Baking Tiny Strawberry Pies!

Hey everyone!
I know it's been a while...sorry! I have no excuse! I did go on vacation but I've been home for two weeks so...I come baring pies! and tiny ones at that!

 

                                                      Alright, Here's what you'll need: 

For the inside of the pie:

1 cup white sugar

1/2 cup all purpose flour 

4 cups halved strawberries

1 egg yolk

For the pie crust: (you can always get pre-made dough it just tastes funny to me)
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup ice water
1/4 tsp salt

Other things you'll need:
2 Mixing bowls 
Rolling pin
Pastry blender (not necessary but totally worth getting if you make pie crust often)
Miniature pie pans
Small paint brush

Get your strawberry filling started by mixing the flour and sugar.
Then cut all of your strawberries in halves and measure out 4 cups (it was two baskets of strawberries for me)
Add them to the sugar flour mixture.
You're going to keep mixing them until all the strawberries are covered and then start you pie crust...make sure to stir the strawberries every couple of minutes.
I also mashed mine up a little after about 15 minutes of them absorbing the sugar...its a preference thing no need to do it if you dont want to.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees

Now for the pie crusts.
Mix your flour and salt.
Then cut in your butter with the pastry blender so the mixture becomes small crumbles of flour covered butter.
Stir in your ice water a small amount at a time.
Eventually the mixture will be mold-able and you can form it into a ball
Cover a clean area with flour and cover your rolling pin with flour as well
Grab a small section thats a little smaller than 1/5 of your entire ball.
I say 1/5 because I had four small pie tins and I wanted another section for the lattices on the top of the pies
Roll it out until its about a 1/4 inch thick... you dont want it to be so thin you can see through and you dont want it to be too thick that you wont have enough remaining for the top layer of crust.

Once you place the dough in the pan, make sure the edges are covered and trim all excess thats hanging over. Save the trimmings to re roll later.
Then comes time to put in your filling!

I filled my pies a little higher than the tin, you can always stack them higher but I barely had enough dough to cover the top of the pies as it was so just be advised.
Then comes the tedious task of the lattice work.
You should have that last section of dough to roll out.
Once its rolled out, use a sharp knife to cut small stripes along the whole thing, later they will look like this

Again, the size of the stripes are up to you. The thicker you cut them the less strawberry you will see and the smaller you cut them the more work you will have to do haha
After they're cut, I always lay one vertically and one horizontally and figure out the over under situation from there. You will need six stripes of crust for each pie. I ran out a little early as you can see with the pie in the bottom right corner. Normally though the three vertical stripes have the two on the outside matching eachothers over under route and the middle stripe does the opposite...along with the horizontal stripes.
I hope thats not confusing...its a little difficult to type something thats easier to see. Of I can answer any questions you might have!

Once the tops of the pies are beautifully finished, you grab your egg yolk and add a little water to it.
Then you will need a small paint brush or some kind of brush to paint the egg yolk onto the top of the pies. You need to do it semi quickly so it doesnt dry before you can sprinkle the sugar on top. After the pies are latticed, yolked, and sugared place them on a baking sheet to keep them from spilling strawberry goop onto the inside of your stove...trust me, once it spills in there...its like you've created a fire with all the smoke that will come out of your oven! That was my thanksgiving two years ago haha

Anyway! Bake them for 20 Minutes at the 400 degrees we set the stove to earlier and an extra two or three minutes wouldnt kill them in you like your pie extra crispy. 

Then enjoy with the ones you love! That happens to be my roommates for me, we had some baked macaroni and cheese with asparagus and moscato white wine for dinner on memorial day! We ate on our patio and then enjoyed some tiny strawberry pies for dessert!

Here's also some fun pictures from the Doctor who costumes my roommates and I created...We actually one third place in the Aprilween costume contest.

Clarissa was the Doctor, Tara was the Tardis, and I was a weeping angel. Everyone kept calling me a gargoyle and then we realized not enough people watch doctor who haha. Hope you have enjoyed my long overdue post! Maybe I'll share my vacation pictures from Greece, turkey, and Rome on the next one!

Miss and love you always,

Shanna Elyse!

MEATLESS MEATLOAF!

Now the meatless meatloaf recipe. You might be asking yourself, "How is that possible?" Well I'm about to show you. I was a vegetarian for four years only recently did I start eating chicken (because the doctor told me I needed to eat it). Anyways, I still refuse to eat red meat and I've been making this recipe for years. I originally got the basis of the recipe from Morningstar Farms and then I got a little creative with it. This has easily become one of my favorite meals. So roll up your sleeves, it's time to get your hands dirty!

What you need:

-1 Package of Morningstar Grillers Original
-Cooking Spray
-1 Egg
-Handful of Chopped Yellow Onion
-1 Teaspoon of Paprika
-2 Tablespoons of Milk (or soy milk)
-3 Tablespoons of Worcestershire Sauce
-3/4 Cup of Dried Bread Crumbs
-Handful of Cheddar Cheese (or soy cheddar cheese)
-Ketchup



Directions:
1. Preheat oven at 375 degrees and spray the pan with cooking spray.
2. Heat up the Morningstar Grillers for 30 seconds (or however long it takes to get soft) in the microwave. Then use your hands to mush it together in a bowl.

(Looks gross, taste great!)

3. Add all the ingredients in the bowl except for the ketchup.

4. Mash all of it together with your hands.
5. Make it into an oval and put into the pan.

(Don't forget to grease the pan!!!!)

6. Top with ketchup.

(I like to lather a lot of ketchup on top :))

7. Bake for 40-50 Minutes, the bottom should be a little crispy. 

Voila! Enjoy.

Miss You, Always.

Clarissa

Food, food, food!

Hello lovelies!
   Before I reveal my food themed post, I just wanted to say that it's so awesome to have weekly contact with each of you. I love the idea of knowing what's going on in your lives through this really neat blog. I know that I am terrible at keeping contact with the people in my life I truly cherish and this is a genius way of making it a habit to touch base. So, hooray blogging!


And after that side note, food theme will now commence!


As we all know, Valentine's Day is approaching....


I'm not sure how all of you feel about this never-fun-awkward-burden of a holiday but I've never been a fan. When you don't have a valentine, it seems everyone else does. Even when you do have a Valentine to share it with, there's too much pressure on the both of you to prove how much love you share that it somehow always gets twisted into a guilty unfulfilled time.

But alas! I have found the answer that solves all Valentines day blues:

Rice crispy treats!

Last year I made this awesome mound of glorious valentines day themed rice crispy treats for my boyfriend and roommate.

He loved it, she loved it and since it was so easy to make and visually pleasing, I loved it!

Here's what you need:

-4 cups miniature marshmallows ( I like the miniature ones because they melt easier)
-6 cups rice crispy treat cereal
-3 Tablespoons butter
-Pink or red food coloring
-wax paper


-To make the treats you start off with a saucepan and melt down the butter. Then add your marshmallows. Stir until all the lumps are out.

-Then measure your cereal out into a large pot (big enough to hold all of your rice crispy goodness with room to mix) and add the marshmallow goop in small portions. Continue to stir until everything is well mixed.

-Now, this is usually where you would place all the crispys into a pan and then cut them into squares but I wanted to form the lovely heart pictured above.

 -Tear yourself off  a large sheet of wax paper. You'll be using the wax paper to keep your heart from sticking to anything (if only this applied in particular real life situations :) Now, if you want to do the gradient change in color like I did above, you'll need to separate portions of the rice crispy batch into sections. Of course the largest section being your main color and the smaller batches being your top colors.

-Since I kept one of the sections plain, you can either leave a portion untouched or dye it a color of your choosing.  Then for the lighter color I added a really small amount of food coloring and just kept mixing it around the rice crispy section (3-5 drops). When it came to the darkest color I added a ton of food coloring but in small amounts to play with the color and test how I wanted it to come out. It ended up being somewhere around 15 drops.

-Once all the sections were colored I prepared to build my heart mound. I actually just free formed the heart shape until I was satisfied with how it looked. Occasionally I smooshed the rice crispys together to get a section right. I also just built each section on the base of the first section to keep the symmetry accurate.

-Viola! A happy Valentine for the giver and receiver!

If rice crispys aren't your cup of tea, you could also go the classic chocolate covered strawberries with a cute little hand piped message:

Thanks for reading!

Miss you always,

xoxo
Shanna!