Blessed Buttermilk Pie

i am thankful.....

I am thankful...

i am thankful...

This was the mantra I said over and over in my head yesterday (Thanksgiving) as I was trying to coordinate the finishing touches on dinner......aka: going crazy!  Been there? Done that? 

and then it hit me....it was only dinner and that I was preparing it for those that i loved the most and that those finishing touches didn't mean a thing compared to those wonderful little AND big souls that were sitting on the couch watching a movie that was way too loud, or underfoot, or didn't seem to hear the puppies whining to be taken out.  It wasn't worth being frustrated over gravy that wasn't thick enough or a floor that was messy at best and sticky mud bog at worst.

The fingers in the stuffing or the little snatches of rolls being taken were a sign that dinner was good and that they approved and dinner would be a success. The TV too loud meant I had ears to hear the kids laughter (really it was scrabbling at each other, but whatever). Life was good, and I needed to relax. My house was warm, my table was loaded, I had neighbors that for one reason or another had made an extra coconut cream pie and insisted that we take it...yeah right...but I'm not sayin no! and my quiver was full...or is that the hubs quiver that was full?  But in either case, life is more then good.....it was blessed.

So I breathed in deeply and I let it all go....because.....

because I also had Buttermilk Pie at the end of the day!  So good...that the name...Buttermilk..does not do it a bit of justice....A creamy custardy old fashioned pie that is more then easy to make. I dare say it is one of my favorite!  Thank you Aunt Peggy for introducing this pie to us last year....when we were craving a traditional homemade Thanksgiving Dinner and having enough prepared that a family of nine could just drop in and you didn't blink an eye!

I tried two different recipes, and this recipe was by far the best

Buttermilk Pie

Pat-in-the-Pan Crust Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups Flour (All Purpose Unbleached)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 3 Tablespoons cold milk
• 2/3 cup oil (vegetable or canola–make sure it is fresh!)

Sister Liza Jane’s Southern Buttermilk Pie Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 4 eggs, whisked
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 stick butter, melted and cooled (1/2 cup of butter)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice (fresh squeezed)
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• pinch of grated Nutmeg

Pat-in-the-Pan Crust Directions:

1. Whisk together dry ingredients in a bowl until blended
2. Add wet ingredients and stir gently until the dough forms a ball.( For a tender crust, do not over mix).
3. Put dough into pie pan and pat it thin and flat to conform to the shape of the pan.
4. Crimp the edges.
5. You are now ready for the filling.

Buttermilk Pie Directions:

1. In your mixer, combine the flour and sugar.
2. Stir in the eggs, and buttermilk .
3. Add the cooled melted butter, vanilla, lemon juice, and lemon zest.
4. Add a pinch or two of grated Nutmeg.
5. Pour into the unbaked pie shell.
6. Put the pie in the center of the oven and bake at 425 in a pre-heated oven for 15 minutes, then lower the temp to 350, and bake for 40 more minutes.
7. Cool then keep chilled.

We of course dolloped (or drenched as I must admit) some whipped cream....and then we sat back and I pretended I was on my ole southern plantation porch rockin to and fro.........and then I woke up.......when my punks finally returned early in the am from shopping on black Friday. Ugh...is all I can say!

Love to all!

Heritage Vinegar Pie

Before I posted about the CDC being totally wrong about raw milk....

Before I started making french bread so it can dry out for the stuffing Thanksgiving dinner...and for dinner tonight, I have to double the recipe because we easily go through two loaves of french bread at one dinner.

Before I realized that I will never be a full fledged and real foodie....because {sigh} I like and use white flour, sugar and sometimes stoop to using something that may be processed or eat at Burger King.....

Before I started getting the mctwins cheerios because it looked like everything was on the up and up after a few rough days of UPing.

Before I realized that the utensil drawer was...ugh.....disgusting and full of crumbs and I pulled out the vacuum to de-crumb.

Before I started a load of laundry.....I had started to blog...or at least think about blogging...about Vinegar Pie.

Yes....Vinegar Pie....Who knew?

 I didn't....but great grandma Mabel's mama knew....she knew lots of things...she wrote them all down in a ledger above and then collected more recipes and hints from magazines. And with this pie, you can catch more flies then with honey!

It has been interesting to try many of the recipes to say the least because many of them do not have a temperature or a length of time on them.  But what a fun tradition of using and preparing recipes used back on the farm almost a hundred years ago!! I feel especially emotional as I think of the rich heritage in which both my husband and I have (or it could be the idea of cleaning up the 4000th mess after the twinners because here I sit blogging!) and of teaching all that we know to our little and not so little ones.

and as I teach what little I know, it makes me realize that I must search further and with more diligence to find these stories so that they will not be so lost to future generations.  I learned from my grandma in what would be the last few weeks of her life, stories that not even my uncles said they knew..why did none of us know these things?  Why did I not ask these questions of her when she was in better health? DOes she hav a hidden ledger somewhere?

I am realizing that my journey to be back on the farm is much more then owning a piece of ground....it's knowing who I am, excepting where I came from and learning from mistakes (and getting my daughters down from the table).....much much more...left to be uncovered.

VINEGAR PIE
(as written)
2/3 c white sugar
2 heaping T flour
4 Heaping T Vinegar
Yolk of 1 egg
pinch of salt
1 pt of boiling water

Cook in double boiler until thick, flavor with lemon. Fill baked crust, beat egg white, sweeten and place on top. Brown in oven. When we made this, we cooked it at 350.

As far as my research has found, pioneers made this pie when the fruit of summer and the dried fruit of winter had long been gone. SO try it and tell me what you think....I'll be waiting!