We are now 3 Cuils away from the original query;
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We had an equipment vendor move their machine production to Sri Lanka. Our janitor made more money then their Master Welder. Unreal cheap labor.
The thing was;they did really good builds too.
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I use Mutsu for apple dumplings. It does not make the dumplings too juicy. It is our favorite apple for making them. I was thinking of having a Mutsu apple tree in my orchard. These are great apple. I used to see big Mutsu apples in my grocery store but I have not seen Mutsu apples in about 3 years.
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We donāt make apple pies very often because a good crust requires some expertise. I find it much easier to make apple crisps, which use a lot of apples and require little effort. I find that the apple variety is not critical for a good crisp; I just use whatās available from the 8 varieties that Iām currently growing. This late in the season we have 5 grape boxes of Fuji and Newtown Pippin in storage.
I make a double recipe that uses 8 cups of chopped apples with skin and have altered the Joy of Cooking recipe to make it healthier: 100% whole wheat flour plus an equal amount of multigrain cereal, using Canola oil instead of butter.
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Isnāt that the truth! I prefer to buy whole chicken or bone in thighs, but they arenāt as available as they use to be. Making stock is so much better at home and better for you too. There is something very satisfying about having it gel up in the fridge.
I havenāt bought stock bones since they are as expensive as buying beans and nuts. I am looking forward to the day my nut trees start producing. In the meantime I have been collecting them at a local park.
Today I will be going out and pulling leeks, kale and celery out of the snow to make into stew with the last of the fresh counter ripened tomatoes. Likely use up some split peas and beans. Do you roast your deer bones first? I have never tried making broth with wild game.
I forsee a nice Arkansas black apple pie. I have an unknown apple tree that was on the land when we bought it. Itās fruit isnāt long keeping but mixed with a firmer apple makes amazing pies and sauce.
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Like you, I have often thought about using deer bones, but have never done it. I live in a different economy than many folks in more rural areas- I pay about 10 grand in property taxes for a very modest home on 3 acres. Payback comes from so many rich people nearby who pay me very well to install trees from my small nursery and care for them.
The price for bones isnāt really an issue in this local economy for anyone with a decent small business- Iām less than an hours drive from NYC. Funny little world we live in- my business model could only succeed in a few areas in this country- it requires a concentration of nearby multi-millionaires. .
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Or a Cuisanart and a lot of butter or shortening anyway. My wife makes excellent pie crust without much effort using this appliance. It is flakey, layered pastry that tends to take a lot of effort, like making croissants from scratch. Many bakeries just run with frozen pastry dough made by Craft to make croissantsā¦ and it isnāt bad- itās an all butter product. .
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The goal has been reached.
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It really is questionable if heated canadian oil seed rape oil (canola) is better for a person than butter from oneās farm, or some organic farm. Olive oil, rather than canola, one could make the case more readily for that choice.
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Iām the main pie maker of our family, and even when my wife makes the filling, I still make and roll out the pie dough. I use butter, not any other shortening, and I set aside any steel pastry chopper and all electrical blending appliances. Instead I get in there with my fingers to mix the ingredients into dough. I learned that technique decades ago from Ma Wyman, a friendās mother who lived in Maine. I think was the cook who told me to add a little nutmeg, too.
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Thanks for the suggestion, Mike. I ate my first Mutsu from an orchard I did some things for many years ago. Not good as Golden Delicious in my opinion for snacking, but I can see it being used in a pie.
No, itās not commercially availableā¦possibly a farm market here and there.
Iāve not tried to raise itā¦I figured it needed a lot of sprays.
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Is lard not used anymore for making the dough?
I confess, I havenāt made a pie in decades. 
Lard makes a delightfully tender pie dough but has fallen out of favor. Some people do use lard, or half lard/butter; I like all butter.
Works well for me with 50% all purpose white flour and 50% whole wheat pastry flour.
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My favorite for pie depends on what I still have on hand! But when I have a choice, my preferences are
Jonathan, NW Greening, Regent. Not in that order as all 3 are equally good in a pie.
Jonathan seems to have disappeared from the local orchards in my area. Hard to even find anymore in my local grocery stores too. I miss my giant NW Greening tree that bore so many wonderful crops. 35 years ago NW Greening was available from orchards around here but no more. I guess too many newer varieties to compete with.
My 25 tree hobby orchard is now gone so I am down to just two apple trees on Bud 9 in my little yard. Still holding out on one more space for another apple tree or peach tree if I want to give up some vegetable garden space. My kids are moved out so wife and I do not need so many apple trees anymore. But hard to downsize when I was used to lots of different apple trees. Seems silly only having 2 varieties. I canāt get used to it.
A friend brough me about 6 Calville Blanc from his tree so I can make the classic tart tatin. I used to always make it with NW Greening when I had them. Tried making it with IdaRed but just was not as good. Looking forward to tasting Calville Blanc after reading all the wonderful posts about it over the
years.
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I made a pie with cheap shelf lard decades ago. I couldnāt eat it because of the off-putting taste. My dad liked it.
Iāve meant to try again with leaf lard but donāt think I ever did.
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Doesnāt have to be that way but it can be. Good leaf lard might make the difference, if you can find a nice fat leaf ā¦
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Mom used to go through a couple 50# stands of Lard annually, but I avoid itātypically using olive oil these days. I like peanut or corn oil for deep frying, but both are unreasonably high priced, and also produced at high heat.
Itās also a lot more biennial prone than YD and a rank grower on free standing rootstock.
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There is one local orchard that sells it. Also, we have a mature tree. But most years the squirrels take all the apples before they ripen. And last winter must have been rough on squirrels, because this year they didnāt. So we got thousands of tiny apples, but really big enough to take a bite out of, and certainly too much work to process into pie. So i buy it.
But itās best in September, or maybe October. By Thanksgiving itās too soft to make a good pie. So i use Idareds, when i can get them.
Your tastes sound similar to mine. Iāll have to be on the lookout for NW Greening and Regent.
Interesting. Not what Iām looking for (i often add a bit of lemon juice if the apples arenāt sour enough, sometimes a lot of lemon juiceā¦) but itās nice to know that choice is out there.
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Iāve just used the Cuisinart for pie crust for the second time today. The first time was Thanksgiving. Itās a huge pain to clean. (Yes, it is dishwasher safe. But it fills half the dishwasher.) But it is otherwise pretty easy.
Baking was one of my pandemic hobbies, and i got a lot better at it with practice. I can make pie crust, biscuits, and scones with my fingers, with a pair of knives, with a pastry cutter, and now with a Cuisinart. But i think it helps to have a sense of what you are going for. And itās important not to over work the dough.
Iāve used a lot of recipes for pie crust, and i like the one in Pieometry
175g all purpose flour
Ā½ Tablespoon sugar
Ā½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 stick unsalted butter
3-5 Tablespoons ice water
Lots of time
Mix all the dry ingredients. Cut in the butter, however you like to. Then slowly add the water, one tablespoon at a time, until it just holds together.
Then wrap it in plastic wrap, press it into a disk thatās an inch thick (or less) and let it sit in the fridge for 3 hours, or overnight. This spreads the water evenly through the dough and makes a workable dough with less water and/or handling than you can get away with if you donāt rest it.
(Then roll it out and use it, of course.) This recipe makes a generous top or bottom crust. I like to cut off the excess, sprinkle with cinnamon and maybe a little sugar, and bake to make ācrust cookiesā, which are delicious.
Itās a tasty and pliable dough that is easy to play with.
This is todayās. Did i mention i like to play with my food?
Here are the ones from Thanksgiving
The hexagonal lattice is by far the easiest of the three of those patterns.
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