Pot Pie Crust

There's fun and then there's pot pie fun. They are about the same thing but one involves a pot pie and how could you not want that?

This is a pretty standard butter pastry crust w/ no sugar and works great for pot pies and the like (hence the name). It is a simple recipe and pretty hard to screw up. All you need is:

2 sticks butter, cold
2 1/2 cup flower
1 tsp salt
ice water

This makes enough for a pot pie in a fourteen inch round pan.

So I said this was hard to screw up but if you are going to screw up one part it's this. You need to add the flower and salt to a bowl and mix thoroughly. Then add the two sticks of cold butter. W/  a pastry blender or a fork, you need to combine this stuff. Here is where you need to be careful. If you want a nice, flaky texture, you cannot mix it too much. You want to have big visible chunks of butter left. If it is a throughly mixed paste, you have gone to far and your crust will turn out a bit dense but still good.

 

Right like that is about how you want it. Don't worry if there a couple big chunks, they will get broken up as you work w/ it later. Once you got it here, you need to add about a half cup of ice water until you can get it all to stick together (not the cubes, just the water). Again, don't overwork it. Form the ball into two roughly equal sized chunks:

You need to cover these and place them in the fridge for an hour or two. From here you need to roll it out. If one of the balls is bigger, start w/ that as this will be the bottom crust. Use a rolling pin or a big beer bottle:

This will need to be about sixteen or seventeen inches across. Measure w/ your pan and it needs to be a bit larger so it can cover the sides. Then you are just gonna wanna place it in a lightly greased pan:

This is a pot pie, it's supposed to be a bit rustic so don't go worrying it's all completely geometrically perfect. As you can see, I had to patch it up a bit w/ extra dough, that is no big deal either. After this, roll out the other chunk to a slightly smaller diameter. Add your pie filling and then place the other crust on top forming a seal around the edges as best you can. Then put a few slits in the top to let steam out.

From here, I place in an oven at about 400 F for twenty minutes until the crust is nice and brown. If you have a favorite pot pie filling, let us know in the comments. Here at TFK, we are constantly looking for new things to stuff in crusts.

Key Lime Pie

The first time I made key lime pie was about 8 years ago. After I finished making it I declared I would never make it again. Not because it tasted bad, but because zesting and juicing those tiny limes is super annoying.

Luckily about 3 years ago one of my roommates convinced me to try making it again, saying that she would juice the limes for me. As it turns out key lime pie is the extremely easy to make if someone else squeezes the limes for you. You can sometimes find bottles of key lime juice at the store, but fresh is best! In fact after making it with fresh key lime juice 3 years ago, I was reminded how great key lime pie can be. And since that day I always feel motivated enough to squeeze the limes myself.

Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Key Lime Juice
About 1 TBSP Key Lime Zest
4 Large Egg Yolks
1 Can Sweetened Condensed Milk (14 ounces)
1 9 inch Pie Crust

What to Do:
Preheat oven to 325



Zest a few key limes. I made this pie at my sister's house, and she did not have a zesting utensil, so I tried to take of just the yellowish green part of the peel with a knife. That's the part with the delicious oil. The white part of the peel just tastes bitter, so you try to avoid it. Anyways, you'll notice in my pictures that the peel is in kind of big pieces. It won't be like that if you use a grater or zester.



Juice the key limes, or force someone else to. I think it takes about 15 limes. Or if you don't have key limes, you can use about 3 normal limes in stead. I usually roll the lime a little on cutting board to get the juices out a little. Then I cut them in half and squeeze with my bare hands. You will become aware of any small cuts on your hands (hopefully you had no zesting accidents earlier!!). Key limes have more seeds than normal limes, so I ignore the seeds and just strain the juice later.

Separate the yolks out of the eggs, and put them into a mixing bowl. I actually used 5 egg yolks because I was using medium eggs instead of large. Some people like to put meringue on their pie, and if you are one of them, save the whites. Otherwise, eggs don't cost that much, just throw them out. Although if you are thrifty you can make yourself an egg white omelet tomorrow morning.



Whisk together egg yolks and zest. This is the only thing that's really going to give your pie color, so you might want to whisk for a minute or two to see if you can get the peel to release some color.

Stir in the can of sweetened condensed milk into the eggs. Back in the day, people in Florida (home of the Florida Keys) did not have air conditioning or refrigerators, so they used the less perishable sweetened condensed milk.


Add in the lime juice. Make sure you don't have any seeds in it by pouring it through a sieve. The lime juice will react with the milk and cause the filling to thicken. If you're not afraid of raw eggs, you actually don't need to cook the pie.

Pour the filling into your precooked pie crust. I can't lie, today I was lazy and just bought a shortbread pie crust from the store.

Bake the pie for 15 minutes. A lot of times you can use your nose to tell when things are finished baking, but you can also tell it's done when the pie looks set. Take it out of the oven, and let it cool to room temperature. Then put it in the fridge for a couple hours. It will taste delicious!



You will probably notice your pie is not green. Key limes are not green! Their juice is yellow, and a lot of times the peel is also very yellowy. But if you like green, feel free to add a little food coloring.