Thanks to the weather, my mom and I decided to postpone our family Christmas until tomorrow. She and her sister are coming up to our place and since it's a 100 mile drive, we decided to give the road crews one more day to clean up the Christmas Eve snow. We ended up with 7-8 inches, which made a nice mess of our hilly roads.
The Farmer and I have had a quiet Christmas Day. I decided to bake myself a present - a pecan pie. That is my absolute favorite-est pie. French silk comes in a close second.
You can't go wrong with a pecan pie: butter, sugar, vanilla, eggs, corn syrup and pecans. What's not to love?
I'd been planning this pie for a while. The crust posed an ethical question. Homemade or store bought? I learned how to bake pies when I was in 4-H and I made an awesome pie crust. I also hated every every frickin' minute of it. Nothing raises your blood pressure like mixing and rolling out a crust that is so tender and flaky it disintegrates when you try to transfer it from the pastry cloth to the pie pan. So it really wasn't that much of a dilemma.
Although my mother might disown me. She takes great pride in her pie crusts. Of course, she learned to make them back in the day when lard was the main ingredient. I stood in the grocery store and thought about buying lard so I could make a homemade crust. I thought about it for exactly three seconds. I already have a heart condition. Buying a big ol' chunk of lard for a pie crust I didn't want to make in the first place sounded like a really unhealthy idea.
So I went to the freezer section and bought a two-pack of frozen pie crusts. As far as I'm concerned, the crust is just there to keep the filling from getting away. As long as it does that, who cares about anything else.
I felt vindicated when we were at the Farmer's folks' house last night for Christmas and while I was putting food away in their fridge, I spotted a box of store-bought pie crusts. Since the Farmer's mom is an absolutely wonderful cook, I decided anything that was good enough for her was good enough for me.
Ahh, pecan nirvana. Ignore the broken chunk of crust. It was so delicate and flaky it crumbled when I put my big fat thumb on it. Yeah. Something like that.
That looks wonderful!
ReplyDeleteCan pies travel to agility trials?
ReplyDeleteYour Pecan Pie looks delicious and professional!
ReplyDeleteI've never had pecan pie because I don't really like nuts of any variety, including pecans. I've also never had French Silk because..well, I've never heard of it. The name sounds great though.
Even though I can make a homemade pie crust, I also buy storebought. It saves time and aggravation, and who am I to undermine all the hard work that the people (or machines) at the factory have done?
My daughter made a Jack Daniels chocolate pecan pie. It was incredible! She also goes for store bought crusts. I actually enjoy making pie crust, but rarely bake any more.
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