Pie Crust Success!

Along the road to becoming my own little Suzy Homemaker I've had a few things I count among my most proud moments. After tackling homemade bread, I decided I had to try a pie crust. I knew I could do better than what comes in the box from the store, but my first attempt was one of my biggest cooking disasters of all time. Picture a wet, gloppy mess shrunk down into the center of the pie pan. Not good!

So I called in the expert. My mom set up pie making class for me in her kitchen one Saturday and she put together the essentials I didn't have: a dough blender and a gorgeous wooden rolling pin (previous wet gloppy pie crust was rolled out with a coke can. Christmas cookies last year? A wine bottle.) She taught me how to blend the fat into the flour until I see small peas, how to roll it out without killing all the fat pockets, fold and transfer it to a plate, and flute or score the edges. After a few practices on my own, I had pretty good success last night. I decided to venture a little from my mom's recipe and use Martha Stewart's pate brisee recipe, but the technique--it's all from mom :)