Paula’s Silver Dollar Strawberry Pie

The trip was 27 years ago. My mother-in-law, Paula, ate an entire pie at the Silver Dollar Pie Shop in Branson, Missouri while she and her family were on vacation.

Not too keen on rich chocolatey desserts, Paula loves almost any dessert with fruit. When she got back from Branson, she attempted to recreate the Silver Dollar Pie Shop’s strawberry pie.

Don’t ever call her a quitter, because after 9 tries, Paula finally came up with this recipe. It tastes just like the one she had in Branson 27 years ago. All I can say is I wish I knew Paula 27 years ago to be the guinnea pig for all her strawberry pie attempts. I bet her husband Tony was one fat and happy, man!

Paula tells me, “At that time I had never seen a recipe like this one, but since then, I’ve seen some pies like it. I have also used peaches with peach glaze or blueberries with blueberry glaze”.

What’s great about this pie is that it is a no-bake recipe except for the pie shell. Super easy to whip up in the summer and a perfect way to use those juicy strawberries. Enjoy!

Paula's Strawberry Pie

Paula’s Silver Dollar Strawberry Pie

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 2 mins

Total time: 12 mins

Serves: 8

Ingredients

1 baked pie shell
1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. almond extract
1 tub (8 oz) Cool Whip
2 cups fresh strawberries
strawberry flavored pie glaze (if you can’t find pie glaze, you can make it using instant strawberry Jell-O)

Instructions

Bake pie shell according to package directions.
FOR THE FILLING: Beat together the cream cheese, sugar, almond extract, and 1 cup of Cool Whip. Pour into the cooled, baked pie shell.
FOR THE TOPPING: Spoon the fresh strawberries over the cream cheese mixture. Drizzle the pie glaze over the strawberries. Garnish with the remaining Cool Whip.
Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or until firm.

Mallory’s Chocolate Meringue Pie

Matt’s birthday was last month and so to keep the tradition going, I made Mrs. Kelm’s chocolate cake…. the BEST birthday cake in our world, and one that has been made over and over again for the past 25 years. Click HERE for the recipe.

While you can’t beat Mrs. Kelm’s chocolate cake as a birthday cake, you can’t beat Mallory’s chocolate meringue pie as a birthday pie!

Mallory is a sweet friend of ours from church who came to see Harper when Harper was just a few weeks old. Mallory also made us a homemade chocolate meringue pie which was to die for. It’s hard to believe Mallory is only in the sixth grade and only just got her very first Kitchen Aid stand mixer for Christmas. You’d have thought she had been baking for years!

The first time she made us her chocolate meringue pie, she delivered it to us pipping hot and just out of the oven. Matt has no patience for waiting for desserts to cool, so he dug right in, and thus I wasn’t able to get a good picture for the blog.

We made it known to Mallory how good her pie was, so when she saw Matt’s birthday announced in the church bulletin, she decided to surprise him and bake another chocolate pie!

Had I known she was baking the pie, I probably wouldn’t have made him Mrs. Kelm’s chocolate cake. Ends up, Matt totally ditched my cake, and ate the ENTIRE chocolate meringue pie in just 3 days!! I think I ate only one tiny sliver of the pie because I knew how much Matt adored it, and I didn’t want to eat all of HIS birthday pie…. even though I could have had one or two or three more slices myself. 🙂

Enjoy, and thank you Mallory for sharing your homemade chocolate meringue pie with us. I only hope I can make it as well as you can!

chocolate meringue pie

Mallory’s Chocolate Pie

Cook time: 15 mins

Total time: 15 mins

Serves: 8

Source: our friend Mallory

Ingredients

CHOCOLATE PIE:
1 3/4 cup sugar
2 cups milk
3 Tbsp. butter
3 egg yolks (save the whites)
4 Tbsp. cocoa
6 Tbsp. flour
2 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 baked pie crust
MERINGUE
4 egg whites
6 Tbsp. sugar

Instructions

TO MAKE THE CHOCOLATE PIE: Mix the flour, milk, sugar, cocoa and egg yolks over low heat until thick, stirring frequently in a pot. Remove heat and add vanilla and butter, mix well.
Pour into baked pie crust.
TO MAKE THE MERINGUE: Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Combine egg whites and sugar. Add egg whites one at a time. It will thicken up. Beat until it forms stiff white peaks. Add to pie and bake until golden brown, about 15-16 minutes.

Libby’s Pumpkin Pie

Libby's Pumpkin Pie

From pumpkin bread, to pumpkin pie, I LOVE pumpkin! I can literally eat it year-round; not just at Thanksgiving.

While this past Thanksgiving was wonderful (we had a newborn), it was missing something… pumpkin pie!! Instead we had a regular pecan pie and a chocolate bourbon pecan pie. Both were excellent, but I never got my pumpkin pie fix. Until this week!

I had two cans of pumpkin sitting in my pantry, just calling my name out. While I’m not really a pro at making pies, (I’m more of a cookie/brownie person), I figured the recipe easy enough that I could handle it.

With less than 10 minutes of prep time, the hardest part about this pie is waiting for it to bake and cool so you can eat it. Simply mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, and pour into an unbaked pie shell.

My pie shell isn’t the prettiest, but oh well. Matt doesn’t like crust anyways. He just eats the the filling so it didn’t really matter.

Don’t wait until next Thanksgiving to make this. Pumpkin pie is good anytime during the year. Enjoy!

Libby's Pumpkin Pie

Libby’s Pumpkin Pie

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 1 hour

Total time: 1 hour 10 mins

Serves: 8

Ingredients

1 (9-inch) unbaked deep dish pie crust
3/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
3 eggs
1 (15 oz.) can LIBBY’S 100% Pure Pumpkin
1 (12 fluid oz.) can evaporated milk

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
Combine sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves in small bowl. Beat eggs lightly in large bowl. Stir in pumpkin and sugar-spice mixture. Gradually stir in evaporated mil. Pour into pie shell.
Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350 degrees F; bake for 40-50 minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 2 hours. Serve immediately or refrigerate.

Sweet Potato Pie

The countdown has begun! Less than 3 weeks until the big day…. Thanksgiving!!!

If you’re looking for a good pie recipe and are sick of pumpkin pie, a sweet potato pie may be just what you need!

Not only is this a wonderful recipe, it has a humorous story behind it. It was in the late 1960s, and my mom was still in high school when she made two of these sweet potato pies for Thanksgiving.

That Wednesday night, mom and her father Fred (I called him Poppy), decided to go to church while Nila, her mother, stayed at home to finish prepping for the big meal the next day. While I only knew Nila for the first two years of my life before she passed away, I hear she was a hoot, and could be a little ditsy (like myself at times). 🙂

As the story goes, Nila had just made homemade cornbread, and accidentally set it down to cool on a hot burner. Unfortunately the stovetop burner was the electric kind, and was still extremely hot from what she had been cooking earlier.

You can guess what happened next…. the cornbread, which was in a glass pyrex pan EXPLODED due to the heat, and there were shards of glass all over the kitchen and on top of mom’s two sweet potato pies!!!

Mom and Poppy had already given Nila grief for not coming to church with them, and said it was payback for skipping. Haha! Mom can’t remember if she ate a piece of pie or not, and while Poppy definitely didn’t eat a piece, Nila said “I’m not going to throw away two perfectly good sweet potato pies.” She scraped the top of the pie off with the pyrex glass shards, and thoroughly enjoyed her piece of pie that Thanksgiving!!!

Enjoy!!!

Sweet Potato Pie

Ingredients

1 Tbsp. butter
1 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar
1 3/4 cup mashed cooked sweet potatoes
1 1/2 cups milk, scalded
2 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
1 pie shell, unbaked

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
In a large bowl, add butter, salt and sugar to the cooked sweet potatoes. Add milk, eggs and vanilla.
Pour mixture into unbaked pie shell.
Bake for 45 minutes. Let cool completely before serving. Garnish with a dollop of cool whip, if desired.

Notes

Source: Garden Club Cookbook – Desserts

Boog’s Pecan Pie and the Lake

I hope everyone had a fun and relaxing 4th of July weekend. We stayed the weekend at Tony and Paula’s lake house and of course, that always means LOTS OF DESSERTS!!

We had my Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookies, blueberry cake donuts from Texarkana, a white cake topped with strawberries, Paula’s creamy coconut cake, Boog’s chocolate chip cake, last but not least Boog’s pecan pie (recipe below). We weren’t short of sweets by any means!

What’s crazy is nearly all of those desserts were gone by Sunday afternoon as we were leaving to go home!

As you can see below, lots of fun was had on the jet ski, and unfortunately I was a bystander since I’m 23 weeks pregnant and it’s not exactly safe for me to be riding on one.

What’s really upsetting is the jet ski has not been ridden in over a year and a half! The lake levels were so low that we we were unable to pull the boat or the jet ski out of the boat dock in 2013, and now that 2014 is here, I’m pregnant and can’t ride it. How ironic! 🙂

Matt and his sister Leah, and her kids had a blast though. Leah’s kids are at that age where they are getting old enough to start having a little fun. 🙂 Both kids had a great time riding with Matt and Leah on the jet ski, and I’m glad they got to enjoy it.

Back to Boog’s pecan pie. Boog is Matt’s grandmother, and every time we go to the lake she makes either a pecan pie or a chocolate chip cake or in this case, BOTH!

Her pie recipe is super simple to make, and extremely delicious. When Matt was younger, Boog once made this pie and Matt ate the WHOLE PIE in one day (one sitting actually). Haha.

His appetite has changed a bit, but Boog’s pecan pie was gone in less than 2 days!

Enjoy!!

Boog’s Pecan Pie

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 45 mins

Total time: 55 mins

Serves: 8

Ingredients

1 unbaked pie shell
3 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup corn syrup
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup melted butter
1 cup pecans

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Beat the eggs with a fork. Add the sugar, syrup, then the salt and vanilla. Lastly, pour in the melted butter.
Place the chopped pecans in the bottom of an unbaked pie shell. Pour the filling over the pecans, and bake for 45-50 minutes. The nuts will rise to the top of the filling and form a nice, crusty layer

Foolproof Vodka Pie Crust and Dad’s favorite Chocolate Ice Box Pie

My mom found an new favorite pie crust and it has an unlikely ingredient: Vodka.

Supposedly the vodka, because it is 80-proof, will mostly evaporate in the oven, meaning that the crust gets the liquid it needs but much of it will not stay. It creates an perfect pie crust with lots of flaky layers.

Worried about the boozy vibe of your pie? Don’t be. My family doesn’t drink and thus we were worried about the same thing. According to Smitten Kitchen, vodka, by definition, is colorless and odorless, so once it’s baked, you’ll forget it was ever in there.

chocolate ice box pie with foolproof pie crust

It was my parent’s 38th anniversary last week, and Mom made my Dad one of his favorite desserts: chocolate ice box pie. While I’ve blogged this pie before, we’ve never had a really good crust that we liked until now.

We usually bake a store-bought crust to save on time. Plus Matt and Paula don’t even like pie crust. They will scoop out the chocolate, or whatever flavor pie filling, and leave the shell of the pie crust behind.

However, for those of us who LIKE pie crust (everyone else in this world besides Matt and Paula), we wanted a good crust recipe and found one!

vodka pie crust — Prick the bottom and sides of the pie crust with a fork. Line with foil and pie weights and bake for 10-12 minutes at 450 degrees F.

chocolate ice box pie — Look at all those flaky layers in the crust!

Enjoy!

For the chocolate ice box pie recipe, click HERE.

Foolproof Pie Crust

Serves: 8

Recipe adapted from Cooks Illustrated, November 2007

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups (12 1/2 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp. table salt
2 Tbsp. sugar
12 Tbsp. (1 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch slices
1/2 cup cold vegetable shortening, cut into small bites
1/4 cup cold vodka
1/4 cup cold water

Instructions

Process 1 1/2 cups flour, salt, and sugar in food processor until combined, about 2 one-second pulses. Add butter and shortening and process until homogeneous dough just starts to collect in uneven clumps, about 15 seconds (dough will resemble cottage cheese curds and there should be no uncoated flour).
Scrape bowl with rubber spatula and redistribute dough evenly around processor blade. Add remaining cup flour and pulse until mixture is evenly distributed around bowl and mass of dough has been broken up, 4 to 6 quick pulses. Empty mixture into medium bowl.
Sprinkle vodka and water over mixture. With rubber spatula, use folding motion to mix, pressing down on dough until dough is slightly tacky and sticks together.
Divide dough into two even balls and flatten each into 4-inch disk. Wrap each in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 45 minutes or up to 2 days.
To fit into a standard 9-inch pie dish, roll out the dough to a 12-inch circle. Carefully transfer your dough to the pie plate. Prick the bottom and sides of the crust with a fork. Line the pie crust with foil and add ceramic pie weights (rice or beans to will also work) to keep the pie crust from rising.
Bake at 450 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until golden.

Notes

Makes enough for one 9-inch double-crust pie.

Classic Chess Pie

Last weekend was Mother’s Day and I hope everyone had a great time with their mom. Even though it was her special day, my mom spent Saturday afternoon in the kitchen baking up a new pie recipe: Classic Chess Pie!

One of Matt’s all-time favorite pie recipes is Furr’s Butter Chess Pie. My mom knew that and decided she would take a stab at recreating the Furr’s classic, and according to Matt, succeeded!!

For those that don’t know, chess pie is a classic dessert characteristic of the south. Recipes vary, but are generally similar in that they call for a single crust filled with eggs, butter, granulated sugar and vanilla. Not to be confused with buttermilk pie, which is also a traditional pie of the south, chess pie includes cornmeal; buttermilk pie does not.

I must say, I had never tried a chess pie before, and was extremely impressed! Now one of my most favorite pies of all-time, I’m going to request this classic chess pie for every special occasion.

Did I mention it’s a breeze to make? With a store-bought crust, prep time takes about 5 minutes. The hard part is waiting for the pie to bake! Enjoy.

Classic Chess Pie

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 50 mins

Total time: 55 mins

Serves: 8

Recipe from: Southern Living 2000.

Ingredients

1/2 (15-ounce) package refrigerated pie crusts
2 cups sugar
2 Tbsp. cornmeal
1 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup milk (we used skim)
1 Tbsp. white vinegar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
4 large eggs, lightly beaten

Instructions

Fit pie crust into a 9-inch pie plate according to package directions; fold edges under, and crimp.
Line pastry with aluminum foil, and fill with pie weights or dried beans.
Bake at 425 degrees F for 4-5 minutes. Remove weights and foil; bake 2 minutes more or until golden. Cool.
Stir together sugar and next 7 ingredients until blended. Add eggs, stirring well. Pour into pie crust.
Bake at 350 degrees F. for 50-55 minutes, shielding edges with aluminum foil after 10 minutes to prevent excessive browning. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Happy Father’s Day!

Happy Father’s Day to all those dads out there! If you need a last minute idea on what to make your dad on this special day, here’s some foodie inspiration! (All of these recipes are my dad’s favorite picks.)

Let’s start with breakfast. My dad LOVES pancakes, and here is his favorite recipe: Nigella’s pancake mix….and no, they’re not from a box!

Since its Father’s Day, and you probably slept in and had brunch, let’s move onto dinner ideas. My dad LOVES grilling out, and here is his famous chateaubriand steak recipe. Enjoy!

Let’s forget the sides! Men like my dad and husband would be fine just eating steak and dessert, so let’s take a look at some sweets! Notice how they are all chocolate? My dad is a chocoholic. Take your pick or make all three!

This first recipe is a chocolate ice box pie. My dad requests this one a lot, whether it’s his birthday or not!

Next up…Paula’s 4-layer pudding dessert. This is my dad’s new favorite. Ever since I got the recipe from my mother-in-law Paula, my dad requests I make it every time I come over.

Finally, are you ready for something super chocolatey? Mom’s secret ingredient brownies are just that….rich, sweet, and loaded with chocolate chips. My dad brings these to work for every company luncheon they have. He loves telling people there is a “secret ingredient” and always asks if they can guess it!

Cherry Cheesecake Pie

Here’s an extremely easy and extremely tasty pie that you must try! I discovered the recipe at The Southern Lady Cooks last week on National Pie Day and couldn’t resist trying it. With just six ingredients, it doesn’t take a gourmet chef to create this eye-appealing dessert.

My husband was out of town last week, and since I had no one to cook for, I invited his parents over dinner. My mother-in-law, Paula, is a huge country cook…we are total opposites. 🙂 I don’t know if this is a “country” thing, but when she has people over for dinner, she begins cooking early in the day. That way, when people come over, she can talk & visit and not worry about the food.

When 4:30 pm rolled around, Paula asked where dinner was. For one – she eats early, around 5:00 pm, and two – she was shocked that I had not even started cooking yet…that would have stressed her out.

Growing up, my mom would always start dinner around 5:15 to 5:30 or so. We would be sitting down to dinner at 6:20 – 6:30…it was like clock work. Therefore, I was not at all stressed to be preparing an entire meal in under one hour.

The dinner for my in-laws turned out great! They cleaned their plates: the quick chicken parmesan, garlic bread, side salad, and 2 slices of cherry cheesecake pie disappeared before our very eyes!

As far as taste goes, the cherry cheesecake pie is outstanding! The filling is light and rich at the same time. The graham cracker crust is a perfect complement to the sweet creamy filling and juicy cherries. This pie actually reminds me of one of my favorite summertime desserts – Limeade Pie. The ingredients are nearly identical, sans the cream cheese and limeade concentrate, and the recipe is just as easy.

Enjoy!

Beat the cream cheese until fluffy. Slowly add sweetened condensed milk, lemon juice, and vanilla.

Pour into graham cracker crust and chill for at least 3 hours.

Once filling is set, top with cherry pie filling and serve.

Cherry Cheesecake Pie
Ingredients
1 graham cracker pie crust (or make your own)
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated milk)
1/3 cup lemon juice (I takes about 4 fresh lemons)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 (21-ounce) can cherry pie filling

Directions
1. In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese until light and fluffy. Slowly add condensed milk, lemon juice and vanilla, beating until smooth.
2. Pour into crust.
3. Chill at least 3 hours or until firm and then top with cherry pie filling.

Yield: 1 pie, 8 servings
Recipe from: The Southern Lady Cooks

This recipe is featured in The Kurtz Corner: Tuesday Tutorials Link Party {No. 23}

Chocolate Ice Box Pie

This Chocolate Ice Box Pie is version 2 of the pies we made over Labor Day weekend (version 1 was the Lemon Ice Box Pie.) The girls, my mom and I, ate the fruity, lemon version, while the boys, my dad and husband, opted for chocolate. Both are out of this world recipes from my Aunt Jolene, and both are spin-offs of each other…essentially the same recipe, just different ingredients.

No other recipe can beat this Chocolate Ice Box Pie. It is milk-chocolately, sweet, very smooth, and thick. It pairs perfectly with a dollop of whipped cream. You can make a homemade crust, or buy a pre-made one if you are pressed for time. As far as crusts go, my husband doesn’t eat the crust, so next time I made this, I ought to just pour the custard into individual ramekins to make pudding. (My husband sure is weird! For me, the crust is almost the best part… I can’t eat a single bite of pie without it).

Enjoy!

For the Foolproof Vodka Pie Crust recipe, click HERE.

Chocolate Ice Box Pie

Serves: 8

Ingredients

1/3 cup flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 cups milk
2 eggs
1/2 stick buttter
1 tsp vanilla
1 oz. Baker’s unsweetened chocolate
1 oz. Baker’s semi-sweet chocolate
1/2 Foolproof pie crust, baked and cooled.

Instructions

Mix flour and sugar. Scald milk in double boiler, add sugar and flour, gradually stirring constantly until thick.
Temper, and add well-beaten eggs and cook 2 minutes longer. Beat into mixture, the butter, melted chocolate and vanilla.
Pour into baked pie shell and let cool. Refrigerate until set. Serve with whipped cream.