I have threatened promised to post this for awhile and and I’m sorry that I’m only getting around to it right now. This is a great, all-purpose pastry that you can use with savoury or sweet and it freezes like a dream. There are a lot of pastry recipes out there but this one has served my Grandmother, mother and myself with out fail. It is very forgiving and when you get the hang of it you can make a big batch in less than 10 minutes.

A lot of recipes seem to make pastry a thing to fear and need special equipment for-not necessary and not realistic.  This is a very real version.

What do you have to lose?

Even if at the end you have an unattractive pie, you still have pie.

Start with five cups of flour (all-purpose works just great) and 1 lb (2 cups) of shortening.

Mix with just the tips of your fingers until you get a sandy mixture. Be gentle, the idea is to have chunks of fat still visable but the flour to be incorporated totally.

Take a cup measurement and break an egg. Add a dash of vinegar and mix with a fork.

Fill with cold water (just get it from the tap) up to the cup measurment and mix again with your fork.

Dump into the flour and shortening.

Mix with your hands JUST enough to get the majority of the dry ingredients added.

Turn out onto a liberally, floured countertop.

Don’t play with your dough, just form them into five, loose balls. Each of these lumps will make one regular pie crust (9 inches).

At this point you can roll the dough

(I don’t worry about chilling-just use a bit of extra flour as the dough will be soft) or plop them into a plastic bag and store in the freezer until you really want pie.

This one is my old standby; Apple Crumble. Simple as the pastry just fill your unbaked pie shell with peeled and sliced apples (I like granny smith ones-tart-and it usually takes six of them), top with 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tsp. cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg.

In a bowl combine 3/4 cup butter with 1 1/2 cup oats, 1 cup flour, dash of nutmeg, 1 tsp. cinnamon and 1 cup brown sugar. Mix until, well crumbly and top your apples.

Bake for 40 minutes (or until the bottom of the pie is browned-this only works if use a glass pie plate).