My Kitchen Frightens Me

Last night I made a pumpkin pie to take to Thanksgiving dinner at Peg and John's house later today.  I decided it would be fun to take some photos and put them on my blog today.  I was even going to share the secrets of my easy and delicious pie crust.  Then this morning I uploaded the pictures and changed my mind.   The photos were just a little too scary.  I deleted the most terrifying ones and saved just a few to show you what I mean.

For example, here is the utensil drawer in my kitchen.

Right now my mom is laughing and reminding my dad of the parent-teacher night in second grade when she opened my school desk and it was very neatly organized.  Then she went to ask the teacher how she had accomplished this with me, the teacher looked at her as if she were speaking Klingon. Kim?  A neat desk?  Let's go see.  Oh, no, no that's Julie Carmody's desk.  Here is Kim's desk.  And when my mom opened it, voila, there it was, a preview of what my utensil drawer would look like 40-some years later.

(Note to self:  stop bothering Sierra about her messy room.)

Here is another scary thing that happened.  The recipe called for cinnamon (check), ground cloves (check), and ground ginger (hmm...one of those little unlabeled baggies from Common Ground must be ginger...but wait, the baggies have been lying together in the cupboard so long that they all smell like....curry. )  I went to the store to buy eggs, since I had only one and the recipe called for two eggs.  I came home with eggs and 25 dollars worth of other groceries, but no ground ginger because it was the night before Thanksgiving and the only spice sold out at Jewel was, ok course, ground ginger. 

So I assembled all the possible spice combinations:

I added 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon of ground cloves.  Then I opened the little baggy that smelled LEAST like curry.  But I couldn't bring myself to do it.  So I put in a little pumpkin pie spice instead, hoping that enough of the ginger in it would float up to everyone's taste buds in the final product.  We shall see later today.

The crust was easy.  What's that?  You're not scared?  You want my crust recipe and secrets?  Ok, but don't say I didn't warn you.

For a single crust mix 1 cup and 2 tablespoons flour and 1/2 tsp of salt.   Add 1/3 cup canola oil and mix until little balls of dough form, than add 3 Tablespoons cold water, and it makes a nice easy to manage ball of dough. 

So much simpler than cutting butter or lard into flour.  Then you must get the largest rolling pin that exists (mine was rescued from a biologist's lab back in the 80's, so who knows what it was originally used for...shudder).  And put that dough inside a plastic grocery bag and roll it out. 

So easy it's frightening.  Then you can slip the pie plate into the bag upside down, flip it over, and take the bag off.  No folding and lifting and bending and spindling or mutilating that crust.

Pour the filling in,  pop it in the oven at 425 for 15 minutes then 350 for another 50 minutes.  Take it out and then wish you had made two so you could start eating pumpkin pie the night before Thanksgiving.  Oh well.

What?  You want to see the finished product?  Oh come on, everyone knows what a pumpkin pie looks like.  Ok, but just this one time:

I told you it was scary.