She's not just about cupcakes...

This weekend I made pies. Yes, you heard me right, pies.

I'm not one for fruit pies (anything with two crusts stresses me out), but I love cream pies. So Friday night I played around with some recipes using graham cracker pie crusts (absolutely no stress) and had pretty decent results.

First off, Not-So-Ex loves chocolate pie. While I'm not big on it, it reminds him of his incredibly awesome (though unfortunately no longer with us) Grandfather. So, for him, I searched around for a really good, homemade chocolate pudding recipe and put it in a graham cracker crust and voila! Chocolate Pie.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup white sugar 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder 1/4 cup cornstarch 1/8 teaspoon salt

2 3/4 cups milk 2 tablespoons margarine or butter 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:

1.

In a saucepan, stir together sugar, cocoa, cornstarch and salt. Place over medium heat, and stir in milk. Bring to a boil, and cook, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a metal spoon. Remove from heat, and stir in margarine and vanilla. Let cool briefly, pour in pie crust, and chill in refrigerator until serving.

Now I'm not big on Chocolate Pie so I decided to make a second pie. Many years ago, mother-in-law and I would take trips to Amish country that always included a huge lunch at a restaurant where, in addition to incredible food, they were famous for their pies. One of my faves was a peanut butter cream pie. It had a peanut butter crumbly mixture on the bottom, a custard on top of that, and then it was covered in meringue. So I was looking for something similar and found it.

But then I thought I would play around with the recipe to make it even better. I am definitely not a fan of meringue so I knew that would be left off. I also thought it would be better if the custard had a hint of peanut butter to it. So this is what I came up with.

You start with a mixture of 1 c confectioners sugar and 1/2 c peanut butter and mix till crumbly. Then sprinkle half of the crumbly mix into the bottom of the pie crust.

INGREDIENTS:

4 tablespoons sugar 2 tablespoon cornstarch 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 cups milk

2 egg yolks, lightly beaten 3 teaspoons butter 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 big spoonful of peanut butter

DIRECTIONS:

1.	In a small saucepan, combine the sugar, cornstarch and salt. Gradually stir in milk. Cook and stir over medium heat until thickened and bubbly. Reduce heat; cook and stir 2 minutes longer. Remove from the heat.
2.	Stir a small amount of hot filling into egg yolk; return all to the pan, stirring constantly. Bring to a gentle boil; cook and stir 1 minute longer. Remove from the heat. Gently stir in butter, peanut butter, and vanilla.
3.	Pour over the crust and peanut butter mixture. Sprinkle remaining half of peanut butter stuff on top and put in fridge to cool.

It was really good but I suggest making it when you know it will be eaten quickly. After a few days, the peanut butter can make it a little oily.