Hybrid Pie Crust

Pie is my favorite desert. I love pie, especially crust. Generally I have always used Betty Crocker's recipe from her Complete Everyday Cookbook.  Lately I've been trying to eat more healthy and so I've been experimenting with pie crust especially for making Quiche (I'll be posting a recipe soon).

I've been making the normal recipe for years by using half whole wheat and half white flour. It is good. I have never had anyone say it tastes bad or much different, and I love the more brown color in the crust. I've made it with both lard and shortening (I prefer lard because it is less processed than shortening).

I've been trying to find ways to eliminate vegetable shortening from our diet. I just don't think we should eat fats that are so firm at room temperature. Just imagine what that can do in our blood stream.

For the past year or two I've been adding flax seed to our diet.  I decided to experiment with adding it to pie crust and I found that the natural oil in the seeds that is released when you blend/mill the flax made it possible to decrease the amount of added fat in the crust.


MILL YOUR OWN FLAX
This is how I "mill" my flax seed.  It's tricky because you want to pour the seeds in when the blender is running high or med-high. I put the funnel in the top of the blender to keep them from flying back out. I quickly dump my cup of seeds in and then turn  the cup over inside the funnel. Blend for just a few to maybe 15 seconds max. Sometimes I have a few rogue un-milled seeds but I don't mind. If you blend too long it gets hot and turns into a pasty cake under the blender blades.  You can still use it, it's just harder to get it out of the blender.


You can buy pre-milled flax but I hear it's less healthy. Sometimes it gets overheated and loses some of the vitamins, and I think it would be more likely to go rancid in storage.

I have used both golden and regular brown flax seeds and both work fine.  I'd say about 1/2 cup flax seeds will make 2/3 cup of milled flax.

I call this crust a Hybrid because the appearance, and texture is similar to a crumb crust but it's still salty, made from a dough, and baked like a traditional pastry crust.

Baby Tie Onesie

My little guy strutting his stuff in his dashing Easter outfit.

This is a fun project for the little men in your life. Great as a gift or anytime.

Okay, So far I have made a pattern for a 12mo. and 18mo. size.

Here is the printable I designed after the rough sketched pattern I used in this tutorial.

Onion Poppy Seed Dressing

   I took a college cooking class once. One day we learned all about emulsification [see emulsify]. It was awesome, we made our own mayonnaise. I also got a recipe for Poppy seed dressing from that class.  My mom always made poppy seed dressing and this one is a little tangier with the addition of onion. I love it. In the last year or so I was thinking about emulsification and how I should try to emulsify my dressings so I don't have to shake them so much.  It also gives them a nice creamy consistency.  I decided that my hand held beaters would be too cumbersome to do it on my own so I turned to my blender!  I love making my dressing now.  I bought some cheap condiment bottles from the grocery store to keep them in the fridge.

Chicken Tomato Mushroom Alfredo Pasta

All Right! I'm back had a holiday and a couple showings  this week (we are renting a house on the market).  I have been taking lots of photos and making lots of yummy food, I just haven't sat down and blogged about them.

I promised this recipe along with my first recipe for Chinese Elm Seed Pod Salad.

1 frozen chicken breast thawed.
dash of Paprika, salt, & pepper
1 Tbsp butter 
1/2 of an 8oz. package sliced mushrooms (I got baby bellas --they were the same price as the white    ones)
2 roma tomatoes diced
1 jar Cheesy Ragu Roasted Garlic Parmesan (any alfredo sauce will do).
16 oz. package of Angel hair Pasta.

1.Put a large pasta pot of salted water to boil.
2. Melt butter in a large skillet at medium heat.

3. Sprinkle chicken breast with paprika, a little salt and pepper. Place in skillet when heated and butter is melted.

Spirit of Easter Videos

Happy Easter everyone. Tonight before sending my daughter to bed I wanted to watch some videos about the Savior to get her in the true spirit of Easter.  (you made need some tissues)

 An Apostle's Easter Thoughts on Christ

Finding Balance

Okay, I've been on a health kick lately and been evaluating my physical well-being.  I have been thinking a lot about balance.  Balance is important in so many areas of our lives.  Our physical body has 4 basic needs
1-Air
2-Water
3-Food
4-Sleep

Welcome

Okay so eventually when I get this blog really going I want to include the following categories.
Recipes:
Affordable easy Meals
Try Something New & Healthy
Sewing:
Save money by learning a few mending and alteration tricks
Make simple fun projects and gifts
Baby Business:
Baby Essentials
Making your own Baby Food
Tips on maintaining a sense of sanity
Misc DIY:
Home repairs etc.
Cheap DIY Beauty secrets: I'll try them out and let you know

If you have any suggestions or ideas let me know.

Frequency: So I'm super-excited about blogging, but I also want to temper my excitement to a degree.  I have two kids and a wonderful husband... they are my top priorities... I have other commitments in my life already with extended family, church, and to my home.  Then there's my blog.  So ideally I would love to post weekly but I'm not making a firm commitment.  I don't want to neglect my kids because I feel pressure to keep up on my blog.  When I have more time and get plenty of sleep I will post more, when life gets crazy well, I'll get to it eventually.

Chinese Elm Seed Pod Salad

So I was at the playground with my kiddos yesterday.  K- was hungry because she insisted on going to the park before she ate her lunch.  We have a habit of nibbling on grass and finding edible plants provided by nature. I noticed that the Elm trees surrounding our park were coated in seed pods. I handed her a handful and we discovered they were quite tasty and hit the spot.  I remembered my husband mentioning that he used to eat them as a kid. Since they are in season I figured I better hurry up and publish this post while they are green and tasty. I put the ingredients in red font.