Recipe for Laurie InQueens As the two sticks of butter softened, she quietly blended together the three cups of flour in the big red bowl with a pinch of baking soda [and one of baking powder, too] and the salt. Hair gathered at the nape of her neck, she briefly dreamed of the morning before all this began, when she’d been happily hunting for crystals in the damp sand of an ancient beach, hair blowing in the breeze, face towards the ground and backside skywards as she pawed through the tiny stones... ah, but what was the use? Geology could never be a full-time thing in her life. Not now. She brusquely pulled herself back to the chore of baking the meat pies. Once the butter was soft enough, she added the flour mixture and swiftly cut it all together with her pastry knife until it was as crumbly as this mornings sand, her deft movements betraying the hundreds of times she’d been burdened with this chore. She added ½ cup of milk, brow furrowed, and then kneaded the dough together and rolled it out on the flour-sprinkled table- the table they’d painted together, just four short years ago. Her breath caught ever so slightly in her throat as she cut the ¼ inch- thick dough into 3” squares, and when she pulled the squares apart in order to further flatten them into thin 6” squares, she muttered to herself under her breath. How COULD he have asked her to make these, today of all days? She plopped a small fistful of the delicious filling- a mix of two parts beef to one part sausage, lovingly sautéed together with vindaloo curry powder, then cut with sautéed onions, cabbage, and raisins- into the middle of a 6” square. Passionately, she tucked the corners into the center, forming a small diamond, and deftly pinched them together, the love of the art overriding her annoyance, and then, growling again at his lack of consideration, plopped the finished pie onto the parchment paper on the cookie sheet. The oven was preheated to 350*, and the sheets were loaded 6 pies to a sheet, when a new thought occurred to her. Bemused, she whisked together an egg white with some water and then brushed the tops of the pies with the resulting froth. Could it be that he just REALLY LOVED her meat pies? Could it be so simple? She sat and stared at the oven for a good 25 minutes, contemplating the ramifications.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 21:27:20 +0000