Easiest pie crust, ever—and it’s gluten free!

We take part in the Bountiful Baskets food co-op most weeks. We sign up on Monday and pick up on Saturday. While there are a variety of foods available, we most often sign up for the fruit and vegetable box. Every week is different and you never know what you are going to get. On Saturday we got several granny smith apples. Time for pie!

Now that I have a good pie crust recipe, I like making pie. This recipe is by Annalise G. Roberts, from her cookbook, Gluten-Free Baking Classics. Her website is here. I buy the GF Classical Blend flour by Authentic Foods that Ms Roberts recommends. I like it better than any other GF flour. It tastes as good as any wheat-based crust that I’ve ever tried.

Download Traditional Pie Crust

(If you are not interested in gluten-free baking, click here to read a post with an excellent pie crust that is as easy to make.)

My pie-baking experience Sunday morning was not without a couple of hiccups. I was distracted and mis-measured the ingredients for the crust not once, but twice! It hurt to throw out the 1st and 2nd attempts but, thankfully, the third time was the charm.

ApplePie

Steve and I each ate one small slice. Mom wanted two as well (one for today, one for tomorrow). The rest of the pie went to Chris and Lorna.

Lorna does not eat white sugar. Honey is fine, as is crystalized coconut or palm sugars. Steve and I eat very little processed sugar and so learning to bake without it is fine by me. The little bit of processed white sugar in the crust recipe was so small that Lorna and I figure it’s OK.

I substituted 2/3 cup honey for the 3/4 cup of combined white and brown sugars called for in the filling recipe. I used coconut sugar in the crumb topping. 

Coconut sugar is brown and has a different consistency. The crumb topping looks different than it would have with white sugar, but it tastes just fine :-).


ApplePie-Slice

FYI—The apple filling recipe came from GF Baking Classics as well. Honestly, this is my go-to dessert cookbook. The cakes are fantastic!

 

 

 

Ideas for plane travel…

I thought I was doing good to get work done on a plane. Ha! I am such an aritistic slacker!


IMG_4726-lores

Many thanks to my friend, Kate, for posting the link to Nina Katchadourian's site, specifically to this page, featuring this artist who works in a variety of media. The image above is from a series of selfies she took in airplane lavatories. She styled herself in the manner of Flemmish paintings using only what she had at hand for costumes. Here's an excerpt from her post:

"Improvising with materials close at hand, Seat Assignment consists of photographs, video, and digital images all made while in flight using only a camera phone. The project began spontaneously on a flight in March 2010 and is ongoing. At present, over 2500 photographs and video, made on more than 70 different flights to date, constitute the raw material of the project."

You really need to read more, and see the other photos in this series. And then go to her home page and click around. It's fun!

I'm flying today, to Hilton Head to visit the guild there. I might be tempted to take my phone to the lavatory :-).

 

The rest of the fabric…

As a reminder, here are the fabrics that I bought on my recent shopping trip to the Back Porch Quilt Shop:


BoughtAtBackPorch copy

I love the black and white, and gray fabrics! The faces print may be my favorite in this group. I love the way they look at me! The safety pins, in gray, will be fun to use. And, of course, the text is wonderful. This text print has more going on it—it's not as quiet as many of my text prints. But sometimes that is what is needed.


Black-White-Gray

The blue/teal/periwinkle spotted fabric is one I really like—mostly because I am drawn to this combination of blues lately. There was a time when these colors together set my teeth on edge. Funny, isn't it, how your tastes change? The other three fabrics look nice with the spotted print but I would absolutely pull more from my stash to build this into a quilt.

Blue-Periwinkle

I bought a yard of the map-of-Rome (not Paris) fabric. It's light and pretty and should be easy to use. I don't know where, but surely I will find a qult for it. 

ParisMap

It looks nice with the greens that I bought, although I didn't buy them to use together. 


ParisMaWithGreen

And it's fun with the golds and that feminine floral print! 


ParisMap-GoldAndFlowers

When I shop for fabric, I buy what I know I can use. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but eventually. I stick to colors that are clearer, rather than really gray, because that's what I use 99% of the time. I find it easy to build quilts out of my stash because what I buy fits into my color palette.

Happy shopping!


 

Busy busy busy…

Every day is a sprint.

I'm guessing that the same is true for many of you. I sometimes wonder if it has always been this way. I have dim memories of times when I could sit and read a book—very dim memories. I don't necessarily think that my life was better then, but there are days when I wish I could focus on one thing without knowing how many other things I also need to be doing. OK, enough of that 🙂

I was in Monterey and Pacific Grove, CA, last week to teach for the quilt guild. Monterey is such a great place to be. The people were wonderful, the weather was lovely. On the way to dinner one evening I spotted this in the sidewalk. It made me smile. 

HeavenUnderFoot-Pebbles copy

While there, I got to visit one of my all-time favorite shops, The Back Porch. Of course, I shopped…


BoughtAtBackPorch copy

I didn't shop for anything in particular and the stacks reflect that.

In the same way that I did after my last shopping trip, I thought I'd tell you why I bought what I did. The first two fabrics that went in my pile were these:


Kokka-PenguinsPhones copy

Both are linens from Kokka. The penguins are designed by Nancy Wolff, the telephones by Melody Miller. They are not inexpensive fabrics but I have used similar fabric before and I am always sorry when it's gone. (FYI: Linen and regular cottons are not a problem to combine in quilts. They sew together well.)

The penguins have text on them! You know how I love text…


Penguins-TextDetail copy

These two cottons are both designed by Stella but I didn't realize that when I bought them. One of my students had used the light branch fabric as a background and I really liked it. The concentric circles didn't make me think of tree rings until I saw the two fabrics together.


Stella-Branches copy

Besides the fact that the Kokka linen is expensive, I'll bet that many of you don't buy it because you aren't sure how to put it with other fabric. Here are some ideas:

I would not have normally have thought about putting the tree fabric with the penguins but it works! I would add more fabric, but this is a nice start.


Penguins-WithBrowns

The more delicate, feminine floral looks really good with the telephones. It makes me think of myself as a teenager. I probably add some light fuschia and teal, possibly a lot of cream, and a deep dark burgundy.

Phones-WithFlowers copy

The orange tile print from Kaffe Fassett is pretty nice with the telephones too. In fact, it surprised me…


Phones-WithOrangeTile copy

And I like it even better with the yellow and orange fabric by Thomas Knauer for Andover—although I would use the yellow in very small doses. 


Phones-WithOrangeMore copy

What else I would add? Probably blue, more aqua than true blue. 

I'll share more in a couple of days. Until then, I hope you have a nice holiday weekend!

 

 

Nacho cheese!

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Have you ever wondered why you can never eat just one? Click here to read the NY Times article that will tell you why. It's pretty interesting, and sort of scary, just how easily we can be manipulated by food science.

I haven't tasted a nacho cheese chip in years because they are not were not gluten free. As I was typing that I thought I'd do a quick fact check and, guess what? I can eat them again!

From the Frito Lay site: "In 2011 we reformulated Doritos Nacho Cheese Tortilla Chips to remove wheat from the recipe. While some older packages may show "wheat" on the ingredient statement, please be assured that all Doritos Nacho Cheese Tortilla Chips currently being sold in the US do not contain wheat."

However, just because I can eat them, that doesn't mean I will eat them. I've gone years without them and that proves to me that I can (maybe) continue to resist the lure of the yummy, golden, salty, tastiness that is Nacho Cheese Doritos.

 

Spinning Wheels, quilted by Angela Walters!

I like to quilt my own quilts but every now and then I admit to myself that I just can't do everything. Luckily, Angela Walters has come to my rescue! 

Spinning Wheels is the first of several quilts that she is working her magic on. I received the quilt last Monday, bound it, and sent it off to be shown at Quilt Market. Can you believe that I didn't take a picture of it, bound? I slapped myself upside the head. And then I asked Angela if she had taken pictures. Yes, she did.


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I love the different quilting designs that she used. Everything works well together, adding life to the quilt but not overpowering it. 


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Definitely check out Angela's blog.


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I don't know about you, but this makes me smile :-).