Pumpkin and Pecan

Josh has a big Thanksgiving Party at his office tomorrow. He signed Meredith up to make pies. Pumpkin and Pecan. She asked if I would teach her. We had a fun afternoon!

She wanted to learn how to do homemade crust. She had errands this morning so I made the pie dough early, divided it in half, make it into discs, and covered them with plastic wrap to chill in the refrigerator. Pie Tip: cold dough in hot oven=flaky pie crust. Always chill your pie dough and always use cold shortening and ice water. She rolled it out and used the pie pan to 'measure'.

She also used the little cookie cutters and cut out these great autumn leaf shapes with the leftover dough.

I only showed her a couple of times how to flute the edge of the crust, and she took it from there. Look how nice it turned out. She's making a design with the oak and maple leaves.

Pies are done and out of the oven cooling.

Her observation: "Now I know where the expression 'easy as pie' came from." She found it's not as complicated as it seems.

Good job, Meredith.