Gone, But Not Forgotten....

Pie, what pie? Who could have eaten the pie?

Yum, yum, it was DELICIOUS!

On Saturdays, the local network tv stations do infomercials leading up to football or basketball games, and that is not my cup of tea. So I tune in to the PBS channel and watch fabulous cooks, painters, woodworkers and antique appraisers at work. Last week, the cooks were making apple pie. And like all professional cooks, she used a food processor to make the crust.

It took all of 2 minutes to make the pie crust!

I used to make my own pie crusts, and they turned out pretty good. But for about the last 10 years, the refrigerated dough that you roll out, or even easier, the one frozen in the pan already have been all I've used. I've made so few pies, it didn't really matter to me. I threw away my rolling pin, and have no dough cloth in the house.

But the pie crust demo on TV convinced me that I wanted to try it again. So I looked at ads and decided the local Sears store that will be closing soon might hold some decent priced food processors. Yes, I found one, with a $20 rebate to boot, and I brought it home.

Well, the biggest obstacle to making a pie crust in 2 minutes was my own lack of a sous chef to prepare the cubes of chilled butter, shortening and ice water. The crust couldn't have taken more than 2 minutes of actual mixing! I was in pie crust heaven!

I needed to go to the store to get the other ingredients. I picked up a plastic sheet to roll the dough on. I remembered a small dough roller that the Pampered Chef dealer had convinced me I couldn't live without, it was still in the drawer, probably had rolled out play dough in the past, but never a real crust. I had just found a new cute pie plate for $3 at the pottery store. I was ready to roll.

But wait, you have to peel the apples! Knuckles will be bloodied, disposals jammed up, this would not take 2 minutes. No, I planned ahead. Sears had on their fabulous sale an apple peeler/corer/slicer. What could it hurt, I always wanted to get one of those! And yes, it is a wonder tool, because the apples were peeled, cored and sliced in less than 1 minute each! This was indeed getting too easy!

I like an apple pie with crumb topping. Again, the food processor made swift work of that. The most difficult part was transferring the deliciously thin and flaky pie crust from the plastic roll out sheet. I remember Mother used to use the big rolling pin to gently roll the dough on and transfer it to the pie pan. This roller is small, kind of like a paint roller, so that wouldn't work. The pie crust crumbled as it was being transferred, but I patched up the holes and put in my apples, and applied the topping.

I should have taken a picture of it as it came out of the oven, it smelled so delicious. I had to wait til about 10 p.m. that night to taste it, and it was fabulous! The crust was so flaky and flavorful, and the apples cooked just right.

So single-handedly, I managed to polish my creation off. Barely a crumb left for the dishwasher!

Yes, you delicious apple pie, you are gone but not forgotten. A moment on the lips, and forever on the hips.....that's what they say! More to come from the food processor, I'm sure.