Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Thanksgiving Prep: Day Two

butter

Today's tasks were to continue on with the bread drying, make pie crusts and start chopping up some of the stuffing vegetables. The bread is looking delicious and is making the house smell awesome. While Molly was at co-op preschool this morning and Maggie was helping me out by taking a nice nap, I started making pie crust dough. I used my favorite recipe, which I'll include at the end of this post. 

piecrust

I always love making pie dough. I once spent a year perfecting pie dough and all the tasty memories come back from that experience. I rarely make pies anymore though so when the opportunity presents itself, I get really excited. 

piecrustdough

After making four batches of pie dough, I wrapped them up and stuck them in my very full fridge. That turkey is taking up a lot of room! I checked the time and I still had 45 minutes before I needed to pick up Molly and Maggie was taking an epic nap so I decided to start chopping! 

stuffedfridge

I use my mother's recipe for stuffing and it is a complicated beast. There is chopping and bread drying and seasonings to mind. My Mom never pre-cooked any of the veggies but I decided to roast them one year and have never looked back. I chopped the onions and celery today and placed them in the fridge. I'll roast them tomorrow for final assembly on Thursday. 

turkeycreator

And while I was busy prepping for Thanksgiving, Molly was busy creating Orange Turkeys at school. Shortly after I took this picture, she took everything out, peeled the orange and ate it. At least it was cute while it lasted! 

Perfect Pie Crust
by Rebecca Mongrain
Prep Time: 15 minutes active
Ingredients (1 pie crust)
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup COLD unsalted butter, cut into cubes
  • 1/2 cup COLD butter-flavored vegetable shortening, cut into cubes
  • 1/4 cup cold water
Instructions
Add the flour, sugar and salt to the food processor. Pulse a few times to mix before scattering the butter over the dry ingredients. Pulse about 6 times to cut in the butter. Add the butter-flavored vegetable shortening and pulse again, about 6 times. Scrape the edges to make sure the mixture is mixing in before adding half the water. Pulse about 5 times and then add in the remaining water. Process until the dough begins to look like coarse crumbs.
Using your hands, form the pastry to a ball. Knead the ball twice before flattening it into a 1-inch thick disk. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour, preferably overnight before rolling out.
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