Put the lime in the coconut... or better yet, CHOCOLATE

After reading my previous posts, Kimmers put in a request for her own pie. And as BFF I felt obligated was happy to make her one especially seeing how she's making me dinner tonight. I think it's a fair deal. So immediately after reading her comment about wanting a coconut pie (I love coconut by the way) I started searching for some sort of coconut pie - and not the run of the mill coconut cream pie that's basically pudding in a pie shell. And out comes Coconut (Haupia) and Chocolate pie (see the originally recipe HERE)...

Ingredients the recipe calls for along with what I used (because I never do what I'm supposed to!):

• 9" unbaked pie shell
• 1 cup milk
• 14oz can coconut milk (I used 14oz of original Coconut Dream because I got it free from work and figured why not?)
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup cornstarch
• 7/8 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate chips and I didn't measure them out so I'm not even really sure how much, haha)
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream (we'll get to this later)
• 1/4 cup white sugar (and we'll get to this later too)

 STEP ONE: bake the pie crust. If you're cool like me you'll buy the ready-made, rolled up and refrigerated pie crusts. So step one involves unrolling the pie crust into a pie pan and throwing it in the oven at 350 degrees for approximately 15 minutes but really until it's golden brown. Important note: DON'T FORGET IT IN THE OVEN WHILE DOING THE OTHER STUFF! I've done that, it didn't pan out very well.

While the pie shell is baking, move on to STEP TWO: prepare the pie filling. "Whisk together" the milk, coconut milk, and 1 cup of sugar in a medium saucepan (I don't really know what a medium saucepan is so I used a "pot" like the one below). Bring the mixture to a boil (which means waiting, waiting, and waiting...). I got a little nervous just letting a coconut and sugar mixture sit on the stove to boil considering I've had bad experiences with sugar on the stove so I kept stirring it (I think this was somewhat counterproductive to the whole bring to boil but it eventually happened). While waiting for the inevitable boiling process to being, dissolve the cornstarch in the water (key note: it takes some stirring to dissolve!)

contrary to popular belief, just pouring the water on the cornstarch does not lead to it dissolving - mix this! haha,

wait for it... wait for it...

Look! It's almost boiling!!!

Once the mixture is boiling, it's time for it to simmer. While it's simmering, SLOWLY pour in the cornstarch mixture while constantly mixing. Again, simmer isn't really in my vocabulary and I rarely follow directions to a "t" so naturally I turned down the heat and DUMPED in the cornstarch mixture. Word to the wise: pouring out of bowls should be done carefully to avoid this situation which lead to the smell of burnt cornstarch...

it's not your eyes, it's a little blurry :(

stirring the thick gooey coconut goo (see the pretty orange nails??)

It's supposed to take about 3 minutes for the mixture to thicken but mine literally turned gelatinous the second the cornstarch hit the coconut mixture. Woohoo! I saved time! But I continued to stir it over low heat for 3 to 4 minutes simply because I had to melt the chocolate chips in the microwave. I know, crazy! Who decided melting chocolate in the microwave was a good idea??? Well it is. This is where I figured that I probably had more chocolate chips than needed seeing how the recipe said one minute to melt and it took me more than two.

milk chocolate is waaaay better than semisweet... and yes, at some point it was necessary to make coffee

Once the chocolate chips are melted, the recipe calls for splitting the coconut goo in half. Half gets mixed in with the new chocolate goo to form a coconut chocolately goo

And because you already know this (I've said it at least twice already!), I don't follow directions. Not only did I not use actual coconut milk but Coconut Dream instead, I also decided that it's necessary to have ACTUAL COCONUT in a coconut pie so I added coconut flakes... to everything!

Now it's time to assemble the pie. First, pour the chocolatey coconut goo in the bottom of the pie shell, followed by a layer of the coconut goo on top. This is also another point where I realized that I had too much of something seeing how my pie filling could've filled another pie! (But that would've required baking another pie shell!)

Now, let's talk about the heavy cream and the rest of the sugar: I didn't use it. I have a few reasons for this but the one I'm sticking with: there's nooooo room for a whipped topping on my pie. I have to transport this pie about an hour away so I'm not really keen on having a mile high pie being tossed around my car. But if you've read my previous post about "whipping until stiff peaks form" then you're probably fully aware of the fact that whipped toppings are not my specialty and didn't exactly turn out the way it should've. (I still stick with the "where would the whipped topping go??" excuse.) So to make it pretty I added more coconut flakes (because you can NEVER have too many! and chocolate chips (of the dark chocolate persuasion because I used up all the milk chocolate IN the pie.

yes, that's Mickey Mouse in chocolate chips

 

FINAL STEP: Refrigerate the pie. I think it said chill it for about an hour but mine will be chilling until I leave to visit my bff for dinner.

To be quite honest, I'm not very confident in this pie. The coconut filling doesn't look as scrumptious as one would hope. It actually kind of looks like glue. I guess we'll find out tonight...

"there's no wrong way to eat a Reese's..."

I've always wanted someone to comment on how I eat a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup just so I could say to them that there's not wrong way to eat a Reese's. But unfortunately it hasn't happened yet but I haven't give up hope! So why the talk of peanut butter cups? Because I'm making a peanut butter cup pie of course! You would think it would be easy to find a pie recipe actually made out of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups but it's harder than one might assume. Luckily, I found this one...

http://cookeatshare.com/recipes/reese-s-peanut-butter-cup-pie-and-giveaway-413239

I wish I could tell you how it tastes but I'm literally still in the process of making it. The problem with no bake pies is how much time you spend waiting around. Right now I'm waiting for the stupid chocolate peanut butter part to chill. I think I only have an hour left and then I can finish it. Let's talk pie making:

What you need:

• 12 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (I actually used 14 though)
• 1 8 oz package cream cheese - room temperature (which mine was still cold because I didn't have time to waste waiting for it to warm to "room temperature")
• 1 ready made graham cracker pie crust (feel free to make your own but I say "f that")
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 TBS powdered sugar
• 2 TBS Dream Whip

For starters, it's always good to have a little help in the kitchen: Dexter is my helper :)

The first part of the recipe might be the hardest: unwrapping the peanut butter cups and NOT eating them. Melt the peanut butter cups in a double boiler (which I improvised and just used two pots that kind of fit together!) on medium heat (but I did high!) until they're melted enough to be able to whip.

Let the peanut butter cups cool a little bit and then add the cream cheese and blend until they're smoooooooth (which I found mine wasn't so smooth when I started pouring it into the crust which is clearly the next step).

 Slop the chocolately/peanut buttery deliciousness into the pie crust and off to the refrigerator it goes for a whopping 2 HOURS. (I told you there's a lot of hurry up and wait!)

Now because I don't like to wait, I moved on to the next step which is the making of the whipped topping. Mix the heavy cream, powdered sugar, and Dream Whip in a glass bowl. And by mix I mean, whip it, whip it good! Whip it until the topping forms moutainous peaks (keep in mind my picture below is not as "peaky" as it should be but I got sick of holding the hand mixer!

Once the whipped topping peaked to what I considered "good enough" I covered it and put it in the fridge to chill while the rest of the pie continued to chill. While the pie "pieces" chilled I also decided to chill with something a little bit healthier than the impending pie...

After the pie has been chillin for two hours, pour the whipped topping on top of the chocolate peanut butter cream cheese goo in the pie crust and then garnish with something to make it pretty. I used cut up Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (because really you can never have too many peanut butter cups!)

Before I post the final creation, here are the two important lessons I learned while making this pie:

#1 if someone looks in your garbage right after you make this pie chances are they might think that you just broke up with your boyfriend...

 #2 when they say "whip until stiff peaks form" you should listen to them...

And there it is: Pie #3 The Reese's Peanut Butter Pie - it's just one more way to eat a Reese's (I know, corny).

"A boy doesn't have to go to war to be a hero; he can say he doesn't like pie when he sees there isn't enough to go around" - Edgar Watson Howe

They say there's no better way to a man's heart than through his stomach. There might be some truth to this especially when the man loves pie! And it's kind of crazy when you find yourself perusing the internet to find yummy, scrumptious and different pies to make to appease your man's sweet tooth. Well, this is something that I've been doing. And honestly, I think finding the perfect pie to make is actually more difficult than making the pie itself!

So today I found myself perusing the internet for a pie to make for my honey. I happen to find it on a blog with step by step directions and pictures. I made my way to the store in the freezing cold to pick up the much needed supplies that I could not find in my house (mostly because I only go shopping when I need something!). When I began melting the peanut butter cups (that's right, peanut butter cups) I got the bright idea to be like everybody else and blog about the recipes I make. Bam! Enter my new blog "the world through my pies..." Luckily, I'm not very far behind in my pie making but for the sake of blogging about all the pies I make for my man the first two will be included here with links to the recipes and what I thought of them. And here we go...

Pie #1
The first pie I ever made for my darling dear pie lover was a banana cream pie from scratch. (mostly from scratch! I did cheat with the pie crust but who doesn't???)

http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/banana-cream-pie-i/Detail.aspx

I quickly learned that making pudding from scratch takes FOREVER! I'm slightly convinced that I'm still making it right now and I made this pie MONTHS AGO! But I also learned that homemade pudding from scratch is faaaaaaaar better tasting than pie from a box. That means I give this pie high marks even though I'm not a banana fan. My only gripe: for some reason my decorative bananas that were oh so carefully placed on top as decoration, ended up looking like mushrooms by the time I delivered the pie. Luckily, they tasted like bananas still!

Pie #2
I think it's safe to say that this is the BEST PIE EVER and I say this after only making one other pie. I would seriously eat this pie all day. I can't even describe the deliciousness but here's the recipe:

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/food/recipes/double-cherry-pie-538571/

I can honestly say that I made this entire pie from scratch! And I would DEFINITELY make it again. Actually I almost made it tonight but I opted for something else which you will read about later. This pie didn't last very long (not that the last one did either but so far this is record timing). All I can say about this pie: MAKE IT! and when you make it, please send me some :)

Now that I got the two initial pies out of the way, let's start the real thing... with pictures :)

(oh! and for the record, I don't think my man would be a hero when it comes to pie but I'm absolutely positively okay with that because that's less pie in the world for me to eat!)