Pecan Pie

The Lord and Master decreed that we shalt have pie for our Christmas Eve dinner. Since I’d just bought some pecans on sale, pecan pie it was. The filling recipe came off the pecan package. It was identical to the recipe on the corn syrup label, although it used about 50% more pecans. (Gee, I wonder why…)

Pie crust is the weakest link in my culinary chain. I tried to avoid making pie crusts for years. I’d make crustless quiches and pies with graham cracker crusts, anything to avoid making pastry crusts. Some of it is my aversion to shortening, for nutritional and taste reasons. Shortening is partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, which contains trans fat. Trans fat increases the LDL “bad” cholesterol and decreases HDL “good” cholesterol, which is why food companies tripped over each other trying to get it out of their products as a marketing tool. However, if a product contains less than half a gram of trans fat per serving, it can be labeled trans fat free. Butter is my solid fat of choice for baking.

Several years ago I found a food processor recipe for pie crust, which works quite nicely. I fired up the food processor this morning. I think I added too much water to the dough, which made it way too sticky to roll out at first. I added a little more flour and re-rolled it successfully. I worried that the resulting crust would be too tough. I tucked the crust into my largest pie plate, poured in the filling, and let it bake while I did some work.

The result was tasty and not too cloyingly sweet. I’m still no pie crust expert, but it passed the test.