The Thanksgiving countdown: Easy as pie!

About a week before Thanksgiving, I begin some of the meal preparations. This year I'm having to begin one day early, due to scheduling.

I make out my plan of attack, and every day tackle one or two items on my list. Yesterday, I baked one of the pumpkins and pureed it for pie, and made a batch of freezer pie dough (recipe here).

Most of the time, I make this dough and freeze in patties for single crusts. For Thanksgiving, I like to get the dough into a pie plate and get that step done, as well. 

one batch made enough dough for 4 shells, 

1 top crust and just enough leftover scraps 

 for a nice little rustic apple tart

While I was at it I decided to just roll all the dough. My recipe makes enough dough for 5 single crusts. I have a stack of aluminum pie pans, so used several of those.

And for the last 1/5th of the dough, I rolled it to be a topper for a 2-crust pie, or for a deep dish turkey pot pie, some dinner in the future. After rolling this piece out, I placed it between two layers of plastic wrap and then rolled it around an empty paper towel tube.  

The pie crusts in the pie pans are separated by sheets of waxed paper. And all the dough is wrapped in a couple of layers of plastic grocery bags. All are now tucked in the freezer, ready to use. 

To use one unbaked pie crust, I'll thaw it on the kitchen counter for a few hours, then use as I would freshly mixed dough.

In all, this took me about an hour (including putting the tart together), and provides several ready-made pie crust for easy pie making.