DALLAS DREAMS

Even after Christmas, where our house if filled with treats, we decided to go ahead and make a pie this weekend.  We had extra cranberries and everything else we needed, so cranberry pie seemed like a good christmas-y pie.  We also had some extra pie dough in the fridge.  Unfortunately it wasn't enough, but I used it anyway (I was feeling lazy and didn't want to make more dough).  This meant that the crust was way too thin.   Even with a crust too thin, the pie was still very delicious.  The top was a lot more like cake.  Mmm.  We had some extra topping and cranberries left over, so we made mini pies without crust in muffin tins, I though these were just as good as the original pie, so perhaps in the future these will just become a cranberry muffin recipe. 

 We have never been very good about sending out christmas card.  This year we decided was a year to do something.  Also, I have always wanted write and perform a rap.  This christmas card was my chance. So for your viewing  pleasure: the Smith Family Christmas card: In case you were interested, here are the lyrics: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You’ve probably all been wondrin’ what happen'n to us all Out here in Maryland, Not making a great fuss Just living out the dream, with all these girls that number 5 Learning, growing eating, and just keep’n ‘em alive our year has been choc full of stuff;  to you we want to tell we’ve been think’n of the best way, maybe send it through the mail Or put it on the internets:  a Blog or facebook post or put in an email that gets sent from coast to coast But with a family thats so talented at spitting out a rhyme,  Wasting all this a talent would such an ugly crime We went to work together -  put...

I recently finished Benjamin Franklins autobiography.  And even though I am convinced Benjamin Franklin is a interesting person and an important historical figure, his autobiography was not a super fun read.   It was just a little boring and tedious reading through the details of his buisness and early life as a printer.  I was really hoping he was going to talk about the revolutionary war and creating the constitution, but he never got that far. At the end of the book he is critical of how the british were managing America, but stopped just short of the revolution.  I also wanted to learn about his science experiements.  He did talk a little about his success in science but hardly discussed what the success was.  I did enjoy the short section where he details his attempt to become perfect through goal setting. It made me want to be better at keeping goals, or at least at keeping record of my goals.  Also, throughout the book, there were many litt...

 I thought this week I would try something non-standard.  I had another graham cracker crust I wanted to use, so i looked up some interesting recipes that didn't require baking.  I decided on doing a rootbeer float pie. I like rootbeer flavor  and was looking for more of a creamy pie.   I think I might have messed it up.  I looked ok at first, but when I cut into it, it was pretty soupy, didn't really set.  So we ended up freezing it and eating it as a froze pie.  I was ok frozen, but i think a little messsed up still from the melting.  Anyway, it still had a nice cool rootbeer flavor. Well every pie can't be a winner, and we did still eat the whole pie.

MMMmmmm, this week was really a winner.  Blueberry cream pie with a pecan crumble on top. I have wanted to make a blueberry pie for a long time, but I have been waiting for a good deal on blueberries.  Well, this was the week.  I went with a recipe on Mel's kitchen cafe, which is usually a good source of yummy recipes.   Some mistakes were made in the making of this pie.  I forgot to put a baking sheet under the pie when I baked it which it a pretty catastrophic mistake typically.  The butter from the crust boiled over and fell onto the bottom of our over and then about 30 minutes into the baking, the butter started to burn and smoke.  And it was A LOT of smoke. I realized this smoke was coming, so I had to take the pie out and clean the oven halfway through the baking.  Unfortunately, this messed up the baking of this pie, since it pretty much cooled down halfway through the baking and then baked the rest of the way.  I don't think the ...

This is the first week in many weeks that our family did not get a pie to eat.  It is not such a great tragedy though since the previous week we had 6 pies.   This week, the pie I made went to the winner of the Smith Family Crossword competition.  We decided perhaps a simple (but delicious) apple pie was a good choice to send in the mail.  The novel thing about this pie is that it was the first NON-gluten-free pie I had ever made.  I figured since I wouldn't be eating it I might as well not use the expensive flour.  Rolling the dough out was a dream! It made me wish i wasn't using the gluten free flower every week since the pie dough turned out so nice.  I don't know how it tastes, but I think it looked like a pretty good pie.  We'll will see how it does in the mail, I should get a picture of it when it arrives at its destination in New Jersey: .