12 New Things - PIE!

Remember this post? You know, the one where I said I was going to learn 12 new things over the next 12 months? Well, my adventure has begun, in a revised form.

Originally, my task for the month of August was to learn how to mow the lawn. Carey was on-board and ready to show me how to use all of our lawn equipment. (Personally, I think he was also looking forward to laughing at me as I tried to get the darn things even started, but I won't go there...) Saturday arrived and I was ready to go! Unfortunately, Abby decided that she did not want to take a nap that day, so Carey and I decided to postpone our lawn care adventure until Sunday. We woke up to this:Rain. (Seriously, folks, it had not rained for three weeks. And suddenly, the day I was going to mow the lawn, it rains. Go figure.)

Oh, fooey! Not one to be deterred, I decided that I would flip-flop my August and September goals. So, I give you pie making from scratch!

Peaches were on super sale this week, so I decided to make a peach pie, using a recipe from my trusted Betty Crocker cookbook.
Here is my dough, wrapped in plastic wrap and ready to be refrigerated.
Here are my peaches. Aren't they purdy?
I read that the easiest way to prep your peaches is to blanch them. So, I put a cross cut in the bottom of each peach,
boiled them for about 30 seconds,
and then plunged them into cold water. While the peaches were blanching, I prepped the flour-sugar-cinnamon mixture.
Then came the messy part - peeling and slicing.
Once everything was sliced, I mixed the peaches with the dry mixture.

At this point, I rolled out my dough. Not very pretty, I know...

Once everything was rolled out, I filled the pie crust and placed the top crust over my delicious-smelling concoction. A little foil around the edges, and we're ready to bake!

N is for Ng!

While everything was baking, I cleaned up my kitchen, just like my mom taught me. :-)

A clean sink and 45 minutes later, I had this little beauty!
The result: while not the prettiest pie ever, it tastes pretty good. (Even Carey, who is not a huge fan of peaches, said that he enjoyed the pie.) After watching some videos on the Cooking.com YouTube Channel, I'm thinking that the pie crust recipe I used needs to be increased. When I was rolling out my dough, I had a hard time getting it to roll out evenly and maintain any sort of thickness. (Forget beautifully fluted edges - I could barely get the crust to cover the pie pan...) So, for next time, instead of doubling the recipe for a two-crust pie, I think I might multiply the recipe by 2.5. I also found that my peaches were a bit watery when I cut the pie after it had cooled overnight. When I took a piece out of the fridge the next day, the filling was a bit less watery, but I'm going to work on reducing the watery-ness next time.

All in all, I had a great time baking and am enjoying the delicious fruits of my labor. I look forward to trying this experiment again soon. Hmm, autumn means apples, right? :-)