You can't judge a PIE by it's CRUST

"Epic Disaster", that's what my eleven year old said P-Dubs Flat Apple Pie was! But then after she tasted it she said "you can't judge a pie by it's crust, I guess."



I made a slew of recipes from the Pioneer Woman's cookbook and invited our Fab friends the Fribergs over to help us eat!



Look Kenny is cracking himself up! Or maybe he's sayin' "Dang what a lucky man I am to eat a feast like this.". Yep! I think that's what he was saying...

Menu: Fried Chicken, P-Dubs mashed potatoes, buttermilk biscuits with honey butter, homemade ranch and iceberg salad, flat apple pie, made with the "perfect" pie crust, and corn. (I can't eat mashed potatoes with out corn, it's like....bread with out butter, pancakes with out syrup, a day with out coffee....well you get what I'm saying.)

Demetria had never fried chicken before, so I waited till she got here to do a "chicken fryin" demo. Wanted them to get the full on grease filled house affect. It's marvelous. And as my hood over my stove is on the "fritz" (I always think that saying is HILARIOUS, because Fritz was my maiden name!), so every few minutes the fan on my hood would stop and I would have to do the "Arthur Fonzerelli" and hit the stove hood with my fist and it would pop back on. "Hehhhh".



I don't think I am the best teacher..."how do you know when it's done?" says Demetria, "um, you can just kinda tell, when its brown enough," says I. "oh" says she, with a bewildered look upon her face....



I think fried chicken is like pie crust, the more you make it the better feel you get for it. It just takes practice. The problem is you don't really want to practice making fried chicken or pie crust to terribly often, or you may end up looking like this....



Oh MY goodness how did a picture of my laundry room get in here??? That's embarrassing....well so was the picture I meant to have show up...I guess it's all for the best. Because I REALLY do want you to try frying chicken...and well, you might not of if you would have seen the picture I found...YIKERS! We'll save that one for another day. Just use your imagination. And then please try to imagine a laundry room sparkling clean and void of piles of never ending laundry.

Maybe we should back up a bit....


Here's the Smart chicken that I bought at D&W Fresh Market. It's the good stuff. The real kind of chicken that walked around and did it's little chicken thing before ending up in my frying pan. I like that. He got to live his little chicken life to the fullest. Not the dark, over-crowded, antibiotic fed existence most of our chicken dinners lead before ending up on our tables. Yeh, so this is where our meal all started...

With the chicken.

Not the egg.



Enough about the chicken, lets talk about this homemade ranch dressing of P-Dubs! One word YOWZA! I have been eating this on everything. It is so delicious I don't think I will ever be able to enjoy any other ranch dressing again! I loved it so much I AM going to give you the recipe. Instead of making you go to The Pioneer Woman's site.

Homemade Ranch Dressing
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 garlic clove minced
1 cup real mayonnaise
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 to 1/2 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
1/2 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
dash of hot sauce
**note I used the freeze dried parsley and dill and they worked great
Mix all the above together refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving and then eat with a big spoon....or you could drizzle it on iceberg lettuce. I thought it was fabulous on the tomatoes!



Buttermilk biscuits. I grew up on these things. I loved the honey butter. It's just equal parts honey to softened butter. We usually just spread the butter on and then drizzle the honey over and eat them like dessert! Mixing the honey and butter is a bit more civilized, I suppose.

Sorry we are back at the chicken again...but it was sooo gooood..


Empty plates to prove it!


I think my engineering minded son was attempting to build something with his chicken bones.



And here we are right back where we started... the Flat Apple Pie. I thought maybe this was a better angle. It definitely did not look like my usual apple pie and it looked nothing like Ree's from her cookbook. But it tasted good and nearly every morsel was eaten. So truly you cannot judge a pie by it's crust!