Diane - A word of warning on the pecans...they will not keep long if they are cracked unless you freeze them. Of course that may not be a problem, if you are eating them that fast. LOL The reason that I know this is that my niece gave me a bag of cracked ones one time and I left them in the bag for a little too long. One day I opened the door to the room where they were and I had about a thousand littles moths flying around. They had hatched out and been well fed in the bag of pecans. Diane - You have come to the right place for the piecrust. I cannot even stand the thought of using lard and I think it would be way to much trouble if I had to do the frozen chipped butter thing, or the ice water thing that some people do. Warning: You are going to think this ingredient list looks funny, but give it a try. Make sure you have waxed paper. 2 cups flour (scant) 1 teaspon salt 1/2 cup cooking oil 1/4 cup buttermilk You can stir this with a spoon and it should be a soft dough. It will be much softer to roll out than most pie crusts. The trick is in handling the crust, so read this part carefully. Take out a little more than half for the bottom crust and place it between two sheets of waxed paper. Roll out with a rolling pen. After you have rolled it to the proper thickness, remove the top sheet of paper by carefully pulling it from one side. Lay it back down on the dough again. That was just to release it from the paper and make it release better later on. With both sheets back in place, flip the entire thing over so the bottom piece of paper is now the top piece. Remove the paper that is now on top and set it aside. Now here is the tricky part. Pick up the dough, still on the paper, by using both hands placed about 2/3 back on the crust and your pie pan in front of you. Let 2/3 hang toward you and let the 1/3 drop back over your hands. Starting with the 2/3 part, place it in your pan with the paper still attached. As you lay it down, the paper is now on top. Now slowly peel off the paper. This sounds like it slow process, but it really isn't after you get the hang of handling the dough. If you have a problem, just patch it. Since you didn't add more flour in the rolling out process, you can throw the scraps back into the bowl and use them as part of the next crust. I have quadrupled this recipe several times without any difficulty but I would suggest you make it as a single pie the first time so you know how the dough should feel. I predict you will never go back, once you have tried this one. Very little mess to clean up since the rolling pin never touched the crust, and there is no flour mess to contend with.

LOL Thanks Shelly! I ended up making pumpkin drop cookies and a batch of sweet potato muffins. The pumpkin and sweet potatoes are in the freezers. The cornbread is done, I made biscuits last night, and the beans are basically done....just need to hold out til Hubby is home in about 45 minutes. I almost have the kitchen cleaned up too. LindaC, at the rate I've been at it today..by 9pm I'll be in bed asleep..LOL

Thank you all for the kind words about my canning lockers. I am lucky to have a great husband who finds (very cheap) garage sale stuff for me, but of course I am at work when he's careening around the countryside with the kid, so it's, I don't know, kind of bittersweet? I have the (much) higher income potential, so I work full time, but I envy the flexibility and time with our kid that he has. Ah well, the road not taken always beckons and as a family we are *extremely* fortunate that we can have a SAHP. My grandparents had canning shelves in their basement too, I hadn't thought of them in a long time, so it was a great memory jog. Of course theirs were much more full than mine, and their arsenal included food as well as several kinds of wine, beer and liquors, and, yes, they were poor and Scottish (cheap, make your own food part) and Irish (the drinkers), why do you ask (wink)? Maybe in my dottage I'll take up wine making, but I might not give that away! This thread is such an enjoyable learning experience, and count me among the folks who continue to marvel at the myriad of talents of the posters. I have stolen several recipes and many, many great gift ideas. sandyponder

Nothing. After a couple of hours' sleep, I was in the garden a bit before 8 (it rained some last night, but not muddy) picking regular peas and edible-pod ones, green beans and lettuce to take to the two churches that I attend, one at ten and the other at 10:30. After clean-up ... it was just 11 when I got out of here, dropped the tray of veggies at the 10:30 one just before service was over, got to the second just before 11:30, when not only service but much of coffee hour was over, with some heading home. So ... I had coffee and a few cookies just before noon. Canadians will know what "Tim-bits" are ... (Tim Hortons, nation-wide popular coffee house, carries donut holes, calls them "Tim-bits" which one can purchase as singles, by the few or by the box) ... well ... I've found that they have donut-holes at one No Frills store in town (and a couple don't seem to) so I bought a box and had several with milk when I returned home in the early afternoon. Did someone say, "Not very balanced and nutritious a diet, that"? Guilty as charged, I guess. A few days ago I put three heaping tablespoons of Cream of Wheat into a bowl with water and salt, microwaved it for 2? 3? min. Not enough water, I guess - usually it cooks around the edge, still gruelly in the middle, needs a stir and another shot. This time, it was thick and dry. It took me several minutes, after adding water, of gentle, stroking stirring to get the lumps cleared out. We've had a rainy, cool spring and start of summer, with crops delayed. I was pleased the other day to see that my turnips were growing well, but when friend and I looked at them today, some tops were drooping - they were rotting at the top. Little black bugs had got into them and several were soft and mushy inside, largely eaten away. We have a gardening guru on phone-in over province-wide section of national radio every Monday, but tomorrow's a holiday so he may be in on Tuesday, so I'll try to get through to find out what I need do to combat the little devils. Also, almost didn't plant cucumbers, as for three years their leaves have turned golden, then go brown and crispy - from blight, they say - just after flowering, when fruit is getting started ... but put some in ... and I see that the leaves of one hill are getting that golden cast, again. Drat! Good wishes for a beautiful summer week. ole joyful