Broken Oven + Pi Day = No-Bake Chocolate-Raspberry Cream Pie.

Okay! So! I was going through some things today and stumbled across this post and thought....well. I could blog again.

And since this was all queued up and ready to go......

A pie recipe from a few years ago! (any pictures would surely have been in whatever computer I was using at that time, but as I don't even live in the same country anymore, they are lost.

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Look, as far as I'm concerned, Pi Day (March 14, 'cause 3.14, get it?) is a delicious and fantastic holiday. I also am not pleased with my malfunctioning oven. It doesn't really do things like "hold heat" or anything, although it does broil, which is better than nothing. I've made shortbread cookies with that broiler.

I would do fantastically at one of those weird Top Chef challenges where they make you do things in a Target store or in a foil pit or something. But this isn't about my excellent and useful skill set, this is about pie.

I wanted to celebrate Pi Day. I wanted pie. I like pie. So I poked around on-line and, on the Bon Appetit website, I found exactly the recipe I wanted.

No Bake Chocolate-Raspberry Cream Pie. It was easy! In fact, the hardest part was finding the creme fraiche at the grocery store. Also, in finding chocolate wafers that are corn-free, but I was at Jewel and knew it would be a challenge - luckily Annie's to the rescue! Chocolate graham crackers shaped like bunnies! How could I lose? (I could not.) I barely altered the recipe, the pure unadulterated version of which can be found here.

Ingredients:

- seven ounces of chocolate-graham cookies
- 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
- six tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into bits
- 1/4 cup sugar
- one tin of 14-oz sweetened condensed milk
- 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
- the zest of one lemon
-  1/4 cup creme fraiche
- two 6 oz containers of raspberries (2 1/2 cups)

Now, here are the absurdly easy directions.

First, lightly grease your pie plate. I had more crust left over at the end, so I used mini tart tins to make two small pies. Nom. Do as you will.

Now. Bash up the cookies. Then pulverize the bashed up cookies in a food processor or, as I did, in your knock-off magic bullet. When you've got all of it turned into a fine dust, put it in a bowl and set aside.

Now, in a microwave safe bowl put the chocolate chips, the butter, and the sugar. Then, slowly in bursts, melt the mixture - stir repeatedly until it blends together. Pour this into the blended up cookies and stir it up. Once combined, lightly press the crust into the pie pan and then put it in the freezer while you work on the rest of the pie. This is so it sets.

Now, in a mixing bowl, mix together the grated lemon peel, the lemon juice, the creme fraiche, and the sweetened condensed milk until combined. Add in the raspberries and stir, being sure to smoosh them up with a spoon so that the pie filling is pink and the berries are in bits.

The original recipe has you use half the raspberries in the filling and then you scatter the rest over the pie. Feel free to do this.

Now, remove the pie crust from the freezer (I had in there about a half hour or so , because I am easily distracted) and pour in the filling. You'll want it to set properly, which is a suggested time of two hour. Mine was still a bit runny after that time (although delicious), so I let it go overnight. But maybe pop it in the freezer to speed it up. Or, of course, just a few hours are needed. I'm not sure.

Either way, this is delicious. The lemon gives it a wonderful ZING.

Blackbird Blackberry Pie

 A completely delightful and delicious pie. 

That you totally want there to be four--and-twenty of.

Well, that's what Heather called it.

But it is made of blackberries and it is delicious and a pie and has a pie-bird in it. So she isn't wrong, but Heather's a bright girl, so of course she isn't wrong. She's awesome. So is this pie. It's delicious! And she thinks so too. So you should agree with her, 'cause my Heatherleh knows from deliciousness.

I basically wanted a pie on the Fourth of July. I didn't know it was the last day I'd feel not sick for over a week (I say over, 'cause I'm still not at peak form, in a few troubling ways, but I'm not as sick as I was two days ago, so YAY that's awesome) and so, despite the heat and my utter and complete laziness - which happens on any day I have off that I shouldn't - I dragged myself to the a nearby grocery store along with the rest of the freaking area.

I did manage, stunningly, to get a self-checkout pretty quickly. I can't even do that on emptier times.

This pie is simple. If you have a favorite crust recipe, please use it! Or a pre-made crust. It's fine. Mine is simple - I just mix a stick of softened butter with around a cup and a half of flour, a dash of salt, and a half cup of sugar. If it is too crumbly, I mix in two TBS of ice water. Then I ball it up, flatten in it plastic wrap, and chill it for about a half hour.

Divide in half. Roll it out, place it on the bottom of your buttered pie pan. OR press it in the bottom of a buttered pie pan if, like me, you a) don't have a rolling pin and aren't in the mood to clean off a bottle or something and b) the dough is soft enough that making bits of dough flat in the bottom of the pan makes sense.

Put the other half back in the fridge.

Take

- two packets of blackberries (or raspberries or blueberries), rinsed with bad ones removed
- 1/4 cup sugar
- two TSP vanilla

and mix together in a bowl. If you aren't in any great hurry, let that sit for about fifteen minutes to a half hour, but never mind if you don't - I rarely do and it's never bothered anything. Pour the mixture into your pie crust.

If you have a pie bird, put in in the center.

Roll out the other half of the dough and place around the pie-bird or, much as before, flatten out and put the dough on top the pie around the pie-bird by hand. It'll look rougher, but that's okay. It's rustic! Sprinkle the crust with sugar, barely.

 Looks pretty tasty, if you ask me. 

And you sort of it, by reading this blog.

If you did NOT use a pie-bird, then cut some slits in the crust or designs or something. It'll let the steam escape. If you have it, you still can if you want to, but you needn't.

Bake at 375 F for approx 35 mins, until the crust is golden. Let sit and cool, so the pie can gel.

Slice and serve with whipped cream or ice cream or by itself. Be delighted!

OPTIONAL: You can buy tapioca and mix some of it in with the berries, if you want more of a fruit-gel around your fruit.

Peanut Butter Pie with a Pretzel Crust. You know you love me.

 The single serving size, if you ask me. Oh so delicious.

I made this a while ago (oh, hello theme) but, clearly, never got around to posting the recipe. I'm not sure why.

The recipe was delicious! I'd been wanting pie for ages (and, in fact, want pie right now. oh man and I have some reeeeeally awesome pie recipes I'd like to try so I'm relatively certain that when Pie Making Fever hits, nobody is gonna want the cure) and was perusing the world wide web for new ideas. And lo, there it was. Peanut Butter Banana Pie! With a pretzel crust! How delicious sounding!

The original recipe was found on Once A Chef Always A Chef. And to see it, you should click that link.


Now. That pie looked real good and I have no doubt at all that it was, but it wasn't the pie I made exactly. No, I tinkered a little - such as there were no bananas. I like bananas. I don't think anyone here doesn't, but we didn't have any, and that usually ends the discussion at eleven at night when I will be damned if I am going over to Jewel for something like bananas.


That and some other small changes and I still was pretty pleased with my pie. Was it everything I wanted? Well. I've been wanting either a coconut cream pie or, you know, a coconut cream pie (or, lately, for me to discover a way to make a Fiona Apple Pie that totally makes sense for it to be called that and not just an apple pie cleverly named and by golly, I'ma gonna find a way...) so in that respect, no. Because it wasn't a coconut cream pie. But I adored it and it was happily devoured by all. So I'm going to go with Success on this one.

Also, this crust is freakin' amazing.

Crust:

- 2 1/2 cups pretzels, crushed. Like, really really really crushed up. Don't skimp on this. It matters. You don't want chunks.
- 3 TBS brown sugar (that was my intention. it became molasses/white sugar. with a little more molasses. see: previous comment about the damn Jewel)
- a dash of vanilla (optional.)
- 3/4 cup melted butter


Combine all the ingredients and mix well. Delicious, hmm? Save a little for crumbling on the top of the pie if you like. Spread in pie pan, keeping it even and working all up the sides. I had enough for what I imagine is a standard sized pie pan (not deep dish) and two little tartlets. Oh, god, the adorableness...

Anyway. You'll want to chuck those babies (gently) in a 350 F oven for around ten minutes. Let the crust completely cool before you fill it with the delicious filling.

The Delicious Filling:

- 3/4 cups creamy peanut butter
- one package of cream cheese at room temp (three oz)
- 1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
- one container of whipped topping (twelve oz), thawed (okay, here I used spray whipped topping. because I am allergic to CoolWhip. I'm sorry. No, I really am, I really want to eat some of that right now.)


Combine the peanut butter and the cream cheese. Add about a third of the whipped topping and the powdered sugar and beat that mixture like a redheaded step-child. (you do know I'm a redhead, right? so I can say that.) You want a smooth blended peanut butter delight, so do this right. Then sweetly fold in the rest of the whipped topping until they all get along. Put in the crust.

You can top this with whatever you want or add something in the middle like, well, the original recipe said bananas but I imagine loads of things would work. Anything chocolatey would have been a great welcome, but that's just me. This doesn't even need it.

Just like it didn't need the extra whipped topping I ate on top of it. But, oh man, did I ever.

Chill the pie for a few hours before serving. Overnight, if you like. It's totally fine.

Either way, you're gonna really like this. I'm imagining.

Karo-who? Brown Sugar Syrup Pecan Pie.

By this point in the Feast, a nice set up and a clean stove were beyond me.
Still, I did try to take a good snap as best I could, considering it was a cell phone.

Well, I hope everyone had a delicious and fattening Thanksgiving because lord knows I did. My friend Dana and I had our Third Annual "We Trust No One Else To Cook" Thanksgiving. It involved a lot of Arrested Development, Diet Coke (esp for dana!), wine (esp for me!), cooking, and a prolonged fight with my oven which decided to be even more impossibly difficult than usual as this was a food holiday.

Also, I think the oven knew that we both worked the next day at our respective jobs.

Either way, it was unbelievably tasty. Dana made stuffing (featuring: pecans, cranberries, and sausage), mashed potatoes, a chicken, a turkey leg, gravy, and brought some tasty tasty cranberry sauce. She also steamed some green beans. I made crash sweet potatoes, whiskey glazed carrots (thanks, Pioneer Woman! don't be too sad that i used Seagram's 7 instead of Jack! it's just always around...), green bean casserole (yeah,yeah), and pecan pie.

Note: I did not make deviled eggs and, yes, I thought about it. I also did not get to make the cranberry nut bread I wanted (which I bought cranberries for! I'll get to it soon. maybe tomorrow?) or the cheesy muffins (which I actually AM planning on making tomorrow. we'll see how this day goes. always with the elaborate planning and rarely with the follow-throughing).

Double Note: Yes, I am allergic to corn syrup.

Which brings me to!

THIS IS A CORN SYRUP FREE PIE.

Yes, ladies and gents, this pie is made without Karo. Oh, they said it could be done but they swore it wouldn't be tasty. But they were wrong. This pie tastes exactly as delicious as I remember my wickedly tasty Karo-based pecan pie being. (I wasn't always as horridly allergic as I am now, but it's progressed, so I can't even cook the filing because it makes me die a little on the inside where no one can see)

My trick? Brown sugar syrup. I cooked brown sugar and water down to a thick syrup that, admittedly not as thick as Karo, was still preeeeeeeetty syrupy looking. And I chopped the walnuts nice and fine and I said a little prayer to my fourth glass of wine and I threw myself into the memory of my old pecan pie.

INGREDIENTS

- two eggs
- vanilla (a drizzle and a dash, which is probs about two teaspoons?)
- sugar, two thirds cup (about)
- brown sugar syrup, a cup (about, sorry!)
- cake spice, a teaspoon (this is made of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, etc. I buy mine at The Spice House)
- a knob of melted butter
- quick dash of cinnamon because, well, why not? but only just.
- pecans (mine were chopped), about two cups - or just under the bag you bought at Jewel when you thought it was on sale, but it wasn't, and you were pissed but you were making this damn pie so you got it anyway. (that's helpful, yes?)

NOTE: I used -gasp- salted butter. I know, I know, I know. But we reached a compromise here at my apartment and that involves the purchasing of salted butter. It's fine. I'm completely okay with this, even though it used to make me cringe a bit. If you don't use salted butter, I suggest adding a dash of salt.

Also. I doubt I've ever said "salted butter" that many times in a short span of time. Reminds me of how I spent actual time thinking about broken eggs in cartons at the store.

Do not get me started.

At any rate, by the time you've finished contemplating all of this, you have mixed together these things and poured it into a prepared pie dish. Really. Just chuck it all together and mix it up nicely. You can add the pecans last if it makes you feel better.

"Prepared", here, means - a lightly buttered/greased/sprayed pie pan with a crust inside. You can make your own or use frozen or the roll-out-pre-made stuff, it's all fine. I made my own. (softened butter, flour, sprinkle of water, some sugar but not much, voila!)

I do not pre-bake my crust.

Wrap some foil around the crust-edges of the pie, then pop it into the 350 degree (F) oven for a half hour. Remove the foil, bake another fifteen or twenty minutes. A knife should come out clean. Yes, it will be wobbly up until the point that it is suddenly done.

Please do not burn your mouth in the attempt to shove this pie in your face. Please. Be better than me.

At any rate, you can add whiskey or bourbon or what have you to this pie. I even suggest that. Nom.

I also suggest smallish slices and vanilla ice cream (or whipped cream) to melt on top a bit.

And I would like to apologize for the pictures. I took these with my cell phone. Um, after eating a piece. It was delicious and I have no regrets.