My Kingdom for a Pie (Crust)

I made my 2nd homemade pie crust today, the morning of Thanksgiving. I am not overwhelmingly pleased.

My 1st attempt was two days ago (see photo). I made two batches of pie crust dough, as I just can't get the thing moist enough. I don't want to handle it too much, as I know it'll turn tough. I happened to use both, though, in the one pie I made (half the recipe for the filling), because I couldn't get the pie dough to stretch all the way. So I used the less moist one to fill in the gaps.

It didn't help that I had to use a wine bottle as a roller. (If you have to ask, it was red.)

In the meantime, I received my wooden roller and silicon baking sheet in the mail, and I was ready for this morning.

I tried again today, only I took a two-pronged approach. I wanted 3 pies, so I did the from-scratch dough again. Still had the same problem -- not moist enough, not enough dough, it wouldn't stretch, etc. However, I also bought some Betty Crocker pie crust mix, added cold water and worked with that. Now, that was moist enough but it still didn't spread enough for two pies. It could be that I'm not rolling it thin enough, but I don't want to handle it too much.

The pie dough stuck to the rolling pin like it was its momma. I kept putting flour on the pin, but the non-stick effect wouldn't last for long. And although the silicon sheet was supposedly non-stick, the dough stuck to the sheet and I couldn't get the enlarged disc off of it. Geez.

Man, cleaning up was tough! The dough stuck to everything -- bowl, rolling pin, fingers -- like glue. Come to think of it, I should've used some for my remodel several months ago. It's a good thing I cleaned up right away, because clumps of it would still be on the floor when I sold the place.

The truth is in the pie. I'll know this evening whether any of the experiments turned out well.