The Best Pie Crust Ever

This pie dough is seriously the best. I’m serious. It’s one of those recipes that I have never had to alter because it is that perfect. It’s a very special recipe. It’s my Grandma Joan’s recipe and it has been handed down to me as a family heirloom. I’ll share it with you today but please make this! You won’t be sorry.

pie

Imagine the scene: Walking into Grandma’s house and there being 3 pies waiting for you! It was a miracle. And the whole house smelled like pie and Grandma and happiness. Have you ever smelled the aroma of happiness? I’m pretty sure it’s pie baking in the oven. There were always different pies, but usually a berry pie, maybe an apple, but ALWAYS a pecan pie. My personal favorite is berry pie but apple is scrumptious as well. Ok let’s be honest, I’ve ever met a pie I didn’t like. The filling is pretty simple but the secret to a great pie is the crust!

We all want that flaky crust with just the right crunch and that buttery taste. I’ve done a lot of research on pie recipes and they are really time consuming. You freeze the butter in cubes and THEN make a dough and THEN refrigerate it and THEN bring to room temperature and THEN you can make your pie. It’s like people believe the more difficult the pie dough recipe, the better. But I know better, thanks to Grandma Joan.

This recipe is EASY. The hardest part about pie making should be getting your dough from the surface to the pie dish, and that’s where I will show you some tricks I have picked up.

The other thing that’s wonderful about this recipe is that you make a batch that makes 4 balls of dough, so whatever you don’t use you can wrap in saran wrap and FREEZE. Yes this dough freezes very well and all you have to do is defrost it when you want to make a pie. I like to do this and always have dough in the freezer. That way whenever we are invited to a dinner party or a function I can volunteer to bring my pie. People love a homemade pie. Every party I bring it to it’s gone as soon as they start slicing it! And since the dough is already made its actually a very easy dish to bring to a party. This pie dough won’t let you down! Please make it and tell me how much your family or friends loved it. This recipe is just for the dough but up next will be my apple pie filling recipe so if you put them together you can be making an apple pie in no time!  As different fruits go in season there will be more fillings to go into this glorious crust so stay tuned!

The Best Pie Dough Ever

Ingredients:

4 cups of flour

2 teaspoons of salt

1 tablespoon of sugar

1 egg

1 tablespoon of vinegar

1 3/4 cups of butter flavored Crisco

1/2 cup of water

For egg wash and garnish:

1 egg

turbinado sugar (sometimes called sugar in the raw)

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Teriyaki Chicken Meatballs with Kona Sauce

 

kona bowl

I’ve always been a sucker for meatballs. My favorite meal from my mom is spaghetti and meatballs. I still ask for it when I go over for dinner. I recently discovered Aidell’s meatballs at Costco. Um, where have they been all my life. I first tried the organic chicken roasted garlic and sweet basil ones and they were so delicious. I put them with sauce and polenta and also made spaghetti and meatballs! They are healthy too! If you are doing Weight Watchers they are only 3 Smart points per 3 meatballs. I’ll let you do the math to figure out how many points per meatball.

Then I discovered the teriyaki pineapple meatballs by Aidell’s. Oh. My. Goodness. my mouth jumped for joy. They had just the right amount of sweet tang not too sweet mix. They are precooked too so you only have to warm them. Dinner is ready before you can even say “mahalo!”

I call this sauce Kona sauce. It’s special to me because the recipe originates in Kona. During a family vacation to Hawaii to Kona my mom picked up a cook book with recipes for Hawaiian type dishes. I don’t have it but I think it may be called “Kona on my plate” there was one recipe we used a lot and it is the teriyaki sauce! Oh my it’s so good. For this recipe I used the teriyaki sauce as a base but altered it some and added some chicken broth and Sriracha (because who doesn’t like sriracha?!) and added a special ingredient as well. This special ingredient is Fustini’s Ginger and Honey balsamic Vinegar. My mom purchased me this special vinegar in Maui and I have been dying to try it. Fustini’s is a Michigian based balsamic vinegar company. Now if you don’t have this balsamic vinegar feel free to use some rice vinegar. This vinegar is very good though so I suggest looking them up online http://www.Fustinis.com (No I am not endorsed by them, but hey maybe I should be!)

Ok, are you ready for this easy dinner! It’s really easy if you are using store bought meatballs but if you want to make homemade ones too knock yourself out.

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Baked Chicken Tenders

Sorry it’s been awhile! I was so busy getting married and honeymooning! Married life is great, me and Mr. Denney have a lot of fun just hanging out together and spending time together. We get very excited about the little things like watching Netflix in bed and sleeping in! We started running, which is probably a good thing  because we enjoy eating so much. Ill have to catch you up on the recipes I have made in the last month but until then I have one I created myself!

So Mr. Denney Knows I will make anything for dinner, the more challenging the more excited I get, what is his most often requested dinner? Chicken tenders. It pains me. I want to make something new and unheard of with feta cheese and lemon, he wants chicken tenders. Sigh. Well I have decide to go on a quest for the best chicken tenders recipe. This one I came up with all on my own. Well, maybe I stole some ideas from a few people. But the recipe is my own!

The dill sauce is recipe from my Grandpa and is meant to go on fish, I made that and had leftovers so i figured I could do something with it. The chicken tenders recipe is my own, I learned the butter pat method from the pioneer woman. She is amazing.

Baked Chicken tenders Recipe

Dill sauce:

3/4 cup of mayo

1/3 cup of plain greek yogurt

1/4 cup dijon

1/4 cup fresh dill

2Tblsp lemon juice

1 teaspoon finely grated lemon peel

pinch salt

pinch of pepper

thawed chicken tenderloins

panko crust:

1 cup panko breadcrumbs

1 teaspoon green can cajun seasoning

dash of parika

dash of garlic salt

dash of cayenne pepper

dash of dry mustard

dash of salt and pepper

Butter cut into 1/8inch thick pats

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Let chicken tenders sit in 1 cup of dill sauce for 15 minutes. Reserve some dill sauce for dipping before you put the raw chicken in there. Drege chicken tenders in panko mixture. Place on a plate for 10 minutes in the fridge. Take out of fridge and put on baking sheet sprayed with Pam, now put a small pat of butter on each breaded tender, THIS IS IMPORTANT!!! Bake at 375 for 30 minutes checking them fairly often. Make sure they are cooked thoroughly, and crispy. Now enjoy! Everyone will love them!! They will be so shocked when they find out they are baked!

Butternut Squash, Sausage and Kale Soup

After a busy night last night of running wedding errands and meeting with my cousin who is in charge of all set up for the wedding, I left her house with a large butternut squash! She has an ample garden and asked if I’d do anything with it. Of course I could!! So after “stewing” upon different ideas, I decided on Butternut squash, sausage and kale soup. In the Crockpot! If you know me at all you know how much I love the Crockpot and how much I love to sneak in healthy food to Mr. Denney. So it’s sitting in the Crockpot now and I’m heading home soon to check on it. I don’t know about you but dinner in the Crockpot feels like a present waiting for me! I will follow with the recipe I used as well as how it all turned out and the verdict from Mr. Denney and Dad. We will see if this meal is man pleasing!

DIY coffee filter flowers

I really wanted my first post to be a dinner recipe! But I had so much fun with this latest wedding craft project that I couldn’t help but share it. I found it on Pinterest, its  a Martha Stewart idea, but I adapted it to make it a little easier and ruffly.

Materials needed:

  • large pack of plain white coffee filters
  • powder dye in whichever color you want (I used RIt)
  • large bucket
  • stapler
  • staples
  • twine
  • hot glue gun and glue
  1. Place powder dye in large bucket and fill bucket with water.
  2. Separate all the coffee filters from each other and put them in the dye bucket. let them sit for a half hour at least.
  3. Take them out and wring them out well. Put them in the dryer and check on them every once in awhile to make sure they are drying and circulating well not getting stuck anywhere.
  4. Take them out of the dryer. they should be very crinkly and wrinkly. This is a good thing.
  5. Take six and staple them together in the center of the flower. Staple them so that the flat part of the staple will be on the backside of the flower when finished.
  6. Take 6 more (or 7 or 8 it doesn’t really matter!) and staple them together this time stapling so that the flat part of the staple will be on the front.
  7. Here comes the fun part, starting from the center top layer pull out and crunch and make ruffly (pretend like you are making a flower from the inside of it out) continue to do this with every layer and fluff it till you have it just how you like!
  8. When you have made enough of these you can put a big hot glue dot on the back of the staple and press the twine to it in the desired spot you want it, then sandwich another paper flower the same way to the glue dot (u may want to add more glue) Hold together for a minute to make sure it stays. Keep going for desired length of garland.

Rufflycompleted flower!!