Rhubarb Pie

This is a simple recipe for some plain old rhubarb pie. You could probably spice it up if you wanted something with more bang! or do something to make it more juicy. But if you like simple, this is for you. You could probably memorize the recipe in a couple minutes:D

To make a home made pie crust, (go ahead and buy one at the store if you don't feel like it):

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup shortening, I use lard
• 1/3 cup cold water

Blend the flour, salt, and shortening together. I use a pastry blender, I'll post a pic of what it looks like. But is says you can use two knives to combine the mixture if you don't have one of these. If you use your hands to mix it up, you may lose a lot of dough due to it all sticking to your hands. It should resemble coarse cornmeal. Then sprinkle about 3/4 of the water over the top of the mixture while using a fork to turn up all the dry stuff at the bottom of the bowl. Press the dampened dough together into a bowl and then add only enough water to get the remaining dough in the bottom of the bowl to form into a ball. You have to be careful not to add too much water. Then grease the inside of your pie plate and you can use your hands to spread the dough into the inside of the the pie plate. I found these directions in the New York Times Cook Book.

To make the pie filling, which I found online, use:

• 4 cups sliced rhubarb, cut it whatever size you like, I would make it less than one cubic inch though, to make sure it gets cooked through.
• 6 tablespoons flour, to soak up extra juice from the rhubarb.
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter, you could probably do better with more though.

This is the filling, you could probably just throw it all in together, but it says to lay around one forth the combined sugar and flour on the bottom, then put the rhubarb in, then the rest of the sugar and flour as well as the butter. Bake for 15 minutes at 450 degrees Fahrenheit, then turn the temperature down to 350 and continue baking for another 4o minutes. You can serve it hot or cold. I have made this recipe twice, and wish I would have taken a picture of the second one, because I made the pie crust part a little better and was able to flute the edges. Oh well!