Gluten-Free Pie

As I am typing this, I am waiting for the gluten-free pie crust to chill in the refrigerator. I rarely make pie except once a year at Thanksgiving and I am reminded every year why I never make pies except at Thanksgiving: it's a pain.

This pie crust recipe in particular requires a perfect blend of gluten-free flours (sweet rice flour and super fine rice flour, preferably Asian), starches (tapioca and potato), and xanthan gum which replaces the gluten in its function. Other than the flour ingredients, the recipe is similar to any pie crust recipe. The butter must be cut and frozen for a few minutes. The water must be ice cold and added only at a tablespoon at a time. You blend it all in your food processor until it becomes a big wad of dough. Then you chill the dough.

Then it's time to roll the dough. I despise this part. Gluten-free dough is tricky to roll out. It lacks gluten which holds dough together. You have to carefully press slightly and roll slightly with the dough between wax paper and some flour sprinkled on the dough. If you are not careful, the dough will break apart. Transferring the dough to the pie plate is a delicate procedure since the dough is now thin and wide, easily subject to breakage. Usually, though, if the dough breaks, you can pinch it back together.

Now, I have a convection oven. The heat coil is at the top. It's hard to get the pie crust to cook at the bottom. The fan is supposed to circulate the heated air evenly but it does not seem to do well for pie crusts. Last year, I made a pie (I believe it was pumpkin pie), filled it with pumpkin, and baked. The crust was undercooked since there was no heat coil underneath to bake the crust. This year, I plan to bake the crust a bit before I put in the filling. We'll see how that goes.

Oh, yeah, I'm making pecan pie this year. It's my favorite. My cousin sent me Karo syrup and pecans in a package last Christmas and I saved the syrup and pecans for nearly a year...just to eat at Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow, on Thanksgiving Day, we will go to another family's home and celebrate with good eats.

Other news: I got my first haircut in this country. I've been here a year and half and just now got a hair cut. Before moving here last year July, I got my hair cut and started to grow my hair long until the following March. We went to the States for a conference and I jumped on the opportunity to cut my hair short because then, I can communicate clearly and I can spot a good hairstylist. I started growing it long again from March of this year til now. It was getting drab. So, I decided to take the plunge and get my hair cut. I took a picture of what I wanted, showed it to the hairstylist and mimed it out, asking for bangs and layers. I got bangs and a shag. I like the bangs and I'm, eh, okay with the shag. So, it's not a bad first experience altogether.

G's birthday is coming up on Saturday the 24th. I am not good at picking out gifts. I agonize over choices all the time. I like to love on people by spending time with them. I'm not good at loving on people by giving gifts. G is a motorcycle enthusiast. I once rented him a Harley Davidson motorcycle for a weekend as a birthday gift right after we got married. He absolutely loved being surprised by the motorcycle and tooling around the countryside. Now, I could just kick myself in the foot because I can't top that. Every present after that just seemed lame.

Well, my pie crust is probably ready to roll out. Even if it's not, I'm ready to roll it out because it's nearly 9:30 and I'll be ready for bed soon. I want that pie done.

Happy Thanksgiving, beloved family and friends!