Kimbob, you really had the double whammy. My sympathies and prayers, but it looks like you're baking your way back.
We had rotisserie chicken for supper, the bones are in the stockpot and the remaining meat is in the fridge, and tomorrow I will make a Chicken Pot Pie for Pi Day.
We had oatmeal tonight.
When I was in college one of the favorite discussion topics among the engineering majors was what would happen if a tornado hit the John Hancock building in Chicago. (Engineers have strange discussions, we also wondered how hard the Jolly Green Giant would have to push on the John Hancock building to push it over. You may be surprised to know there are equations to deal with that, they're part of the wind sheer load tests engineers make on building plans.)
Here's what happens when a tornado hits one of those big wind turbines:
Video too:
Needs more gravy! My usual filling is chicken, onions, carrots, celery, potatoes and peas. I often add sage and thyme in addition to salt and pepper.
We had some leftover roast beef with mashed potatoes and gravy.
I've done it both ways, I don't see a lot of difference, though if the dough is cool it usually is easier to transfer into the pan. I've been using a pastry roll-out bag for pie crusts lately, it makes the transfer easier because you just flip the dough onto the pan. I usually let the dough sit out until the filling is ready, at which point it's usually only slightly warm.
We had salads again, roast beef on mine, tuna on Diane's.
We had sandwiches made with some of yesterday's eye of round roast.
Part of the reason I developed an interest in figuring out the right amount of pie crust was that when I'd make a pie there were often big thick pieces of piecrust left on the plates.
Also, I often make 4 or even 6 pie crusts at a time and freeze most of them, and that works best with a better estimate of how much pie dough each crust needs.
Pot pies are actually better with thicker crusts, IMHO, providing you have plenty of gravy.
The health issues between oil and shortening crusts are complicated, but are probably less important now that Crisco no longer has trans fats in it. Canola oil has its critics, too,. And butter's reputation has actually improved again.
I generally use Susan Purdy's hot water crust for pot pies, it's a bit sturdier and doesn't get soggy.
I've never made a slab pie so I'm not sure how to calculate the amount of pie dough needed. I suppose you could compute the surface area for both the upper and lower crusts (including side walls) and then use my piechart post to find the nearest total area and use that to estimate the amount of pie dough needed.
There are recipes for an oil-based hot water pie crust but I haven't tried them.
I always make lots of gravy for a pot pie, and add it on top of pieces as they're plated.
We had salads, I finished off the potato-leek soup too.
Some get filled, some get both filled and frosted, some just get dipped in pastry cream and some are eaten plain.
It started out just as something to practice piping with, but my wife likes taking the empty shells to work as a fairly low-carb snack.
My wife has been into ginger snaps lately, so I'm think of making BLJ's molasses cookies.
I also plan to make another batch of choux paste for eclair shells either today or tomorrow.
