"Chopped"

Don't do "Chopped" at home. Bad idea. (And I didn't even have a time limit!)

Today is our five-year anniversary. My husband took off work for a few days so we could just hang out as a family. It's been very sweet. We don't have the money to travel anywhere. We don't have the money to go do a lot of fun things (even if "fun" was cheap, babysitters aren't!) So, even though tonight we did get a babysitter so we could go out to eat and bowling, we tried to find fun things to do as a family otherwise.

And one of them was to see what Mama could come up with for lunch if I had "mystery ingredients" like on Chopped.

Oh my, was this a disaster! Of course, my sweet husband said the food was good....ish... But, I only choked the food down because I was hungry and pretty discouraged, not wanting to cook again. The mystery ingredients were: 

Bacon, Avocado, Nutella, and Pita Chips. YUCK! I did get a pretty bad "basket", you have to admit!

You know, I'm honestly too embarrassed to tell you what I made, but I will tell you about the only part of the dish that not only we liked, but I would actually make again!!

So, while doing Chopped in my kitchen, I looked around. The day before I had made biscuits from scratch, and had a few leftover. I ground those up in the food processor, along with Nutella, a bit of butter, and a pinch of salt. And WOW!!!!!!! I'm not much of a pie person... In fact I usually loathe it. And I've never really made one. But, this Nutella Biscuit Pie Crust inspired me to start experimenting with pies!

I hope you make and enjoy it, too =)

WHAT YOU NEED:

For the Biscuits:

2 cups AP Flour, plus about 1 more

4 tsp. Baking Powder

1 tsp. Sea Salt

1/4 cup Vegetable Shortening

1/4 cup Unsalted Butter

1/2 cup Whole Milk

1/2 cup Half & Half

For the Pie Crust:

5 Leftover Biscuits

2-3 TBSP. Unsalted Butter

1/4 tsp. Sea Salt

3-4 TBSP. Nutella

HOW TO:

For the biscuits, mix 2 cups flour with the baking powder and salt. (For smoother biscuits, sift all ingredients.)

Cut the butter and shortening into the flour.

Add milk and half & half. Mix ONLY until wet. DON'T over-mix!!

Turn out onto a (heavily) floured surface.

Add more flour to the top and work in. Work in the flour, a bit at a time....This might be the most annoying part for me. I'm a real "texture" person, meaning I'm super sensitive to textures, and I hate gooey ones!

Cut biscuits into about 2-1/2 inch circles before baking. I suggest baking them on a pizza stone because they bake perfectly even, with no burning.

Bake at 450, about 12-15 minutes. I had to bake mine 17, but that's because my oven sucks.

Let biscuits cool completely. Better yet, make biscuits the day ahead for another meal, saving out only 5 of them. Wrap those five leftover biscuits up and wait til the next day to make the pie crust.

For pie crust, grind biscuits up in blender. Add butter, salt, and Nutella. Add more or less to your taste.

The dough now should be pretty wet and gooey. That's good!

Smooth down around side of pie pan.

Bake for a few minutes, at about 375, until it starts to bubble up in the middle. Take out at this point, and smooth out dough again. I just put a piece of foil down inside and pressed it down.

Bake for a few more minutes, doing the same thing again if another bubble arises.

Add whatever filling to it that you desire, and bake right away (you don't have to cool the crust first).

ENJOY!!

** If you make this (or any recipe I post) leave me a comment and let me know how it turned out for you! I'm open to feedback and suggestions. Heck, even criticism! =)