Pie Crust

They say there’s no such thing as too much of a good thing. That is a lie because my pie crust is really good and it is very easy to eat too much of it. But as a homemaker with a somewhat limited set of culinary skills, I have to find ways to be creative with the food items I CAN make, and pie crust is one of them. So, here is my recipe, and a few things you can do with it.

Pie Crust

2 cups flour

1 cup butter or shortening

¼ cup water

(optional salt to taste)

Use a fork to incorporate butter (or shortening) into flour until it is a bunch of crumbs and small clumps. Add water (ice cold is best) a little at a time and mix with your hands until it’s all combined as dough. Refrigerate if you want your crust flaky once cooked.

Things that are delicious and easy to make using this pie crust recipe:

Pot pie

Quiche

Empanadas

Knishes

Cinnamon sticks

Fruit pie

And….these adorable mini pastries!

Directions: make one batch of pie crust recipe above. 

Roll out onto a floured surface. Use a cookie cutter (or a mason jar lid, like me) to cut circles. 

Place each circle into a mini-cupcake tin well. 

 Bake for 20-30 minutes at 350F, until dough starts to turn golden brown. Fill with anything delicious, and bake for another 5-10 minutes to warm throughout.

In this photo I have made sweet potato pecan, yukon potato rosemary, and stuffed mushroom filling. They were all the best one.

Almond Butter Oatmeal Cookies

I've done it. I'VE DONE IT! I have created the perfect cookie. They're so soft and delicious, and best of all, they use up the almond butter that comes in a giant jar at Costco which I can never seem to find enough uses for. So without further ado:

1 cup almond butter
1 cup butter or shortening (I use a 1/2 cup of each)
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup oats

Cream butter (softened first), almond butter, and both sugars. Add eggs and almond extract, mix until blended. Add salt and baking soda first, stir until incorporated, then add flour and mix until dough forms. Add oats last, stirring just until incorporated.
Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Take out of the oven as soon as they start to brown. They will be on the soft side and you will probably think they are not ready yet, but trust me, once they cool they will be perfectly soft and chewy!



* Notes *

Peanut butter obviously will work as a substitute. In this case just leave out the extract. Also, you're boring.

I haven't tried it yet, but my partner mentioned adding slivered or chopped almonds to the recipe to give it some crunchy texture. Might be a good idea!

I suggest everybody go out and invest in a KitchenAid stand mixer. It makes cooking and baking so much faster and easier. Seriously, mine is a gem. I love it so much.

Uh oh! Here comes poetry!

Well, it has been over a month since my last post and I have not found time to write a new one (but my lack of time and motivation are fodder for a whole other blog post), so instead I will rely on something I've already written.

I'm terribly shy and embarrassed of basically everything I create artistically, be it photography music, painting, writing....the list goes on. And I think it stems from the fact that I am a very critical person. I guess the redeeming factor is at least I have the curtesy to be just as judgmental about my own art as I am about everyone else's.

That said, I am taking a deep breath and posting a poem I wrote a few years ago. After all, I minored in Writing. Better use it somehow.

Warning (especially to other grammar gremlins I met while earning said minor degree): THIS POEM ENDS ON A PREPOSITION



Making Time

I missed you so I took a minute
Emptied all the seconds in it
Filled it with this silly thing
Wrapped the words in twining string
Tied it to a full balloon
And watched it get too small too soon

Onward, upward, by and by
It starts to get too hot to fly
A little verse all warm and real
So carefully bound in stringy seal
Will sink back down and rest upon
It's leafy, earthy dénouement

And if a sad soul happens near
Let hope beg that he should adhere
To adages of yester-yore
(That all is fair in love and war
That finder's keeper, losers weep)
And wake it from its ribboned sleep

The wrapping felled, the twine pulled free
He'll read what's in the heart of me:
That everything I am is yours
And all there was of us endures
That time can pass and heights may grow
But love won't cower even so

He knows the words will not have found
The one to whom their author's bound
But holds them close against his breast
And swears to Love: "I'll love my best!"
He'll plan ahead, a day to come
To empty all the hours from

Zoey's First Birthday

Happy birthday to my sweetest Zoey. It's amazing that a year has gone by so quickly, especially with all of those long sleepless nights.

This year I have had so many superlative experiences.

The scariest thing I've ever been through was getting on the emergency airlift and knowing that if I started delivering Zoey within the hour, there was a good chance she would die.

Labor was the most physically uncomfortable experience I've ever had.

I've never been more relieved than I was when I heard Zoey cry for the first time in the operating room, after delivering her five weeks premature and worrying that her lungs weren't developed.

I've never been more anxious than I was waiting for the doctors to tell us how her surgery went.

Sadness. Oh God, how I used to cry when I had to leave her for the night. I would sit on the shuttle to the Ronald McDonald House and stare at her window of the NICU until it was out of sight. As soon as I was in my room I would just cry and cry.

I was so jealous of other families in the hospital who got to take their infants home. Nothing compares to that jealously, that "why me? Why Zoey?" and the envy I felt.

The happiest moment of my life was when I finally got to hold her for the first time. It was a hassle to deal with all her tubes and wires, and it took two nurses to set us up, but it was perfect.

I will never be more in love with anyone than I am with my baby daughter.

And I will never be more content with my life than I have been every day since bringing her home.

A Big Mistake

            I made a big mistake today. A biiiiiiiiig big big huge mistake. I looked at my reflection in the window while working out. Oh, God.

            I’m on an exercise kick. There is a saying about the fluctuation of weight during and after pregnancy: “nine months on, nine months off.” Well, it’s been 11.75 months and I’m still 20lbs heavier than I was before I got knocked up. So every day, I spend 20 minutes with a Jillian Michaels DVD. It sounds lame, I know, but it’s been working! In the past three weeks, I’ve lost nearly 10lbs. I lost an inch each off my chest, hips, and thigh, and an inch and a half off my waist. But most importantly, I CAN DO A PUSH-UP! A real push-up, off the knees!

            Needless to say, my confidence is up. I feel strong when I’m working out, keeping up with the ripped ladies on the screen. I know I don’t have their abs or slim arms or perky butts, but I feel good about my progress and myself. Or at least, I did. That was before. Before the unfortunate event that has forever altered the image I have in my head of how I look when exercising.

            You know when you see old ladies power-walking, and they’ve got their arms swinging and a silly little swagger and everything? That’s what my butt-kicks (jogging in place, bringing your heel to your butt) looked like. My lunges were about half as deep as I thought they were. Common decency prevents me from describing how my body looked during jumping jacks.

            From now on I am exercising in a room with no windows, no mirrors, and no reflective surfaces of any kind. I wish they made matte TV screens so I’d be in no danger of ever witnessing such a sight again. I guess it’ll just be more motivation to get the weight off!

The Pilot

            I’ve never been much of a homebody. Wait. That’s a lie. Most of my hobbies are of the indoor type: crafting, cooking, songwriting, sleeping. But I’ve never been the type of person who would choose a career in what I will affectionately call the domestic arts.

Let’s take a look at my life five years ago:

I’m a college student by day, bartender by night. I live in a crappy apartment with my musician boyfriend. Most of our money is spent on local microbrews. I exercise by coaching an archery team and walking to my classes at Hills and Stairs University--also known as Humboldt State University and notorious for having more stairs than students. In school, I dissect animals and prep cadavers. I identify single nucleotide polymorphisms in the molecular biology club and rearticulate skeletons in the Vertebrate Museum (at this point having no idea that I will eventually become a high school science teacher and tell stories to a classroom full of horrified teenaged faces about using freshly de-fleshed chipmunk skins as finger puppets). I don’t make my bed in the morning or hang up my towel after showering. My idea of cooking is heating up a frozen pizza. I’ve killed every plant that has ever been entrusted to my care.

Fast-forward to present:

I am a homemaker and stay-at-home mom. I have a beautiful little daughter and a handsome partner, with whom I own a gorgeous home on a mountain in southern Washington. I have two brown dogs and some fish. I cook, I clean, I play peek-a-boo and fetch. ALL DAY LONG.  There are a lot of days when I don’t even leave the house. I love my life, but sometimes I feel like I’m going stir-crazy.

            So I have decided to keep a blog documenting my transition from busybody to homebody. Ok, I’m being generous by calling this my “transitional” period. My baby is nearing her first birthday and I have not earned a paycheck in six months. But I’ve finally passed the initial shock that overwhelmed me when in a matter of months I became responsible for an entire other life and an entire house. Now I am able to step back and reflect on how much I am enjoying the life I’m living, even if it is wildly different than the one I always thought I’d have!