PIE!

I hate making pie crust.  I will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid making a regular pastry crust including, but not limited to the following: using biscuit dough to make cobbler, making a crumb crust, making turnovers with yeast dough, and simply eating the filling alone.  No matter how gently I try to incorporate the ingredients of typical pie dough I always end up with pastry the texture of Spanish leather.

However, my mother recently reminded me of the concept of a “pat in the pan” crust, which uses oil instead of butter or shortening and which does not need to be rolled out.  A quick internet search took me to a very easy recipe.

Here are the steps-

Mix the flour and salt:

Add the oil:

Add the water a little at a time- you might not need it all:

Then, ignore that pesky rolling pin and press the dough into your pie plate:

Finally, add the filling. I went with a quick cheeseburger pie, but any bottom-crust-only pie will work.  The crust was actually edible, and Mr. FoodItYourself was pleased.

The moral of this tale- when your skills fall short there is always a work-around that will keep you on your DIYet.  Get creative, investigate the possibilities, talk with your fellow food eaters- someone, somewhere has already solved the problem. If not, maybe you can be the pioneer.  Give it a try!