes. Stir in as much remaining flour as you can. Then knead dough on counter, adding remaining flour until you get a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic. Shape into a ball, cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size (about 1 hour).

Roll out the dough into a large rectangle (or as close to one as you can get -- you're going to roll it up and then slice it, so it doesn't need to be perfect by any means), getting it as thin as you can. Spread a generous layer of butter all over the rolled out dough. Then sprinkle the minced garlic as evenly as you can. Then top with cheese. The more, the merrier! Face it, this is not diet friendly, and you will gain a few pounds. So you might as well go all out. ;) This picture I took the first time I made it, and I didn't put nearly enough cheese. So if yours looks like mine, add more cheese! Keep going. Little more. Titch more. There! That should do it.

Roll it up.

Slice it up. I just used my pizza cutter, but you could use a really sharp knife or even dental floss (I've never tried that, but I've heard it works great). I cut mine into 1.5-2 inch pieces. Place on a baking sheet a couple inches apart.

Cover and allow to rise for 30 minutes. Then bake at 375 for about 12 minutes, or until golden brown.

Uhhh, YUM?!

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Blueberry Muffins

I got a pretty good deal for blueberries at the store last week, so we've been eating lots of them the past few days. After a few days of blueberry buttermilk pancakes, the fam was getting a bit tired of them, so I decided to make some into muffins. You know, to change things up a bit. I'm daring like that.

Making muffins is super easy! Okay, not quite as easy as opening a box of Jiffy, but it's definitely easy. And it tastes way better. And you can actually tell there are blueberries in these muffins, and not just some weird, tiny blue dots that are supposedly blueberries.

STEP AWAY FROM THE JIFFY BOXES!!!!!

I got this recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. There are all kinds of variations to this basic recipe listed in here. You can do banana muffins, cheese muffins, cranberry muffins, oatmeal muffins, poppy seed muffins......just to give you a few ideas. ;)

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup cooking oil
3/4 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Grease your muffin tins with butter or cooking spray, or line with baking cups. Set aside. In a medium mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the center of the mixture. In another mixing bowl, combine egg, milk and oil. Add egg mixture all at once to the flour mixture. Stir just until moistened (batter should be lumpy and very thick).

Gently fold in blueberries.

Pour batter into muffin tins, filling each one about 2/3 of the way full (makes 10-12 muffins).

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool in muffin tin on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove from pan and serve. With honey butter is best.

Do you tend to use pre-measured box mixes, like Jiffy? Or are you a cook-it-from-scratch kind of person?

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Cinnamon Raisin Bites

It's spring break this week and next, so I've had to come up with some activities to keep my 7 year old busy during the day. She loves to help me in the kitchen, so I was really excited to find this recipe because it was perfect for us to do together. And all these ingredients are things we always have on hand, so I wasn't rushing out to buy forgotten ingredients.

She did the whole thing almost entirely by herself. The only tricky thing was that the dough for this recipe is super sticky, so she had some trouble spooning it onto the baking sheets. Some of them ended up without any raisins and they pretty much look like little gerbils after being baked, but hey, she had a great time, and I had a great time watching her. :)

This is another one from Taste of Home. I don't think I've ever come across an easier recipe than this one. These are really tasty. They're like a cross between a scone and a muffin in texture, I'd say. My kids have been eating them by the handful. I keep finding crumbs all over the house. :)

I didn't really change anything this time. Surprise, surprise. All I did was to use parchment paper on my baking sheets to avoid using extra oil for greasing the pans. Next time I make them, I think I'll throw in some chopped nuts, though -- walnuts, peanuts or pecans.

These are perfect to make for quick breakfasts throughout the week, and they make wonderful, healthy snacks throughout the day, too.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup honey
1/2 cup raisins

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.

In a small bowl, combine the milk, oil and honey. Then add to the dry ingredients, stirring just until moistened. Gently fold in raisins. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray (or parchment lined).

Bake at 425 for 8-10 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Place on wire racks to completely cool. Or don't. They're really yummy when they're warm, so you may not have any left over.
See, I told you they look like gerbils (or some type of rodent). :)

What are your favorite things to make with your kids?

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Banana Bread

When my husband and I got married, my mother-in-law gave us the Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book. Some of our favorite recipes come from this cookbook, and this recipe is one of them. I know at least one newer version of this cook book has come out since we got married, but I can't bring myself to upgrade. I love my worn-in, sentimental cook book, ripped pages and all. :) If I told my husband that I was attached to a cook book from our wedding day, I think he'd have me committed.....

Seriously, though, I do have attachment issues. On our first date, we sat and talked while drinking some Coke in glass bottles. Yeah, I still have those. And one night, we were eating at this Italian restaurant, and my husband composed a song for me on the paper tablecloth with the crayons they give the kids. Still have that, too.

Okay, so apparently I'm feeling a wee bit sentimental considering it's nearing V-Day. :)

Enough sap. On to banana bread.

I've made the recipe with nuts and without nuts. I've also made it with the lemon juice and without. And I suggest making it with both of those ingredients. It's much higher on the Yumminess Scale that way.

To make banana bread, your bananas need to be really ripe. They need to be starting to turn dark to get the most sweetness and flavor out of them. Like this:

This recipe makes one loaf of banana bread. My family inhales this stuff, so I always double the recipe. It's fabulous to serve as a quick, healthy breakfast in the morning, unless your 2 year old is like mine and screams, "More butter!!!!!" as you're fixing her slice....

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup mashed bananas (about 3 medium)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cooking oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Grease the bottom and 1/2 inch up the sides of a loaf pan; set aside. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Make a well in the center of the dry mixture. In another bowl, combine the egg, bananas, sugar, cooking oil and lemon juice. Add egg mixture all at once to dry mixture. Stir just until moistened (batter should be lumpy). Stir in nuts.

Pour batter into your prepared pan. Bake at 350 for 50-55 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove loaf from pan and continue to cool on wire rack until completely cooled.

The original recipe says to wrap the loaf in plastic wrap and store overnight before slicing. We can't exercise enough self-control to do that. But if you can, more power to you.

M'mmmmmm! Good thing I still have some left!

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Snickerdoodles

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and got to enjoy tons of good food, friends and family! We had a busy but great holiday week, and I'm sure looking forward to getting back into blogging again.

I don't know about you, but I did tons of baking last week. I spent the entirety of Wednesday baking cookies, breads, etc. I found this recipe in my Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book. If you're looking for a recipe that's extremely kid-friendly, this is it. My kids loved rolling the cookies, in between trying to sneak bites of raw dough, of course. :) These cookies are so little and cute, and they made perfect gifts for our neighbors.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375.

In a mixing bowl, beat butter for 30 seconds. Add baking soda and 1 cup sugar and mix well, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in egg and vanilla until well-blended. Then add flour. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Combine 2 tablespoons sugar and cinnamon. Roll dough into 1 inch balls, then roll balls around in sugar mixture. DO NOT PRESS DOWN. Place 2 inches apart on an ungreased baking sheet.

Bake at 375 for 10 or 11 minutes, or until edges are golden. Cool on a wire rack.

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Pumpkin Cheesecake

I was trying to decide what yummy dessert I wanted to make for Thanksgiving. Since it was just our little family this year with no extended family around, I couldn't make all my favorites because we'd never eat that much. I decided the choice was between cheesecake and pumpkin pie. Then I realized I didn't have to choose -- I could combine them!

Yum!

I took parts of my favorite cheesecake recipe and parts of my favorite pumpkin pie recipe and mixed the key elements together. I wasn't sure how it would turn out, because I'd never done it before, so when we got together with friends that night for dessert and people told me how good it was, I was very relieved. :)

This is the perfect way to use up that small can of pumpkin leftover in your pantry. Or, if you have the larger can, use part of it in this recipe and the rest to make Pumpkin Cake Squares!

Ingredients:
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup butter, melted
3 eggs, beaten
1 pound cream cheese, softened
1 16 ounce can pumpkin
1 cup + 1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 375.

Combine graham cracker crumbs and melted butter. Press along bottom and sides (it'll only go up about 1 inch) of a spring-form pan. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon sugar.

Combine remaining ingredients. Beat until smooth.

Pour batter into pan. Bake for 35 minutes. Refrigerate at least 8 hours before serving.

Did you make any fantastic desserts for Thanksgiving?
Do tell!

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Super Soft White Bread

I've tried several bread recipes over the last few months, trying to lower my grocery budget. I found some yummy recipes, but the bread was so dense and had a pretty hard crust, no matter what I tried -- so it was great for garlic bread but not so great for sandwiches or toast. So I found myself still buying bread at the store, which is exactly what I was trying to avoid by making my own bread in the first place.

And then I found this recipe. It's another recipe that I found online on THIS website.

When I make these loaves of bread, my family will eat the entire batch in one sitting, if I let them. I don't let them. :) It is so extremely soft and is also very easy to make. It makes amazing French toast, and even just toasting it and slathering it with butter is perfection.

I think one of the main reasons this bread is so much better is because it uses bread flour instead of all-purpose flour. I'll admit I hadn't even heard of bread flour before -- every other bread recipe I've ever made just called for all-purpose flour. That's what makes the biggest difference in this recipe!

FYI -- bread flour is high in gluten. It has a few additives - like malted barley flour, vitamin C or potassium - that really help the yeast to work to its fullest potential. It's the extra gluten that provides the chewy-ness. If your recipe calls for bread flour, you can substitute all-purpose flour if you really need to (try your best not to need to, though!), but you won't get the same fabulous results. However, if a recipe calls for all-purpose flour, like a cake recipe, for example, don't substitute bread flour.

As always, you may want to read my tips on working with yeast and bread making before you begin!

Enough chit-chat.

Ingredients:
2 cups hot water (about 110 degrees)
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
6 cups bread flour

Dissolve sugar in water. Add yeast and let stand until yeast is very foamy and bubbly, about 5 minutes.

Add salt and oil. Mix in flour, 1 cup at a time. (You may need to use a bit more flour. I've had to use 6.5-7 cups in the past -- it really depends on the humidity.) Knead dough, either by hand or in your mixer, for about 5 minutes. Place dough in a well-oiled metal bowl, cover with a damp cloth and let rise until double in size, about 1 hour.

Punch down dough, divide in half and place into well-oiled 9x5 loaf pans. Let rise about 30 minutes.

Bake at 375 for 30 minutes. (Depending on your oven, you may need to cover loaves with foil and then remove the foil the last few minutes, to prevent over-browning.)

I dare you not to eat it all in one sitting!

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Pumpkin Cake Squares

This yummy recipe came from my Taste of Home magazine. The original recipe was to make a cake roll, but I didn't feel like fussing with rolling, unrolling, frosting, rolling again.....So I just made them into quick-and-easy squares. Oh. My. Goodess. So yummy! The entire batch was gone in less than a day!

I've had a can of pumpkin in my pantry for quite a while now that I wanted to use up, and this was the perfect way to do it. This recipe doesn't call for a whole can, but there's the perfect amount left over to make a pumpkin cheesecake out of (recipe coming hopefully next week!), you could add it to pancake batter, waffle batter...the list goes on!

Ingredients:
3 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2.3 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
3/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt

For frosting:
6 ounces cream cheese, softened and cubed
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup powdered sugar

Line a 15x10x1 inch baking pan with parchment. Coat with cooking spray. (If you're having trouble getting the parchment to stick, use cooking spray or a little butter as "glue" to hold it to the pan.)

In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs for 3 minutes. Slowly add sugar, beating for 2 minutes. Add pumpkin and almond extract.

Combine flour, cinnamon, baking powder, ginger and salt in a separate bowl. Fold into pumpkin mixture.

Spread batter evenly into pan.

Bake at 375 for 10-15 minutes. While cake cooks, combine cream cheese, butter, vanilla and powdered sugar. Blend until smooth. Remove cake from oven. Cool for 5 minutes, then invert onto a kitchen towel that is sprinkled with a little powdered sugar. Peel off paper. Transfer cake to a large platter and frost that baby! Cut into squares (I got 12) and refrigerate for 1 hour.

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Baking Powder Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

Continuing on with the breakfast for dinner theme, today we're making biscuits and gravy. Yum. This is all my husband orders when we go out for breakfast. Well, sometimes he'll branch out and get an omelet, but that's pretty rare. I'm more of an eggs benedict girl myself, but that's another post (we have plenty more breakfast for dinner ideas up our sleeves, so stay tuned - we'll visit this topic again!).

Let's start with the gravy. I normally make this first to give it a chance to thicken while I'm making the biscuits. This is the same gravy I use for crepes.

For the gravy--
1 pound regular bulk sausage
2 tablespoons flour
3-4 cups milk
salt and pepper, to taste

Brown the sausage in a large skillet. After sausage is browned, mix in the flour, cooking for 2-3 minutes. You may have to add in a little more fat (a drizzle of olive oil works well) to combine the flour. Then stir in the milk.

Season with salt and pepper. Reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until thickened, stirring occasionally.

If your gravy gets too thick, just add in some more milk to thin it out. No big deal.


On to the biscuits.

Biscuits can be a bit tricky. The key to making great biscuits is to handle the dough as little as possible. When the recipe says to mix just until combined or to knead just until smooth, those "justs" are extremely important. Over-handling the dough makes tough biscuits, so really, less is more here. Don't let that scare you away, though. They really are easy to make and take very little time (about 20 minutes from start to finish).

Plus, your family will be very grateful. And then you'll feel like a kitchen goddess. And that will inspire you to create more wonderful dishes. Your family will then be even more grateful. See where this is going? And it all boils down to homemade biscuits. You can thank me later.

Before making biscuits (or pastries), you'll want to invest in a pastry blender. If you don't have one, you can just use 2 knives or even a large fork, but the pastry blender works a lot better. It's like $5, so it's not a large investment. You can even get them at Wal*Mart. They really help incorporate the fat into the flour mixture and get it evenly distributed, so I'd highly recommend you get one. They look like this:

Also, you'll need something to cut your biscuits out with. You can use a regular, round cookie cutter. If you don't have one, you can just use a glass cup. Just dust the top with flour so it doesn't stick, and you have an instant biscuit cutter.

For the biscuits--
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup shortening
3/4 cup milk

Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl until well combined. Cut in shortening with pastry blender until flour mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Make a well in the center of the flour mixture.

Pour milk into the well. Mix just until combined.

Put dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead just until smooth, about 10-12 strokes. Roll dough out to 1/2 inch thick. Then cut out your biscuits. You'll end up with about 10 biscuits.

Place biscuits onto an ungreased baking sheet about an inch apart. Bake at 450 degrees for about 10 minutes, or until golden brown. Top biscuits with sausage gravy or honey butter.

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