Pastry (Florence Fletcher)

Good day!

This post is going to be a quick one. It's more of an 'add-on' to last post (the Garden Quiche) and conveniently, this recipe is also from the kitchen of Grandma's friend, Florence Fletcher.

To it and at it...

The Recipe Card:

The Process:

Like most recipes so far - you start with a lot more lard than should be legal. Again, I use vegetable shortening instead of lard. I use a pastry cutter to blend it all and make it 'crumbly'.

The recipe calls for "1 egg (water for 1 cup)". Alright, what exactly does that mean!? I figured it meant that you put an egg in a measuring cup and then added water so that the contents equals 1 cup. I called my mom to confirm (I seem to use my 'lifeline' call every time I'm in the kitchen), and she agreed. So it was decided. 

Since there was little direction on the recipe card, I went with the standard - make a well in the dough and pour the egg/water combo in the centre. 

And it mixed up beautifully! This recipe makes 2 shells, so I cut it in half and covered one half with some plastic wrap while I worked with the other. 

I rolled it all out and laid it overtop of my pie plate. 

With a knife, I cut along the edge of the pie plate and scraped off the excess. At the advice of my mom (during the egg/water call), I handled the dough as little as possible. I had reserved some dough from this half to start working on the braids. 

Typically, this is where the recipe would end. You'd stuff your goods in there and you'd be off and running. Buuuut, because we live in a world of Pinterest and fabulous Bloggers, I couldn't stop there. I saw this really great pin one time where this woman had created a braided edge for her pie crust. Here's the process as I did it. 

With some extra dough, I cut 3 strips out (as straight as I could). Carefully pinch them together on one end.

So, I thought I remembered reading somewhere that you use egg yolk to help pastry stick together and use egg white to give pastry a nice golden-brown shine when baking. Turns out it's the opposite, so I basically just shined up the inside for no reason and didn't help myself at all with the 'stick' problem.

Squish the pinched end into the crust a bit and then just start braiding. Close your eyes and pretend it's hair if you need to. Though I will caution you, it can fall apart pretty easy! When you run out of a strip, cut another one and attach to the end of the original... Just keep on going until you're at the end.

Ta-Da!

As I mentioned, this recipe makes 2 pie shells (which I sure most recipes do), and I was NOT going to go through all that a second time. That's a one-shell kind of project. For the second one, I did the ol' fork-marks-in-the-crust trick and was done with it. 

The Recipe:

Ingredients
1 lb lard
5 cups Flour
1 egg (water for 1 cup)*
1 tbsp vinegar
3 tsp Brown Sugar
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Baking Powder

*See note below.

My Personal Notes:

• I warned you that the ingredients were a tad surprising for pastry! But I also told you that it was absolutely delicious. Flakey without being dry! Yum. 
• "1 egg (water for 1 cup)": I interpreted this as "crack an egg into a measuring cup and add enough water in to bring the contents up to 1 cup". If someone interprets this differently, please let me know!
• Specific to the braiding as opposed to the recipe - The thinner the better, really. Mine were too thick and bulky. Also, there's no need to have the braid as 'tight' as mine, it makes for a lot of crust!

Try this recipe out with your favourite pie or dinner dish. It would be an amazing Tortiere pastry!

Well, there you have it - a great recipe and the added bonus of a peek through the window to my insanity when it comes to details :)

Up next, Mealoaf. Mmmm, who doesn't love meatloaf?!


*~Tara-Jane~*

Garden Quiche (Florence Fletcher)

Ok, so here I was thinking it had only been a few weeks since I last updated. Turns out I was way off...

That doesn't mean that I have stopped cooking though! As promised, I bring you grandma's quiche recipe today. This is by far one of my favourite recipes in this little box. One that I know very well and always looked forward to when she made it. Seriously, egg with pastry. Does it get much better?

One of my favourite things about quiche is it's really an "anytime" kind of meal. Winter, summer... Morning, evening. I've made it for Easter brunch, and I've made it for a casual Sunday night dinner. When in a pinch, make a quiche.

This recipe belongs to Florence Fletcher. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of Florence ("Flo"*), but I know they are around. My grandma had a wonderful album from her time working for the war effort some place in Quebec. I believe my brother still has the album, so I'll scan a photo and post it as an update soon. Until then, I thought I would share this absolutely wonderful photo of my grandpa helping my grandma up on to a tree stump. I adore this photo.


The Recipe Card:

The Process:

This is such a super easy and quick recipe to make. If you're using frozen prepared pie shells, it's even quicker. The majority of my time in the kitchen was spent making (and braiding) the pastry. In fact, it took so long to make the pastry that I worked up quite an appetite. My absolutely darling husband made me a gourmet snack of toast with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. He should start his own blog, don't you think?!

I prepared my pie shells and placed the broccoli inside and then sprinkled with the (delicious) cheese.

You will notice that with the second pie crust, I did not braid the edge. I needed to save time and my sanity. I opted for a very classy fork-design-in-the-edge option, a la Stouffer's Chicken Pot Pie.

Whisk together the soup mix, basic, milk and eggs.

Pour over the broccoli/cheese and you're done like dinner. 

Pop it in the oven for 40-45 minutes and socialize with your brother, sister-in-law and adorable nephew while you wait. This last part is optional, but highly recommended.

Yum!

The Recipe:

Ingredients:
1 Knorr Leek soup mix
1 pkg frozen broccoli thawed & drained
1-1/2 cups grated Gruyere Cheese (see notes)
2 unbaked pie shells (coming soon!)
1/2 tsp dry Basil
4 medium Eggs
1-1/2 cups 2% Milk

Directions:
Over 375.
Arrange broccoli and cheese in pie shells.
Whisk soup mix and basil with eggs and milk.
Pour into shells.
Cook 40-45 minutes
Cool 10 minutes


My Personal Notes:

I remember one time I tried to make this for a small group of friends that I was having over. I was probably around 15 or so. Natalie, Ben, Nick and Marieka were coming to "hang out" and I thought it would be grand to show them how fabulous I was in the kitchen. When I got to the part in the recipe about adding the Knorr soup mix, I figured you actually had to prepare the soup as per the instructions on the package, and then add it to the recipe. Needless to say, we had a very sloppy quiche that night. I highly recommend not doing that!

• I used fresh broccoli, not frozen/thawed/drained. I know, I'm such a traditionalist. 
• If you're at all like me, you have no idea what Gruyere cheese is and why it's any different than cheddar (which I was going to get until I realized I have access to infinite information in the palm of my hands -or more accurately, the bottom of my purse- my iPhone!). I pulled over in the cheese and deli section of the grocery store and quickly googled Gruyere Cheese. It is in the swiss family and is named after the city Gruyere in Switzerland. It's also ridiculously expensive and tasty as all get-out. Mine looked like this and cost around $8-$9. It yielded almost the 1-1/2 cups. 

• As it turns out, non-fancy crust tastes just as good as fancy crust. 

My husband has an aversion to quiche that I don't quite understand. Regardless, he suffered through and ate it all, saying "for quiche, it was OK". I've got to take what I can get ;)

Please give it a try!

Up next, I'm going to share the Pastry recipe I used for this. It surprised me some of the ingredients in it, but it was hands-down the best, flakiest pastry I've made.

*~Tara-Jane~*


*A little bit of "history"
My grandmother always used to address cards with the recipients name on the envelope, but the name was always in quotes. I would get a card addressed to "Tara-Jane", as if to say "if that is your real name". It was so endearing. These are the small things I remember about my grandmother - the things that will never be forgotten. My brother and I often sign our cards like this, just for fun because it makes us smile. 

I love you, "grandma".