Homemade Pie Crust by Big Sis

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We weren't raised in a home with a mom that cooked a lot... it's okay mom! Funny though that we both enjoy experimenting with new recipes and trying things out. I have really enjoyed, since becoming a stay at home mom, making our foods from scratch. However, in all this time making pie crust from scratch is not something I dared to try. I have had more than one person tell me on more than one occasion that pie crust is very difficult.... I dare to say it is not! 

Google really is my best friend. I have a cabinet full of cookbooks, but I always go to google when wanting a recipe. This time it was not different. For some reason I went with the first recipe that popped up and man.. it was great. It was so easy and yummy. You can find the recipe that I used here. 

So, as the directions stated I had to cut my butter in small cubes and freeze them. I had never new that would make a difference. But it did. It was very interesting to me to find out that one of the secrets to getting flaky pie crust is to have really, really cold butter. So because of this they recommended freezing, which I did! 

Of course I had my very own helper in the kitchen. He loves to cook with his Mommy. I was busy with my food processor when I hear "Mommy, Look at Me"... he is just too precious. 

What you see below is me mixing the flour, butter, and water in my food processor. It was so neat to me how the small amount of water pulled the butter and flour together and created a crust. You have to really watch it because too little water won't give it the consistency it needs and too much water makes it much too tough... and you do not want that. I am so happy to have my food processor. It is so helpful when I need to bake! This was a wonderful gift from my in-laws a few Christmas' ago ... and it attaches to my Bosch... EVEN BETTER 

Then I had to make disks with the dough, after dividing them into two. You can still see the butter pieces and that is OKAY! Remember, the butter is what helps your pie crust to be flakey.. so if you like flakey... this is your pie crust recipe to use. 

A close up of the dough in the shape of a disk showing you that you can see the butter pieces! 

Now you want to wrap your disks and put them in the fridge for at least an hour... 

The picture below is so pretty to me. Once I pulled my disks out I was able to shape it how I needed it and put it in the pie dish. I was SHOCKED at how easy it was to manage the dough. I expected it to be hard and falling apart... not the case. It was the perfect consistency. 

Do you have a great pie crust recipe that is relatively easy that you love? We would love for you to share it with us... and we would love to try it. 

Please share. 

Check out our Linky Parties page to see where all we are linking this up! 

-Big Sis

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OLYMPICS 2012!

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The 2012 OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY IS TONIGHT!! 

I hope everyone is just as excited as we are! 

My husband and I will be attending an Olympics party tonight with some new friends and we are going with some Olympic Spirit!! (Rooting on America of course :-) 

Anyways, basically I am going to bombard you with photos of what I made for us to wear! It is pretty simple, I made these shirts using red solo cups and paint.  It took me probably a total of 30 minutes, it was a quick and easy project. 

Then using a headband, hot glue, and tulle I made a cute Olympic headband! 

So enjoy our photos! 

Oh, and meet my Hott Husband Meguell, and our dogs, Bella & Stella. 

( I like rhyming/matching things...all of my kids names will probably rhyme or at least start with the same letter hahaha) 

HAPPY OLYMPIC DAY FROM THE SUELL FAMILY TO YOURS! 

-Little Sis

Meet Meguell Suell

24 year old husband to me

Daddy to 2 Dalmatian dogs (they are seen below)

Future Daddy to many a children :-) 

Spiritual Father to many college students

Wonderful leader of our home, and in our college ministry

Hard worker-does everything to excellence

Stud athlete--fun to do adventurous stuff with

Loves good food

Fav. color--who knows!? 

Hates wearing the color Green

Best friend to me...Brittany Suell

Meet Bella (left) & Stella (right)

Bella is almost 4 years old

Stella is almost 8 months old

Bella is Stella's mom

Stella is Bella's puppy of nine

Bella has one blue eye and one brown

Stella has brown eyes

Bella is a great dog, behaves really well and knows a lot of tricks

Stella knows how to sit and lay, and is learning a lot, but can be crazy b/c she's a puppy

Bella is an extremely soft furred dog

Stella is sweet and fun

Dogs to Meguell & Brittany Suell

Check out our Linky Parties page to see where all we are linking this up!  Pin It

Featured July Sponsor-Finding my way in Texas

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Today we want to send a shout out to our featured lovely of the month! Jennifer Salter from Finding My Way in Texas.  Jennifer sponsors Natural-Nesters, and is so fun to work with.  She is a fellow Texan, and so inspiring!! She is good at everything she does, and definitely a blogger we look up to! 

We hope that you will take some time to get to know our sweet friend, and take a visit to see her blog, and show her a little Natural-Nesters lovin'!

Howdy! I’m Jennifer, the creative mind behind my blog, Finding My Way in Texas, and my shop, LoneStar Lovlies! Over on Finding My Way in Texas, you can read about my new life in Texas, crazy crafting adventures, some DIY projects, the odd recipe and every once in a while I might just photo bomb ya with new puppy pictures :) I love meeting new friends and I hope that you'll drop by and say hi!

TOP 3 Viewed Blog Posts:

Ruffle Clutch 

Wool Eater Baby Blanket  

Easy Peasy Magnets

She will be having a 30 days of giveaways to celebrate her birthday and blogiversary! Starting August 1st--So definitely stay tuned to see all of the wonderful giveaways she will be having and join in on the celebration!

She also has an awesome online store where she sells some of her wonderful creations, called Lonestar Lovlies! And right now she is giving our readers 25% off their entire order by using promo code JULY2012! So go check out some of her great stuff and get a discount.  Plus her Lacelicious clutches have FREE Shipping happening right now!

Here's some cute stuff from her store!!

Super cute necklace! Pearls and owls, it couldn't get much better than this! 

She sells all sorts of coffee cozies at her store! This one is just one of my fun favs! 

And don't even get me started on how much I LOVE this! Lace is definitely a huge FAV of mine.  I need to head over myself to pick one of these up! 

FOLLOW: 

Facebook--Twitter--Pinterest--Store

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN SPONSORING NATURAL-NESTERS NEXT MONTH BE SURE TO CHECK OUT OUR SPONSOR PAGE! 

We love our sponsors, and each one gets special treatment.  Including as much advertisement as they ask for, special highlighting posts, shoutouts through facebook and twitter, involvement in blog parties, guest posts, and giveaways, and more! 

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Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

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Who doesn't LOVE Chicken Pot Pie? I remember as a kid how we would always have frozen pot pies and how I loved them. I was always SO very sad at how long they took to cook, but man, I loved these things. I never thought to make my own until we lived in Japan. One of our friends there made a killer homemade chicken pot pie... and I loved it. I loved it so much that she brought us one when our son was born to the hospital with his initials. 

Isn't that so creative and precious. Needless to say, the whole thing was eaten. It is just so creamy and sooo yummy. I love to make chicken pot pies and freeze them. Also, when I am going to make a meal for a family at church or something I always go to the pot pie. It is semi-quick and I know how yummy it is. And the fact that it is so different from the normals of lasagna or spaghetti. I love making it. Just recently, when making the ones below, I actually made THREE of them at one time! They were all so yummy. 

Normally I use the deep dish, frozen pie crusts in the dessert section of your local grocery store. I used them for two of the ones that I last made and then I ventured out to make my own pie crust. This is the one that we kept. Making pie crust has always, ALWAYS intimidated me. But it was not bad at all. I was shocked at how well it turned out and how yummy it was. Now I wish that the two pot pies that I gave away had my homemade crust on it too. In a blog post to come, I will tell you all about making my homemade pie crust. 

It may not be the prettiest thing in the world.. but I still made it myself! SO EXCITING!!! I have a lot of practice to do with my pie crust, but man how it added to the flavor of the chicken pot pie. I wish I could take the credit for my chicken pot pie, but I can't. I honestly have not gotten away from this recipe... and I am glad. Because it is just too great for me to mess up. I will share where I get it from at the end. 

But look at that pure delicious-ness. The thing that takes the longest in this whole process is cutting my carrots, celery, and onions. The awesome thing is if you don't like those veggies, you will probably not even know they are there because they are cut so small and cooked with everything else. If you don't like them, I would dare you to go ahead and add them... and see if you taste them!! 

My next goal is to make personal chicken pot pies and to freeze them. Trying to figure out how to exactly do that though... without breaking them coming out of the individual baking dishes.. tips?

You can find the AWESOME Chicken Pot Pie Recipe that I use right HERE! I hope you will try it out and let me know what you think... 

Check out our Linky Parties page to see where all we are linking this up! 

-Big Sis

*Don't forget to go enter our GIVEAWAY for some AWESOME Coconut Oil*

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Naturally-Nifty Linky Party #2 & Features!

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We are so proud of our first linky party ever! And so thankful for all of you that participated! We cannot believe that we had 64 link ups on our first party!

Now...we are so excited to get to feature a few of those great ideas that you all had! Be sure to copy the Featured on Naturally-Nifty Party Button and put it on your page (can be found on our left side bar).

So here's some of our favorites! 

This awesome piece was transformed from a family entertainment center to a wonderful play kitchen.  The Things I Do For Moo did a wonderful job on this project, and I know that Moo absolutely loved playing with it! My favorite part is all of the detail....the tiles on the backsplash, and the little menu chalkboard! So creative! I am seriously on the search for an entertainment center to create a kitchen for my daycare.

My Life's a Treasure create a Family Binder. I really like this because it seems it could be a huge help in staying organized in your family. Both of us enjoy doing things for our home and family and I think that this binder is a great way to help us stay on top of it. One of us is a little more organized than the other, so maybe that other sister should really think about using it. We will let you just guess which sister you think is the most organized. :) Great job on this. 

I absolutely love the chair reupholstery job done over at Cotton Pickin Cute. I love this one so much because I just finished my first furniture job in January.  Although it wasn't reupholstery, I sewed new cushions and I know how good it feels to look at the work you did in your home and be full of pride for how it turned out.  Great job, the whole set is beautiful! 

I love the crocheted camera strap by Seven Alive. She did a great job, and I am very interested in making my own.  I also LOVE the colors yellow and gray, which I have mentioned, so this is right up my alley. It really makes your camera personal and fun! 

And since it is Valentines Day we wanted to feature these wonderful Conversation Heart Cheese Cakes made by Hungry Happenings.  These are so festive and so fun, I would love to serve some of these wonderful hearts to my family for Valentines Day! 

Thanks so much to everyone for linking up! 

Now...for the Naturally-Nifty Linky Party #2! Remember link up all your favorite things! We want to see it all.  

The only things we ask is that you become a follower of Natural-Nesters & that you put our button on you blog so that you can link back to us! (You can find our button on the left side bar)

You can post as many links as you want. And next week we will feature some of our favorite projects/ideas! 

Plus we will have a bloggers choice feature! So take time to visit some other blogs and LIKE your favorites and the blog with the top Likes will be featured next week as well! 

Thanks for linking up with us!

We can't wait to see your nifty ideas and accomplishments! 

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