My Christmas Gift to You

Does anyone else besides me have one of those old beat-up and stained, well-used cookbooks that they drag out every holiday for their favorite recipes?

Mine is a pie recipe book. Actually, the pages and binding are in pretty good shape. It is the loose papers inside the front cover that are the most-used and most valuable to me.

One is the Easy No-Roll Pie Crust that I got on a sheet of recipes from some Relief Society Homemaking activity. There is no date on it, but the fact it is printed with what is now very faded purple mimeographic ink on very stained and discolored paper is a good clue that it is old. I was so worried that it is will soon fade into oblivion that I copied it onto the inside cover of the pie cookbook. Here is the recipe:

1-1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1-1/2 tst granulated sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 salad oil (I use canola)
2 tbls milk

Combine flour, sugar and salt in a nine inch pie pan. Mix with fork. Beat oil and milk together, then combine with dry mixture until evenly dampened. Press evenly into pie pan with fingers, over bottom, up the sides and partially over the rim. Flute edges and prick pastry. Heat oven to 450 degrees and bake for 8 minutes or until done for pastry shell.

Or, what I do, because I use this for my apple crumb, pumpkin and pecan pies--before baking, fill with favorite pie filling and bake according to pie directions. To keep the fluted edges from burning before the pie is done, cover the edges with strips of aluminum foil, shiny side out.

For my 10 inch deep-dish apple crumb pie, I make one and a half of the above recipe.

Speaking of pecan pies, my other treasured recipe I keep inside the cover of my pie book was given to me by May Drummond on Nov. 30, 1970.

Here is the recipe for May Drummond's Pecan Pie:

1 cup dark syrup (corn syrup)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 melted butter
1/2 cup pecans (I usually use more)

Beat eggs slightly until blended. Gradually add sugars and mix. Add syrup, vanill and melted butter. Pour into [unbaked] 9 inch pie shell. Sprinkle top with pecans. Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes and then 300 degrees for 50 minutes.

Okay--gotta go! It is time I get busy baking pies.