Jill's Pie Crust

Source: Jill Barr, a neighbor of mine growing up and a pie-making extraordinaire

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup shortening
4-5 Tablespoons cold water

Directions:

Add flour and salt.  Blend in 2/3 cup of shortening.  Then add the last 1/3 cup shortening and blend.  Add water one tablespoon at a time.  Mix with a fork.  Form into a ball of dough.  Divide.  Leave in bowl.  Makes two singles (smallish ones – for my 9.5” single crust there was some left over, but not enough to warrant me only making half the recipe).  Roll out and bake at 400° for about 8 minutes (unless you're cooking your pie and your crust at the same time, obviously).

Notes:

I decided to make pumpkin pie for Valentine's Day.  Yeah, not sure how they really go together, unless you count the fact that my love happens to love all kinds of pie, including pumpkin, and I had a can of pumpkin in the cupboard since Christmas when I was planning to make pumpkin pie, but didn't get around to it.  And, I just really had a hankering for pumpkin pie. And it happened to be Valentine's Day.  So, in that context, it totally makes sense.  I realized upon making said pumpkin pie that I had never, up til that point, made a whole pie by myself.  I was quite pleased and proud with the results.  A tasty treat that we enjoyed for a few days.  Now that's love.

A note to the non-shortening users in the Blanchard family: I know you've got a great oil crust recipe, and I know there are butter recipes out there in the world.  I just decided to use this one with shortening on this occasion and decided to post it here for my future reference and in case there are others who do use shortening who happen to read this blog.  :)

One more note: with the leftover crust, I decided to be festive and cut out some heart shapes using cookie cutters.  I sprinkled them generously with cinnamon sugar and popped them on a cookie sheet in the oven while the pie was baking for about 20 minutes (I think at that point the oven was at 350 degrees?).