Hymn of Thanksgiving

Be Present At Our Table, Lord

by Louis Bour­geois

Be present at our table, Lord;
Be here and everywhere adored;
Thy creatures bless, and grant that we
May feast in paradise with Thee.

We thank Thee, Lord, for this our food,
For life and health and every good;
By Thine own hand may we be fed;
Give us each day our daily bread.

We thank Thee, Lord, for this our good,
But more because of Jesus’ blood;
Let manna to our souls be giv’n,
The Bread of Life sent down from Heav’n.

My prayer is that you will be surrounded by family and loved ones, but more so by the love of our Savior. May your day be blessed!

~ CM

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Homemade Pie Crust

Beautiful, flaky pie crust is an art. Like any great art, you will perfect your skills over time. This means, to get really good, you will need to practice making a lot of pies! (= Happy Husband!!) As a new bride, I spent about a year making pies for every occasion, so after a few dozen, I finally perfected pie crust!

BUT, practice does not always make perfect! If you practice making pie crust with a bad recipe and poor techniques, you may still not have success. Perfect practice makes perfect, and my tried and true recipe and tips should help you achieve pie crust success. One unique thing about my recipe is the Paste Technique. Your dough will mix together much more easily, reducing how much you work the dough, and this will make your crust more tender.

Second, work with COLD ingredients for the best results. You don't want your dough to just mush together like cookie dough, you want the butter to be cut in and just blended, leaving nice little flaky butter globs. If you are an accomplished biscuit maker, the technique is quite similar!

Here is a condensed recipe, so if you are already skilled with pastry, you can just look at the short version:

Church Mouse's Pie Crust
(makes two 9" pie crusts)
3 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
1 1/3 c. butter
6 Tbs. ice water
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 tsp. vinegar

Mix 2 1/2 c. flour and salt together. Dice the butter into small chunks and toss them into the flour mixture. Using a pastry cutter, cut in the butter until fluffy. In a separate bowl, mix 1/2 c. flour with the ice water, beaten egg, and vinegar to make a paste. Add this paste to the flour/butter mix and lightly combine - I always finish it off with my hands. If it feels to dry, you can add more water a teaspoon at a time. Roll into a ball and halve it. Wrap the halves in plastic wrap & refrigerate for about 20 minutes. (Pie crust may also be frozen at this point.) Roll out - makes two crusts (top and bottom).

Continue reading for more detailed instructions and tips.



Gather your supplies:

• An apron is an absolute necessity in my opinion. ;)

One of the major obstacles for pie crust success is not having the right tools. These specialty tools will make your work much, much easier and will give more consistent results.

• Pie board
  

A pie board creates a non-stick surface where you roll out the dough. Basically, it's just a lightweight piece of particle board in a circular shape. It has rubber knobs on the underside so it doesn't slide off the counter, and there is a piece of thick muslin that stretches over the board and cinches up around the edge. It would be pretty simple to make one. Flour the muslin on the board heavily. If you don't have a pie board, you can use a clean wooden table or counter top, floured heavily. You may still have issues with sticking though. I find a real wood surface that doesn't have a lacquer or polyurethane finish works the best next to the pie board.

• Wooden rolling pin
  

Use a nice wooden rolling pin - the supposedly non-stick ones do not work AT ALL! Better yet, a rolling pin with a "sock" that cinches over it - flour it well and your rolling pin will never stick

• Pastry cutter

Don't overwork the dough!! Use a pastry cutter, mix just until fluffy. The pieces of butter should be about the size of peas.

• Pie shield

Pies tend to need about an hour to bake in the oven just so the middle is set, but the long baking time can burn the edges of the crust. A re-usable pie shield will protect your crust from burning and will be much easier than fiddling with strips of foil.



Ingredients:
BUTTER - I use real butter in my pie crust. Personally, I avoid hydrogenated anything, so butter is the way to go. Some people use lard or shortening and it can be substituted 1:1 in this recipe if that is your choice.

FLOUR - I do much of my baking with whole wheat flour, but I do NOT recommend it for pie crust. Get a good unbleached white flour for the best results with your crust. It's not as healthy, but it's PIE, you know?!

Freezing Pie Crust:
It's handy to make up your pie crust ahead of time, especially when doing lots of holiday cooking. After you have your dough mixed and in two balls, you can flatten them slightly, wrap carefully in plastic wrap, and then seal in a ziploc freezer bag. Thaw completely before rolling it out, but do so in the fridge so it stays cold.



Technique for Rolling Out the Crust:
Rolling pie crust works best with light pressure and it helps to flip the crust over frequently as you roll. If the crust begins to stick to the rolling pin or your pie board, sprinkle some more flour on the surface before you keep rolling. When you roll out the bottom crust, make it just a bit larger than your pie plate so it hangs slightly over the edges. (Can you see the light yellow smudges of butter in there? That is the way it ought to look.) Gently transfer your crust from the pie board to the pan, using your hands or by laying it across the rolling pin. Center it and gently shape the sides so they are flush against the pie pan.

Trimming, Filling, and Topping Your Pie:
Your recipe should tell you the best way to fix up the crust. For example, if you are making a pumpkin or pecan pie, you will only need the bottom crust, so you can just trim and flute the edges right now. With a sharp knife, gently cut around the outside of the pie pan to trim the edges of the crust. (You don't want to cut off too much because the crust will shrink a bit as it bakes.) You can flute the edges with your fingers, scallop them with a teaspoon, mark them with fork tines, or use any other creative technique you come up with. If you want to make the middle of the pie pretty, you can use a cookie cutter to cut a shape or two out of the scraps of the crust to lay on top. (When adding shapes to a pumpkin pie, bake it until it is set, add the shapes to the top, and continue baking.)

Rolling out a top crust:
First, trim the edges for your bottom crust. With a sharp knife, gently cut around the outside of the pie pan. (You don't want to cut off too much because the crust will shrink a bit as it bakes.) Roll out a circle slightly larger than your pie pan. Gently transfer your crust from the pie board to the pan, using your hands or by laying it across the rolling pin. Center it on your pie and trim the edges for the top crust, cutting the top crust so that it is about 1 cm larger than the bottom crust all the way around. Fold the edge of the top crust over the edge of the bottom, sandwiching the bottom crust inside the folded over top crust. (Wish I had a picture of this, but I hope that description makes sense!) Gently press the edges together all the way around to seal them and then flute them, mark with fork tines, etc... If you are making a berry pie, you will probably need to vent it by cutting some slits in the top, and if you have one, use a pie bird. A pie bird will prevent the juices from bubbling over. Sprinkling some sugar or cinnamon/sugar on top is a nice touch. You can also do cookie cutter cut-outs on the top crust if you want to get really fancy.

Making a lattice top:
A lattice top looks pretty with a fruit pie - especially cherry, apple or rhubarb. When I plan to make a lattice top, I leave the edges of the bottom crust hanging over the edge and do not trim them until the top is on.

To make a lattice, simple roll out your circle a little larger than your pie pan and cut the circle into long strips. To weave the lattice, I lay the longest two pieces down the middle first. I take the next two longest pieces and lay them perpendicular to the first two, gently lifting and tucking the strips over and under when they need to be for a neat basket weave. Weave in a final strip on each of the four sides and let the edges drape over the pie pan.



With a sharp knife, gently cut around the outside of the pie pan to trim the edges of the crust. (You don't want to cut off too much because the crust will shrink a bit as it bakes.) Gently press the lattice into the bottom crust dough smoothing it together. To seal the crusts together, you can make a fluted edge or as I show below, just a simple edge with the tines of a fork.

Now you should be ready to bake!




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Feast!

Looking for some recipes for your Thanksgiving Feast? Here are my favorites:

Crock Pot Dressing

Orange Cranberry Relish

Corn Pudding

Turkey Gravy

Sweet Potatoes - 3 Ways!

Ms. Clara's Dinner Rolls

Acorn Squash

Fall Green Salad



Tutorial on pie making.

If you are hosting this year, I recommend coming up with a timeline like this. It will help you save your sanity!

Here's a fun idea for a decoration/family activity:



Have each guest trace their hands onto colored construction paper, cut them out, and list something for which they are thankful. I'm saving the ones my children make each year in an envelope.

What are some of your family traditions? Is your menu the same from year to year, or do you like trying new things?

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Are We Too Busy?

The sunlight and shadows in the woods were beautiful that morning, the sunlight a little pale and the air with that quality of hushed expectancy that the coming of autumn brings. Birds were calling to one another and telling of the wonderful Southland and the journey they must take before long. The whole, wide outdoors called me and tired muscles and nerves rasped from the summer's rush pleaded for rest, but there was pickle to make, drying apples to attend to, vegetables and fruits that must be gathered and stored, the Saturday baking and the thousand things of the everyday routine to be done.

Are we too busy? Read the rest here.

This lovely piece of prose was written by the same woman who wrote these:



(Found these hardcover volumes at a yard sale for $.50 each. What treasures!)

My Dad read the Little House books to me when I was a child and when I learned to read myself, I read them over and over again. Now I am blessed to be able to share them with my own Littles and am gaining even more of an appreciation for them. Her writings speak comfort to my soul. I don't know what it is about farm folk, but I feel very at home with such people, and Mrs. Wilder certainly has a way of making readers feel like friends. Did you know that Mrs. Wilder was a popular columnist with the farm paper, The Missouri Ruralist before she wrote her famous Little House series?

You can find all of her articles for the Missouri Ruralist here.

I love the way she ended this article, "Thanksgiving will soon be here and it is time to be getting our blessings in order. But why wait for Thanksgiving? Why not just be thankful now?"

Thank you Mrs. Wilder. I am indeed thankful! We are so richly blessed!

Ms. Clara's Butter Rolls

This recipe was passed on to me and it passes my test for rolls... puffy, yeasty, lightly fluffy inside and crispy outside... just like Grandma used to make! Mmmmm... This recipe is a WINNER! Just don't make the mistake that I always make and forget that they need 3 HOURS to rise + baking time! Plan ahead for these!

Ms. Clara's Butter Rolls
(they are called this because they are soaked in so much butter!)
2 c. warm water
2 tsp. yeast
2 tsp. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 c. vegetable oil
1 egg
7-7 1/2 cups of flour
2 or 3 sticks of butter

Combine water, yeast, sugar, salt, and oil. Mix until smooth. Add the egg and mix. Add 3 cups of flour and mix well. Work in another 4 cups or so of flour, stopping just when it is no longer sticky. (I do this in my KitchenAid with the dough hook, then I knead it a bit by hand.)



Ms. Clara's technique: (using 3 sticks of butter) Divide into 3 pieces - roll out into a rectangle (a little smaller than a cookie sheet). Cover each rectangle with 1/3 c. softened butter and roll up like a jelly roll. Cut in 1 inch pieces and arrange in two 13x9 pans. Pour 1 stick of melted butter over each pan of rolls. Cover and let rise at least 3 hours. Make sure that they are not moved around much or they will fall. Bake at 400*. Start checking after 20 minutes of baking every few minutes and take out when nicely browned.

Church Mouse's technique: (using 2 sticks of butter) Divide dough in half. Pull off pieces about the size of a golf ball and roll gently. Set each ball into a 13x9 pan. Pour 1 stick of melted butter over each pan of rolls. Cover and let rise at least 3 hours. Make sure that they are not moved around much or they will fall. I try to bake them at 400*, but I often have them in the oven with another dish, so I have baked them at any temperature between 350* and 400*. I just check them from time to time and take them out when they are nice and brown.

Sweet Potatoes Three Ways

'Tis the season for sweet potatoes and yams! Right before Thanksgiving, I found sweet potatoes at the grocery store for as low as $.20 per pound! Throughout the year, they run about $1 per pound regular price. I snatched up 15 pounds! You will see similar amazing deals on sweet potatoes around Christmas and Easter, though $.40 per pound is more typical. Get them while you can!

So what to do with all of those sweet potatoes? Here are my three favorite recipes:

Roasted Sweet Potatoes
(shown in the picture above)
This is my favorite method because the roasting brings out the vegetable's natural sweetness, eliminating the need for any extra sugars.
Preheat your oven to 450*. Using a vegetable peeler, scrape off the skins and rinse them. Cut into french fry shapes. (We like ours the size of Wendy's fries... McDonald's fries are a little too small. ;) Toss in some extra virgin olive oil, spread on a cookie sheet, sprinkle on some salt and any seasoning you like (cajun is surprisingly good!) and roast until they are nicely browned and soft all the way through. The amount of time this takes depends upon how small you cut your potatoes, but you can expect about 40 minutes to an hour. I always use a silpat on my cookie sheet, so if you don't have one, you might consider using parchment paper to prevent sticking.



Sweet Potato Casserole

• 4 medium sweet potatoes
• 1/4 c. butter
• 1/3 c. brown sugar
• 1/2 c. finely chopped pecans or walnuts
• mini marshmallows

Scrub the sweet potatoes and place them in an oven safe covered dish, adding a little water to the bottom of the pan. Bake at 350* for one hour, or until the potatoes are very soft. Allow the potatoes to cool. Leaving the water in the dish, remove the skins from the potatoes and mash. Add the other ingredients and mash together thoroughly. Spread evenly in the baking dish and sprinkle a layer of marshmallows on top. Return to the oven and bake until golden on top.


Sweet Potatoes and Cranberries
This is an elegant dish that is nice for your holiday table. It can be made up ahead of time and heated just before serving. It is a real favorite around here!

• 5-7 sweet potatoes
• 3 Tbs. butter
• 1 c. maple syrup
• 1 bag of cranberries

Scrub your sweet potatoes and boil them in their jackets until they are fully cooked, but still a bit firm. Peel off the skins and slice them into rounds around 1 cm thick. (Think the width of your pointer finger.) Spread the rounds in a buttered 13x9 pan. While the potatoes are cooking, boil the butter, maple syrup and cranberries on the stove until the cranberries start to pop. Pour the cranberry mixture over the sweet potatoes. Warm in the oven if needed.

I also made a similar concoction by mixing up mashed sweet potato with some leftover cranberry sauce. It was yummy too!

Post Thanksgiving Recipes

What to do with the leftovers... that is the question.

We honestly don't have much in the way of leftovers this year. Some turkey and some stuffing. That's about it! Here are two recipes that you can use to remake some of your leftovers if they are still lurking around in your fridge.

First - the carb-overload recipe: (This was our lunch today.)
Turkey Gravy
Inspired by one of my favorite school cafeteria meals! ;)

How to make it - It's very simple really... just chop up lots of turkey into little bits and mix it in the gravy. Remember, you can never have too much gravy! To serve, put a scoop of mashed potatoes on one side of a bowl, a scoop of stuffing on the other, and ladle the gravy on top. It's like a KFC bowl, only lots better! I freeze this for a quick meal later - one ziploc with the gravy/turkey and one with the stuffing, rubber band the two together so they don't get separated in the freezer. I usually fix fresh mashed potatoes, and some sort of green vegetable with it. At school, they also made hamburger gravy, which was hamburger meat in a beef gravy served over mashed potatoes. I didn't like that one at all, but I think roast beef would be absolutely delicious!



Second - a meal to help you feel virtuous again: (This was our dinner.)
Salmon Patties
I served them with roasted broccoli and roasted sweet potato fries. Both of the littles devoured these, so I'm thinking this one will be appearing on our table much more often in the future! This is also a very frugal meal - less than $5 to feed a family of 5. We stretched the salmon patty recipe into two meals, as we got 14 patties out of the recipe.

• 1 1/2 c. cold mashed potatoes
• 14 oz. can salmon
• pinch of cayenne
• 2 Tbs. lemon juice

Mix these ingredients and form into tightly packed patties on a plate. Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.

• 1 c. crushed saltines
• 1 egg beaten with a little milk or water
• butter for frying

Melt a stick of butter on medium heat. Dip each patty in the beaten egg and then in the cracker meal. Fry in the butter for about 6 minutes on each side. (Try not to mess with them too often or flip them too many times. They will keep their shape better if you leave them alone.)

We like these served with ketchup!

Venturing Out

We had a delightful Thanksgiving Holiday! The food was, perhaps, the best ever, and the company even more so! Now we are left with a quiet house, exhaustion, and all we have left is some turkey and dressing from the feast. The dressing by the way, got rave reviews! The recipe is here. I had many comment to me that it was the best they ever had! The recipe allows for a lot of lattitude, but this time I used half bread, half corn bread, and for the meats, I added a bit of bacon & 12 oz. of sausage, cooked and crumbled. Yum!

Monday is "Preacher Saturday" for us - Preacher Man generally takes the morning/afternoon off to do house chores and spend extra time with the family. We think we might pull out our winter decorations then. I have at least one holiday kid craft I'd like to share. I also have a little tutorial I'm working on for some baby mittens that actually stay on! Stay tuned!

Lastly, Church Mouse is taking a BIG LEAP forward to give Facebook a try. I thought it would be a useful tool in promoting the site, especially once I finally figured out that the reason I have been getting so many hits on my potato salad post, is all because of the nice link up Mrs. Deputyheadmistress made for me in The Common Room. I plan to give updates on new posts there, so it is another easy way to keep up with the latest posts.

I'm fumbling my way through, so as I have said, suggestions for the site are most welcome! I'm very much learning my way around the bloggy world.

Here I am on Facebook! Make Church Mouse a friend, or "like" me or something like that. ;)

Wednesdays with the Word: Psalm 118

<sup>I am swamped with preparation for Thanksgiving... guests staying overnight are already on their way, and there is more cleaning, cooking, and decorating to be done. Still, in an effort to squelch my Martha tendencies, I wanted to take a moment during our quiet time today to think on heavenly things.

Psalm 118

1</sup>Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever!

²Let Israel say,
"His steadfast love endures forever."
³ Let the house of Aaron say,
"His steadfast love endures forever."
⁴ Let those who fear the LORD say,
"His steadfast love endures forever."

⁵Out of my distress I called on the LORD;
the LORD answered me and set me free.
⁶ The LORD is on my side; I will not fear.
What can man do to me?
⁷ The LORD is on my side as my helper;
I shall look in triumph on those who hate me.

⁸It is better to take refuge in the LORD
than to trust in man.
⁹ It is better to take refuge in the LORD
than to trust in princes.

¹⁰All nations surrounded me;
in the name of the LORD I cut them off!
¹¹ They surrounded me, surrounded me on every side;
in the name of the LORD I cut them off!
¹² They surrounded me like bees;
they went out like a fire among thorns;
in the name of the LORD I cut them off!
¹³ I was pushed hard, so that I was falling,
but the LORD helped me.

¹⁴The LORD is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation.
¹⁵ Glad songs of salvation
are in the tents of the righteous:
"The right hand of the LORD does valiantly,
¹⁶the right hand of the LORD exalts,
the right hand of the LORD does valiantly!"

¹⁷I shall not die, but I shall live,
and recount the deeds of the LORD.
¹⁸ The LORD has disciplined me severely,
but he has not given me over to death.

¹⁹Open to me the gates of righteousness,
that I may enter through them
and give thanks to the LORD.
²⁰ This is the gate of the LORD;
the righteous shall enter through it.
²¹ I thank you that you have answered me
and have become my salvation.
²² The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
²³ This is the LORD’s doing;
it is marvelous in our eyes.
²⁴ This is the day that the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.

²⁵Save us, we pray, O LORD!
O LORD, we pray, give us success!

²⁶Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD!
We bless you from the house of the LORD.
²⁷ The LORD is God,
and he has made his light to shine upon us.
Bind the festal sacrifice with cords,
up to the horns of the altar!

²⁸You are my God, and I will give thanks to you;
you are my God; I will extol you.
²⁹ Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever!

T-Minus

The plan for Thursday is as follows:

8:00 Prepare turkey - turkey takes its "last flight"

("The Last Flight" is a family tradition... before being stuffed and dressed for the roasting pan, the featherless bird is given one last flight through the entire house with the person carrying the turkey singing, "Gobble, gobble, gobble" as loudly and annoyingly as possible. This is the most fun when there are sleeping teenagers and 20 somethings around... I think the littles will be thrilled too!)

8:30 Turkey in oven, prepare rolls

sometime in here...

• breakfast: cereal, bagels, OJ, milk, eggs for the extra hungry
  
• set the table, set out cranberry orange relish and pickled beets
  

10:00 Fix mashed potatoes, keep warm in the crock pot
11:00 Take the turkey out of the oven, turn up the heat to 400*
11:15 Bake yeast rolls
11:30 Hand the turkey over to the men for carving, make gravy on the stove
11:45 Rolls out of the oven, turn down to 350*

• warm up the sweet potato dish, stuffing, and corn casserole and any other sides my wonderful MIL brings
• delegate someone buttering the rolls
• Start bringing food to the table and delegate dishing out the 24 hour salad
  

12:00 Dinner is served!

Later: Pies and coffee
Later: grazing on leftovers... grazing on leftovers... grazing on leftovers some more

The question... do I use my everyday corelle, or do I drag out and wash up the pretty wedding china? Neither is conducive to fall colors, but I'm ok with that.