Homemade Pie Crust

Homemade Pie Crust
Printable Recipe

This is a great, full-proof pie crust. It's simple to do and is very tasty. It's made with butter, not lard, and is very flaky. Give this one a shot!

Ingredients:

·  2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling

·  1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, very-cold, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

·  1 teaspoon salt

·  1 teaspoon sugar

·  6 to 8 Tbsp ice water

    Directions:

Combine flour, salt, and sugar in a food processor; pulse to mix. Add butter and pulse 6 to 8 times, until mixture resembles coarse meal, with pea size pieces of butter. Add ice water 1 Tbsp at a time, pulsing until mixture just begins to clump together. If you pinch some of the crumbly dough and it holds together, it's ready. If the dough doesn't hold together, add a little more water and pulse again.

Remove dough from machine and place in a mound on a clean surface. Gently shape into 2 discs. Knead the dough just enough to form the discs, do not over-knead. You should be able to see little bits of butter in the dough. These small chunks of butter are what will allow the resulting crust to be flaky. Sprinkle a little flour around the discs. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour, and up to 2 days.

Remove one crust disk from the refrigerator. Let sit at room temperature for 5-10 minutes in order to soften just enough to make rolling out a bit easier. Roll out with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface to a 12-inch circle; about 1/8 of an inch thick. As you roll out the dough, check if the dough is sticking to the surface below. If necessary, add a few sprinkles of flour under the dough to keep the dough from sticking. Carefully place onto a 9-inch pie plate. Gently press the pie dough down so that it lines the bottom and sides of the pie plate. Use a pair of kitchen scissors to trim the dough to within 1/2 inch of the edge of the pie dish.




This pie crust was made for my coconut cream pie.

  You will have enough dough for two pies, or two crusts on one pie. If you're only using one crust, wrap the extra dough in plastic wrap, move to a freezer bag and freeze until you're ready to use. When it's time to use it, remove it from the bag and let it sit in the wrap on the counter at least 1 hour before trying to roll out.

Printable Recipe

Chicken Empanada's

Chicken Empenada's

These mini-chicken-pie's are so delicious. They do take time when you have to put the filling in the pie crust, but they are worth it in the end. This is one of my husband's favorite meals!



Ingredients

• 3 cups chopped, cooked chicken
• 1 (8-ounce) package shredded Colby and Monterey Jack cheese blend
• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup chopped red bell pepper
• 1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 (15-ounce) package refrigerated pie crusts
• Water

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Lightly grease a baking sheet. In a large bowl, combine the chicken and next 7 ingredients. Unroll 1 piecrust onto a lightly floured surface. Roll into a 15-inch circle. Cut out rounds, using a 3-inch cookie cutter. Re-roll dough as needed. Repeat procedure with remaining piecrusts, making 12 to 15 circles total. Arrange 1 round on a clean, flat surface. Lightly brush the edges of crust with water. Place 1 heaping teaspoon of chicken mixture in the center of the round. Fold the dough over the filling, pressing the edges with a fork to seal. Repeat with the remaining rounds and chicken mixture. (Up to this point, the recipe can be made ahead and frozen for up to 1 month). Arrange empanadas on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes.

I got this recipe from good old Paula Dean and the link is on Food Network's website.

Clean Eating Breakfast Cookies

Clean Eating Breakfast Cookies

I took this recipe from a blog about eating clean. You can click here to view her recipe and view her website. I made these cookies tons of times but prefer pumpkin over bananas. I put chocolate chips, pecans and coconut in these but any way you make them, it will taste great!

Ingredients:

1 large banana, mashed (or 1/2cup pumpkin)1/2 cup natural peanut butter 1/2 cup honey1 tsp vanilla 1 cup old-fashioned oats1/2 cup whole wheat flour 1/4 cup dry milk powder 2 tsp ground cinnamon 1/4 tsp baking soda 1 cup dried cranberries or raisins or coconut or pecans .. mix it up. It's your breakfast!

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Lightly coat two cookie sheets with cooking spray; set aside. In a large bowl, stir the mashed banana together with the peanut butter, honey and vanilla. In a small bowl, combine oats, flour, milk powder, cinnamon and baking soda. Stir the oat mixture into the banana mixture until combined. Stir in dried cranberries or raisins.TWO: Using a scant 1/4 cup measure (an ice-cream scoop works well for this!), drop mounds of dough 3 inches apart onto prepared baking sheets. With a thin metal or small plastic spatula (or just use the back of the ice cream scooper) dipped in water, flatten and spread each mound of dough into a 2 3/4 round, about 1/2 an inch thick.THREE: Bake, one sheet at a time, for 9 to 11 minutes or until lightly browned. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Store in an airtight bag for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 2 months.

 NUTRITION INFO:
Serving size: 1 cookie. Recipe makes 12 cookiesPer cookie - 184 Calories (53 Calories from Fat), 6g Fat, 1mg Cholesterol, 52 mg Sodium, 28g Total Carbohydrates, 2g Dietary Fiber, 16g Sugars, 6g Protein, 0% DV Vitamin A, 4% DV Vitamin C, 6% DV Calcium, 5% DV Iron

Family Cooking, Week 1 and Week 2 re-cap

I recently moved back to Pensacola, FL and am loving being here again. The beautiful beach, the warm, okay HOT, air and knowing my families are literally 5 minutes down the road from me gives me back what I needed!

My mom, sister and I have cooked twice together now and it was actually pretty fun. I didn't think it would be fun but we're all learning new recipes and we're able to make healthy choice for our families.

The first week we made sweet potato pound cake, but I called it bread.. it makes it feel less bad for me that way. We also made pumpkin/pinto bean soup (YUM!) and a chicken and rice casserole. If you have good time management, you too can make all of this food in a little bit of time.

Our second week we made a chicken cassoulet (I still need to google what that darn word means), chicken empenadas and a crock-pot lasagna. We made lemon muffins at our own homes and I went ahead and made a batch of breakfast cookies.

Everything has tasted so good! We make enough to feed our families at least 1 hot meal and then we can freeze the remaining portions or just eat it all for the rest of the week. I tell ya, this has been a huge time saver for me.

I will be posting all of the recipes and will include pictures once I'm able to get those. I'll also link the recipes to this blog when I can.

As for now, I hope you all are enjoying the kids being back at school and having some 'free' time!

Blueberry Breakfast Cake!

 I love having something sweet in the morning, so when I got a slice of this heavenly cake from my sister, I knew I had to post this recipe. It's made with fresh blueberries and lemon zest. YUM!

Ingredients:
½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 tsp. lemon zest or more — zest from 1 large lemon
7/8 cup + 1 T. sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 cups fresh blueberries (room temp.)
½ cup buttermilk

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350degrees. Spray or butter an 8x8 or 9x9 pan and set to the side.
Cream butter, sugar and lemon zest.
Add the egg and vanilla and beat.
Take 1/4cup flour and fold into blueberries and set to the side.
Add the remaining flour (1 3/4cup flour), baking powder and salt and mix that together.
Pour half the dry ingredients into the bowl and mix together then add half the buttermilk and so on until both mixtures are combined.
Fold in the blueberries and add to the pan. Sprinkle 1tsp. sugar on top of the cake before placing in oven.
Cook approximately 50-60 minutes for the 8x8 pan and slightly shorter for the 9x9 pan.
Check with a toothpick and if it comes out clean, it's ready.
Set on the counter about 10 minutes to cool.

ENJOY!

(I took the pictures with my cell phone because I'm in the middle of unpacking and don't know where my camera cord is!)

Thanks to this website for the yummy recipe and thanks to my sister for making it for me a while ago. I made it this morning and my in-laws loved it! This would be great to make for a party. It's super easy to make and so delicious!

Clean Eating - Egg Salad

I have stared eating clean and am loving it. Eating clean simply means eating complex carbohydrates (sweet potatoes, brown rice, wheat..) plus a protein with every meal and incorporating veggies and fruits in your diet. It also means getting rid of refined sugars, processed foods, and white foods. I'm reading a book at this website inspired by Tosca Reno called Your Best Body Now. I'm learning what it means to eat better and how foods affect you internally and externally.
Here is my clean eating recipe adapted from Tosca's recipe website found here.

What you need:
1/4cup fat free cottage cheese
1tbsp skim milk
1tsp mustard
4 hardboiled eggwhites, diced
1 hardboiled eggyolk, diced
1tbsp chopped green onion
2tbsp chopped celery
dash curry powder
1/4tsp salt

Directions:
Boil your eggs and dice them into bite size pieces. Combine cottage cheese, milk, mustard, salt, and curry powder and mix. Add the onion, celery and diced eggs and stir. Add to plain wheat bread or toast your bread.

This has 17g of protein which is AWESOME! You do not miss the mayo at all, I promise. It is very tasty! I did not have the onion, celery or curry powder so I did without and it was so good. I added a dash of black pepper instead.