Aunt Emma's Never Fail Pie Crust

3 c sifted flour
1 1/4 c Shortening
1 tsp salt
1 egg, well beaten
5 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp vinegar

Cut shortening into flour and salt.
Combine egg, water, and vinegar in a separate bowl.
Pour liquid into flour mixture all at once. Blend with spoon until flour is all moistened.
It can be re-rolled without toughening. Will keep in refrigerator for two weeks or divide into balls enough for one pie and wrap in Saran wrap and freeze indefinitely.

Makes 2 crusts

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Let's Hear it For Beets

 

I don't remember ever buying a beet.  Never ate them as a kid, except sometimes the pickled, canned version would be on our table. Ick.  Hubby often claimed beets are the only thing he didn't like to eat.  Come to find out, it was the pickled, canned version he had been served also. Then, a couple of years ago, we were served a beet soup made by my Polish friend. It was delicious!  Since then I've had them at restaurants, in salads, as side dishes.  All yummy.  I was happy to see this week's French Fridays With Dorie recipe: Chunky Beets and Icy Red Onions, on page 123 from "around my french table". Dorie says this is her go-to beet salad. I can understand why. We invited a dinner guest in honor of his birthday. He loves my go-to dish: Individual Beef Wellingtons. I thought the beet salad would make a great accompaniment.  Dinner guest is a former Canadian farm-boy, now pediatric oncology nurse, and will eat just about anything as long as meat is on the table with it.  He doesn't even care about dessert.  It's the least I could do.
Assembling the Beef Wellingtons:
I got the recipe from a Rachael Ray magazine a few years ago. It's fairly simple: half sheet puff pastry, seared filet mignon, sauteed mushroom-shallot mixture, duck pate mousse.
Wrap it up, bake, serve. It's a crowd pleaser.


You might be wondering why this amateur didn't take a nice photo of her plated work. First reason might be she'd been into the cooking sherry and forgot.  But really, between fetching the Wellie's from the oven and setting the pan on the counter, I sustained significant oven burns on my forearms!!! ( Hubby suddenly needed the kitchen towel dangling from the oven door handle, which, with the oven door being open, was now near the floor.)  While tugging on the towel, the oven door popped up into the underside of my forearms. Hubby felt awfully bad while I held ice cubes on my arms, and later, looking at the blisters.
No, I didn't spill the food.  A girl has to have priorities.
Check out the other bloggers at http://www.frenchfridayswithdorie.com/
                               
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3 comments:

  1. Buy Me a SodaJuly 2, 2011 at 9:44 PM

    that looks incredible. your poor arms. the things we do for a good meal, eh?

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  2. AnonymousJuly 5, 2011 at 6:42 PM

    Ow! That sounds painful - I hope he's pampering you now!

    Your beef wellingtons look amazing. I'd skip cake if I had that for a birthday dinner, for sure. I really enjoyed this beet salad, especially the icy onions.

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  3. Cher RockwellJuly 8, 2011 at 7:05 AM

    Oh, sorry to hear about your kitchen accident. I hate it when stuff like that happens.
    I have used that RR beef wellington recipe and it is a crowd pleaser...
    Hope you are all mended by now.

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