(no subject)

[arethinn]

arethinn: Awww. I'm never baking pumpkin pie again.
enotsola: That's a silly thing to say.
arethinn: [points to this pie]
enotsola: What about it?
arethinn: How could any pie I make ever be that perfect?
enotsola: How do you know? Maybe it tastes like poop! Lick your monitor and tell me what it tastes like.
arethinn: ...hopefully not like poop. What have you been doing while I'm at work?
enotsola: I bet any pie you make would taste better than your monitor.

Comments

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

It's a pretty piece of pie, but it looks to me like store-bought crust, canned filling and canned whipped topping, so I'm sure you could bake a pie exactly like that with minimum effort. Or you could make a real pie-crust with real lard and high-quality flour, make filling from a genuine pumpkin, and whip up some authentic heavy cream - it might not look as picture-perfect, but it would taste a lot better.

[arethinn]

One of these days I should try starting by baking a pumpkin, but we basically get one pumpkin pie a year around here, on Thanksgiving, and I've always been having to make the pie the night before in somewhat of a hurry, so starting with canned pumpkin. It's the flavor we're used to - my dad is notoriously finicky with his food flavors and textures and might not like fresh baked pumpkin filling.

I make crust from scratch, but we're shortening people here, heh. I know lard is supposed to be the pig's knees (so to speak) for pastry, but I hardly ever make pastry (or, I guess, tortillas) so I don't know what I would do with the rest of a package.

Nothing but heavy whipping cream, though.

[kalakumari.livejournal.com]

If you cook with oil you can just use shortening instead in order to use up the huge buckets you have to buy. It's not so bad, even though I really prefer to cook with nice coconut oil. I really wish they made smaller cans of shortening too! I'm going to have to get some because it's going to be a pie sort of year for me too.

[arethinn]

I meant I don't know what I would do with the rest of a package of lard. I don't want to use that as a regular cooking fat.

You can buy smallish cans of Crisco - we usually buy ummm, it might be a 1 or 2-lb canister, it's only a few cups in it. Even so it lasts a while given I only bake things that use it a few times a year.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Hydrogenated oils are horribly unhealthy (http://www.naturalnews.com/024694_oil_food_oils.html). You could leave a can of Crisco open in an abandoned tenement for a year, and not a rat nor roach would taste it, because it isn't actually food. Margarine and commercial lard (the kind that comes in a tub) are also partially hydrogenated oils, and as such, no better than Crisco. What's needed for truly perfect pie-crust is unhydrogenated leaf lard (http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/291160), which is stored in the freezer.

My attempts to make pie crust with coconut oil have not gone so well - it's hard to 'rice' it into the pie dough when it melts at room temp. Supposedly chilling the bowl and pastry-marble beforehand would help, but I haven't tried it - I love pie, but it doesn't really love me back any more.

[EDIT: I was wrong; contrary to what I'd always heard, apparently rats do eat Crisco (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary-psychiatry/201204/crisco-and-cocaine) and so do roaches (http://thekrazycouponlady.com/at-home/11-alternative-uses-for-crisco/).]

[arethinn]

Oh, I know hydrogenated fats are bad. My commonest cooking fats are olive or safflower oil, and butter. The shortening only gets used for occasional baking. I don't know what I would do with the rest of any kind of package of lard. It would likely sit in the freezer from now til next Thanksgiving's pie :-/ (can lard get freezerburned? I guess anything can eventually.)

Pastry marble! Wow. Far too fancy for me. I make do with a wooden pastry board, not even cloth covered.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I think if it's frozen in sealed portions, unhydrogenated lard will last just fine from one Thanksgiving to the next - maybe even to the Thanksgiving after that. Freezer burn is when moisture in the cells freezes and bursts the cell walls - I don't think fat cells have that much moisture, but they probably do have some, so maybe lard can get freezer-burned. Probably would get rancid first, though - even freezing can't stop that entirely.

Pastry marble is nice - LOL, I didn't buy it; a friend was getting rid of it, having received it as a gift from a husband she'd already gotten rid of. I get the feeling it's the sort of thing hardly anybody actually goes out and buys for themselves, except possibly dedicated pastry-cooks.