Of pastry and other food-related items..

Could someone explain to me why everyone thinks pastry is hard? I mean, I mostly thought it was hard before 'cause I'd never /done/ it. But there's really nothing to it - you just add the ingredients together, turn them into dough, chill hell out of it then roll it out.
What's hard about this? I mean, I do biscuits - from scratch - and get huge poofy morsels of yumminess. The key to this, so I'm told, is not overhandling it. You can't overhandle biscuits anyway - if you leave it too long they won't rise. At least, they won't if you use baking soda as a leavener - once you get it wet, you've only got so long to throw it in the oven. Or, as has been done on every camping trip Mom's been a part of since we started camping on and off, in the castiron pan... I did this too. It was good. ^^

So what's hard about pie crust? The only differences are no baking soda, and you keep it cold. This is hard? I don't get it...

Making pie, I had more trouble with the filling than the crust - no, I had the right apples. The apples weren't the problem. The problem was that I either didn't add enough sugar (I used raw sugar, although I doubt that made any real difference except /maybe/ very slightly in flavour) or not enough cinnamon (The Andi's take.) Me, I think next time I will use different apples, and if that doesn't work, I'll add more sugar. A dessert apple tossed in with the cooking apples should fix the balance of tart to sweet very nicely. And damnit, WHY can't you get a selection in your damned apples!?
No problem finding braeburn, granny smith, jonagold. Not seen pippin of /any/ kind (And no, I ain't talking about idiot halflings), nor gravenstein, nor orin... no shortage of dessert apples, though. Everything from pink lady (I want to try this) to honeysweet, fuji and gala apples you can find if you know where to look... but cooking apples? You'll be lucky to find two, let alone three or four to pick.. (and that's assuming I didn't mix something up there. /I/ refuse to eat green or yellow apples because I don't like the flavour. Some people, however, like 'em....)

Store-bought frozen pies, have nasty, grainy crusts. I can only assume this is because they are made with shortening. Yiiiaaghh. Lard or butter or not at all, /thank/ you. Shortening. Ugh.
I know this because we tested it. Marie Callendar pies are pretty good, but I can't stand the crusts (this is probably why I don't much like pot-pies - and those are the same brand. The /filling/ is quite good - sweet or savory - but I can't stand the crusts. Yuck). I'm thinking to try making my own pot-pie at some point.. I found a recipe to use as a starting point....

What can I say? I like to cook. And bake. And I found another useful thing to do with leftover lamb. Saute your cooked lamb (cut it into sand-wich managable chunks first) in olive oil with a dose of garlic and Rogan Josh, and roll it into a warmed pita round with tzaziki and shredded lettuce. If you can get into the pockets, you could just put the meat, tzaziki and lettuce in the pita and do it that way, but I couldn't convince the damn things to open. :/
Was still good, though. My experience is, if you use the best ingredients you can afford, you will rarely turn out something inedible - even if you /are/ making whatever it is up out of whole cloth. ^^

I might not make much sense, but when I start on food, apparently, you can't shut me up.. O.o