Flaky Pie Crust

I hate shortening. Can't stand the stuff, but I also can't seem to get a good pie crust just using butter. (I haven't been sucessful with rendering lard yet...) Apparently, it's all in the technique!


This is the best crust I have ever eaten!

Pie Crust
makes two crusts

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups ALL PURPOSE FLOUR
1 tbsp SUGAR
1 tsp SALT
3/4 cup COLD BUTTER
2/3 cup plus 1 tbsp COLD WATER

Cut COLD BUTTER into cubes. Set aside. Combine FLOUR, SUGAR, and SALT in a large mixing bowl. Using a pastry cutter, cut in BUTTER until no pieces larger than a pea remain. Add in about half the COLD WATER and mix, adding more COLD WATER as needed until dough comes together.

Divide the dough in half and wrap in plastic (I used cereal bags) and set in the fridge.

It is very important that the dough now rests in the fridge for at least 45 minutes and up to 60 minutes.

After resting, roll dough out.

It's better to under cook this crust, and I found it better for lower heats in the 350 degree range. The apple pie was in the oven for an hour, the pumpkin pies were in for 45 minutes but started at 425 degrees. At this high temperature they became hard. Play with it, see what's best for you.

NOTE: Never let the dough sit at room temperature longer than necessary. Always put it back in the fridge until ready to use.

It was just as good as it smelled and looked!

Goals for 2013

It's not January 1st yet, but I feel like New Year's Resolutions never really stick anyway, so I thought I'd list a few things I hope to accomplish/do/build in the next year. The goal being to promote my personal skills in providing for me and mine. In slighty particular order:

1. Build a Solar Dehydrator
I'm planning on buying this particular book, recommended by Jane at Hard Work Homestead. Her husband and her built their dehydrator and it seems to work wonderfully! Building it will be much easier when I figure out what materials I need to find and purchase.

2. Fence in and Prepare the Designated Garden Space
I've got all the tools to prepare the soil. We have a great assortment of old hoes, rakes, shovels, a wheelbarrow and the like. It will be hard work; our soil is 98% rocks. Not really, but it sure does feel like it whenever you try to dig! Fencing in another beast all together. Deer, chipmunks, squirrels, raccoons, and especially rabbits are very prevalent in our area. Our property backs to the woods, so fencing is important.

3. Plant a Varied Garden, and Harvest From it
I've got a jump on this one with a spread sheet of the seeds and varieties I'd like to purchase. As I add I also make note of prices, days to maturity, and what company offers the seed. Next I need to measure the garden space and create a planting guide based on my zone and individual needs of the plants.

4. Attempt to Save Seed for Next Year
Self explanatory, really.

5. Find a Place to Store Canned Goods Long-Term
There are a few places like the garage and the shed that I have my eyes on, but I need to take temperatures in these areas and keep a log so I can get an average temperature. An average temperature will tell me if I've found a suitable place or not. There is also the far left of the pantry cabinet but it slants funny because it's underneath the stairs. It's hard to get to, but with a little cleaning and rearranging it might be perfect.

6. Obtain Pressure Canner; Can Garden Bounty
I've never pressure-canned, and I don't have one! Go figure. I have my eyes on one from Lehman's I'm particularly interested in. I want to be more self-sufficient, and providing some percentage of our food is a step in the right direction.

7. Render Lard, Sucessfully
I tried it earlier this month. In fact, it was right before Thanksgiving because I wanted to try lard in my pie crust. However I made the small but DRASTIC mistake of not cutting all meat particles from the fat. It ruined the whole thing and stunk up the entire house! I still haven't had the courage to clean out the canning jar I stored it in!

8. Process a Chicken
I want to learn to kill, de-feather, gut, and otherwise prepare for the table, my own chicken. I'm still working on the property owner (Gramma!) to let me have chickens, but it's not going anywhere. I may have to do it somewhere else or bring home one chicken and process, one chicken and process, etc. I am actively looking for somewhere to attend a workshop. They had one last year through the Extension Office, but I don't see one this coming year yet.

9. Homestead Journal
I would truly like to be more vigilant with my journaling. Noting what kind of day (weather-wise) it was and what was accomplished on that day. I think my future children and relatives might be happy to read it, and it'll be nice to look back for myself.

I am going to post updates to this list as I complete them (as long as I remember to). I already finished one of my big goals: the composter! I made a compost bucket out of a plastic tote bin with a lid. We finally can begin to reuse the produce refuse, and keep it out of the landfills! Hooray for small victories.

What Do the People Know?

I don't recall if I've mentioned it before, but I happen to work in a large-chain supermarket. We sell mostly groceries and have a selection of other such general merchandise items.

Since the very recent opening of my eyes, I have become disgusted by the majority of the items we are allowed to sell (allowed because nine companies essentially own everything in your grocery store and mine). I see people purchasing soda, and poptarts, frozen dinners, and fresh steaks, asparagus and strawberries and I can't help but wonder if they would continue to spend their money on these things if they knew what was in there?

Asparatame in your soda that will eat holes in your brain, high-fructose corn syrup that creates sugar intolerances in your body, frozen dinners full of fake flavorings and MSG, fresh steaks that were fed corn and grain and antibiotics for all of its miserable life, asparagus from Peru, strawberries fresh so far out of season that they can't possibly be healthy and pesticide-free.

If they knew, would they change?

I am trying. I really am. We do have a few fresh organic vegetables, grown in America (because organic produce grown in other countries is not subject to the United States' organic laws), and locally grown and slaughtered, grass fed beef in the freezer. This is pretty much what I've been eating: apples, beef, and cauliflower. Some local eggs too, for good measure.

Since the switch to better food I am discovering my cravings for processed junk is insane. I am irritable and feel uncomfortably empty often. When I fill that craving with something processed, I feel better. Getting my HFCS (high-fructose corn syrup) seems to "fix" my cravings.

Scary, isn't it? I find it frightening.

Luckily a downtown store sells locally grown organic produce and I feel I must stop in tomorrow just to see what I can find.

Keep up the good fight, start your own, or tell someone about what they are really putting in their body, you might just plant the seed that gets another person on their way out of the corporate-controlled food system.

The Food at the Supermarket

This is the writing assignment I sent off this morning for class today. It is an informal way to explore the topic we are writing for our nine to tweleve page writing assignments. I've done well on the last two, but there is so much to cover with this topic that I had a hard time not jumping around too much! I am excited for our research papers.

The American public has been, ever so carefully, led to believe that thousands of choices are available to them at the grocery. There are more than forty-seven thousand items in any given supermarket, but very few companies (nine in total) provide the goods on those shelves. Those companies are: Coca-Cola, Pepsico, General Mills, Kellog's, Mars, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Proctor & Gamble, Nestle, and Kraft. Through careful crafting of lies, false research, and general misleading the public has been fooled into believing that these food stuffs are healthy.

Almost every package includes a misleading label. Those foods labeled "Natural" or "All Natural" can still contain injected sodium or high fructose corn syrup, "Multigrain" does not mean whole grain, "free-range" animals are often encouraged to stay indoors, "light" sometimes just refers to flavor, "organic" is a popular word, and the USDA does have strict guidelines as to what can and cannot be labeled "organic". However, these restrictions only apply to the United States of America. Any products from out of country are certified by a different company, which in turn tells the USDA that yes, the food is indeed organic. Once the food receives the third-party's acceptance the USDA allows its label to be used.

On March 16th, 2009 law was passed into effect which mandated that food products be labeled with country of origin, to better enable consumers to choose from which country they wanted their food grown and manufactured. Of course, when made outside of the United States, the print type chosen is very small and located in generally difficult-to-read areas like the crimp of the bag. When a product is made in America, the labels and exclamations couldn't be louder or more obvious. Even companies that design a product in America, but have it manufactured out of country, proudly display the American flag.

Another disturbing trend is the incidence of disease among Americans due to their food. Salmonella, E-Coli, norovirus, ands stomach upsets are fairly common. There is one, however generally not connected with food, but is the most serious and life threatening one: cancer.

Everyone wants to discover the cure for cancer; it's nearly impossible to find one person unaffected by, or related to someone who has/had cancer. Scientists and millions upon millions of dollars per year are poured into research, but no one knows why cancer infects us so viciously. There are some identified culprits but the incidence of cancer is still rising. When people are diagnosed with cancer, now they are a martyr, fighting against an unseen enemy with an army of the afflicted. Does no one think that the increase in chemical in the food we consume could possibly have anything to do with cancer? Potassium bromate, BHT and BHA, artificial colors, acesulfame-potassium, carrageenan, nitrates and nitrites, olestra, propyl gallates, and saccharin are all known carcinogens, but the FDA allows them in small quantities in (especially prepared, packaged) food.

Now genetically-modified foods are becoming public knowledge. The largest chemical company in the world owned over ninety percent of the soybeans grown in the United States in 2008. They were genetically enabled to not be affected by Roundup, a chemical that kills weeds, also manufactured by Monsanto. Do we really want a plant that can withstand toxic chemicals? Are they safe? Monsanto assures us that their seeds are perfectly safe, even though research has shown an increase in cancer in laboratory animals fed exclusively genetically modified materials.

Yes, of course our food is safe. Just ask the government. They have such an impeccable track record of having the public's best interests at heart.

The House and The Water

I have lived in the same house less than half of my life. We moved in when I was seven years old, and I moved out when I was eighteen. I moved back in at twenty-five, so that's a total of eleven years in and fourteen out. However, this house was the same one that sheltered my mother and her brothers nearly their whole lives. My gramma bought this house, with its 1.6 acres, for $5,000.

The house she purchased was originally part of the house next door. In fact, our house was the servants' quarters. The house next door, our house and the house 2 lots down the road were all part of the same farmhouse.

I have always loved this place. I always will. My youngest sister and I used to dream of someday owning it and raising our children here. I believe it has one of the most beautiful properties around. I know every inch of it, but there's still something to discover everyday. It sits up from the road, well out of the valley-bottom, so the seasonal floods do not affect us, and never will.

However, as my calling in life has changed to more of an agrarian-based homestead I have come to the heart-wrenching conclusion that this property will not do.

Since it was a farm, I asked gramma (the property owner) about buying the acreage behind us (all of which is new-growth woodlands, and used to be cow pasture). She said that she had asked the property owner (who lives next door to us to the left) to purchase it. He declined and informed her that upon his death the land was going to a state organization that "preserves" natural areas. Upon speaking to my mother about this, she confirmed and added that she believed it was already in the possession of this organization.


(This was taken in early Autumn and looks out from the back of the driveway toward the road.)
How frustrating that prime farming land has been given to the state. I don't know which organization owns it, but most of the state-owned land in this county belongs to the watershed of New York City. My county hosts several of the reservoirs, but the Pepacton holds the largest amount of water of any of NYC's other reservoirs, and provides 25% or more of NYC's daily water usage.

As much as I love it here, the more I think about it, the less desirable my county seems as far as aligning with my future.

This Day

Today is one of those achingly beautiful days that your heart and head can't get enough of. It smells like spring, like new beginnings.

I am so grateful to be alive on a day like today.

After church, the Harvest Dinner was put on. Rachel and I signed up to serve and so during the last song in church we ran out and got ready to serve. Aprons on and gloved-up we dished out potatoes, vegetables, stuffing, and turkey along with sweet potatoes, gravy, rolls and tons of pie!