Kitchen Tip Tuesday

I'm just about out of tips. Everytime I think I don't have any more left, I find myself doing something that I realize would be a nice tip. LOL
I thought the mayo jar lids was my last tip, until the day before Thanksgiving when I was rolling out my pie dough. I got this tip from seeing just a portion of a Martha Stewart show quite a few years ago. I don't think I've ever seen her show, but one time I was flipping channels & there she was having a girl (I think it was her neice) roll out pie dough. It was unusual how she was doing it, so I thought I'd try it, just once. Well, since then (which was about 10 years ago), I use this trick probably 95% of the time!
It's weird, but it does make it easier, & it's simple. I think the trickiest part of doing the pie dough is picking it up after you've rolled it out to put in your pie pan. Sometimes it sticks to the table, even if you've used flour. This trick eliminates that problem. This simple trick is that you put the dough between plastic wrap!
You put down a section of plastic wrap (I call it Saran Wrap, even though I don't use that brand any more), & lightly flour it, & then put your pie dough on it. Pull out another section of plastic wrap & flour it. Turn it flour side down on top of the pie dough. Now, roll out your dough while it is between the plastic wrap. When you're done, remove the top plastic wrap, pick up your dough with the wrap underneath it & flip it over into your pie pan. Then remove that bottom wrap.
Simple & easy.
It's hard to tell in the pictures, but the first picture shows the pie dough between the plastic wrap. This was before I rolled it out.
And this was after I rolled it out.

The first time I tried it, it was a little awkard. The next time I did pies, I didn't use this trick & wouldn't ya figure, but I had trouble pealing that pie dough off the table. So I pulled out the plastic wrap & tried it again. I always end up using this method. It does make it easier. I do find that my dough needs to be a little bigger than what the width is on the plastic wrap. But that's ok, when I roll it out it does stick out each side a little bit, but it doesn't hurt a thing.

Here's my pie dough recipe to go with this. It makes two crusts.
2/3 C. plus 2 T. Crisco
2 C. sifted flour
1 t. salt
1/4 C. ice water
Mix together with a fork or pastry cutter the first 3 ingredients until crumbly. Add ice water & stir lightly & quickly. Take out of bowl onto lightly floured surface & mix with hands only until needed. Divide dough in half & roll out each one & put in pie pan.

If you only want 1 crust I found these amounts from another recipe:
1 C flour
1/2 t. salt
1/3 c. crisco
2-3 T. cold water
Make the same as the above recipe.

I found myself doing one more thing that I can think of as a trick & I'll share that one next week. And I just thought of another one, so maybe I'm still good for a couple more weeks on these tips. LOL
See more Kitchen Tips at Tammy's site.