Great-Gramma's Never Fail Pie Crust

Yesterday, little one and me went over to Gramma's to make some pumpkin rolls & try out Great-Gramma's Pie Crust. I normally just buy the frozen or refrigerated pie crusts but this year I wanted to make my own and Gramma shared her mom's recipe with me.  So simple and fantastic that wanted to share.  Really - I expected this elaborate process, but in 5 mins the dough was made, couple mins of rolling and we were done!

"Never Fail Pie Crusts"
- Sift together 3 cups of flour, 1 tsp of salt and 1 cup of shortening.

Next:
- 1 well beaten egg, 5 tbsp of cold water, 1 tbsp of vinegar.

We then divided the dough into 3rd's.  Rolled out the 2 pie crusts for some pumpkin pie.

To take easily off the mat/table, we slid a spatula underneath it, folded it loosely in half and then picked it up into the pie plate.  Pinch up the excess dough, if any hanging over the edge just swipe that off.

We had some left over dough and decided to make some sweet rolls.  Roll out the dough, spread butter, we added some homemade apple butter, and then sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.  Roll it up and then slice it into pieces.  Place in a buttered/cooking spray dish @350 bake until tops are golden. 15-20 mins.

I love going over to Gramma's during November and December for pumpkin roll making and cookie baking.  And I'm glad that she shared this recipe so I can continue making it and pass down to our girls some day.

Do you have any traditions/memories with loved ones during the holiday season?



Thankful Tidbit 

#18 - To still have my Gramma around.  She just finished her 2nd bout of chemo & radiation (last month) in the past 3 years and as we get older, I'm more appreciative of the wonderful memories with her and each holiday we still get to spend with her.

Perfect shadows align behind us...

The two winners for the Yoplait Give-a-way, picked by Emma out of a hat are...

Pineapple Princess @ The Love Shack 

& 

SaraLou @ The Harriger Family WEB Blog.

Congrats Ladies! I just need you to email me your addresses so I can forward them on to the sponsor.  Thank you to everyone who participated.

Thankful Tidbits

#7 - For Hubs OT pay, which is now enabling us to get caught up and pay things off.  The layoff over the summer really hurt us.  And it feels good to not have that money burden so heavy on our shoulders. 

#8 - For Emma making me laugh throughout the day. As challenging as these 3's are turning out to be, she can definitely have me cracking up at the drop of a hat.  Just like her Daddy, there's not staying mad around those two.

#9 -   The beautiful weather we've had the past 4 days.  It's been in the high 60's and we've actually been able to go outside and play and burn off some energy without our fingers freezing within the first 15 minutes or play time.

Another weekend past and starting the new week. It was a pretty low-key weekend for Emma and me with Hubby working.

Although, last week when watching one of her channels for the life of me I can't remember which one & haven't seen it on again they did some turkey hand cookies. We rolled out the sugar dough. Cut around her hand imprint, but the worse part was getting them from the table to the cookie sheet. After they cooled off Hubby and her decorated them. For the 1st time they didn't turn out too bad.

ME = Been M.I.A

I feel like it's been forever since a post. I totally went MIA this week b/c my laptop had some major issues going on with it. I still don't have that fixed, but did hook back up the desktop and got that working, so I'm a happy mama again!

I promise the next few days to return the comment love that I've gotten this week.

So, a couple week's ago I called our portrait studio - and to my amazement they were already booked solid until after Christmas. I mean really how did I let the time get away from me that I'm missing out on our yearly family picture and getting Emma's pictures. I swear it's like an addiction I love taking her and looking through all of the great shots they get. But looks like we're doing without our family picture at Christmas this year, perhaps at Easter we'll do one, and the hubs and I decided we could try and take them ourselves. We took about 20 of them and the last shot was the keeper! My little girl is growing up, I mean yes I knew that, but man she just looks so grown up to me in this picture.

Today the hubs and me spent the day cleaning up the house some and baking. Yes, I was actually able to convince him to help me with pretty much all of the baking. We made 4 different cookies, peppermint bark, baklava, and there's still a dough in the fridge being chilled which will just have to wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow left to do - make fudge, last cookie batch and gingerbread house. Needless to say, I'm sick and tired of washing dishes, I felt like I was always washing a sink full of dishes. Put away clean one's twice and there's another set out drying now. Bleah! Why can't this old house have a bigger kitchen for me to get a dishwasher?

Sugar Cookies, Snowflakes, & Tree's - OH MY!

So, here are a bunch of pictures that I've been uploading throughout the week, and have been wanting to share...

Emma and daddy prepping the dough to be rolled.



Watching.

She loved playing in the flour.

Her new "cheese" face with a wink thrown in.

Getting ready to help daddy push down the cookie cutter.




The end results, yummy! Emma decorated them all.



Taste Testing - I think they got two thumbs up!



Enjoying some homemade chex mix and smiling at daddy!



Snowflakes that the hubs and me did. He did the Emma one, which I think turned out awesome!



Playing around with my camera trying to get a night shot of the tree.



Look what I figured out to do. It was lots of fun! :o)


Tuesday night I swung by my mom's to pick up some craft stuff and she surprised me with having this christmas ball tree for me that she finished earlier in the evenings. Isn't it gorgeous?




And had to try out the fun light shot on this too.

A Very Wordless Wednesday