This week: an easy, no-bake cookie; and a great vegetable gratin from Jacques and Julia!
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-JT
Still trying to get home to make my ham and bean soup. Everyone’s been great with their additions to it. Will make enough to take to the local senior center (only about ten folks there).
I have always enjoyed chef Nathan Lane. He lives in CA ( where whence I came). He competed on Food Network( did not win). He has always loved fresh produce right from the garden. He has tried to cut out sugar/white flour in some of his recipes. His carrot coconut date balls are really a treat.
https://chefnathanlyon.wordpress.com/category/all-recipes/
It's Chef John's late mother, Pauline's, crust for her Key Lime pie if you want to search for it on youtube. I didn't like the filling, but finally have a crust for rolling that is much easier.
Pauline used all pastry flour. We don't have it here and don't want to pay for shipping. Since my glass pie pans are the scalloped deep dish ones, they take a little more dough.
So I picked up the recipe from the Crisco site for classic crust for deep dish pans, using one cup of cake flour plus 1-2/3 AP flour and 1 cup shortening (check the math if you decide to try this).
Now others have rolled right away, most chill, and Pauline patted it out into a larger disk on her floured surface, like maybe 10 or even maybe 12 inches across, easy enough to do that. She didn't pre-chill. And I think Pauline used Crisco. The white kind. I pinch and even up the edges so they don't get very cracked or jaggy and finish rolling with a floured pin.
If I can get some more leaf lard or farmer's rendered lard, not the white store stuff (although maybe it doesn't matter), I used to watch in awe my mother-in-law roll lard crusts.
My sister brought me a jar of lard so I tried it my mother-in-law's way. For 2 crust pie. 2 cups flour. 1 tsp salt or adjust if necessary. Exactly 2/3 cup lard. Blend the usual way with a pastry blender, sprinkle in the cold water and toss with fork. It will roll right away into a perfect circle. No jaggies or cracks.
The only problem is I put a custard filling in it and it was ick. But it would work for fruit pies because that's the only way my mother-in-law would make them. I insisted on my mother's Crisco recipe (which does not roll into a perfect circle). My mother had the patience of a saint when she made always 2 pies.
Early on, I got fed up, cussed a blue streak, slammed my nice rolling pin on the table and bent one end. I didn't make pies for a long time after that and came up with my hand pressing method described in a post above.