Marshmallow-Almond Key Lime Pie

I found this really good pie here, and had to share it

Marshmallow-Almond Key Lime Pie

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 cup slivered almonds, toasted, divided
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
• 1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened, divided
• 1/2 cup key lime juice
• 1 tablespoon grated key lime peel
• Dash salt
• 1 egg yolk
• 1-3/4 cups miniature marshmallows
• 4-1/2 teaspoons butter
• 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Directions

• Place the flour, brown sugar and 1/2 cup almonds in a food processor. Cover and process until blended. Add melted butter and honey; cover and process until crumbly. Press onto the bottom and up the sides of a greased 9-in. pie plate. Bake at 350° for 8-10 minutes or until crust is lightly browned. Cool on a wire rack.
• In a large bowl, beat the milk, 5 ounces cream cheese, lime juice, peel and salt until blended. Add egg yolk; beat on low speed just until combined. Pour into crust. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until center is almost set. Cool on a wire rack.
• In a large saucepan, combine marshmallows and butter. Cook and stir over medium-low heat until melted. Remove from the heat and transfer to a bowl. Add cream and remaining cream cheese; beat until smooth. Cover and refrigerate until chilled.
• Beat marshmallow mixture until light and fluffy. Spread over pie; sprinkle with remaining almonds. Yield: 8 servings.

Coconut Haupia Cream Pie

This is a bit involved but well worth the time. You can save some time by using either a regular pastry crust or graham cracker (you can even use premade) and still have a great pie. I think the crust from this pie could also work really well, and it's quite a bit easier.

Crust

1 cup unsalted butter

2 tsp vanilla

1 egg

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup melted butter

Haupia Pudding

6 oz coconut milk

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup milk

1/4 cup cornstarch

Coconut Bavarian Cream

1 rounded T unflavored geletin

3 T water

1 1/2 cups whipping cream

1 1/2 cups milk

6 egg yolks

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut (toasted if you like)

To make the crust:

preheat oven to 350

Mix butter and vanilla together, add egg, flour, salt and mix together. Place dough on a greased baking sheet and bake 15 - 20 min. Let cool, refrigerate 1 hour. Crumble 2 cups of cookie, add melted butter and mix by hand. Press half of the mixture into the bottom of a pie plate and the rest up the sides. Bake another 15 - 20 minutes.

Make the pudding next:

In a saucepan combine coconut milk, sugar and 1/2 cup milk bring to a slow boil. In a bowl mix together the remaining 1/2 cup milk, and the cornstarch. Mix until there are no lumps, then slowly add to the hot mixture stirring constantly till thick. Remove from stove and pour into the pie crust. Refrigerate until cold and set.

To make the cream:

Soften geletin with the water in a small bowl, set aside. Whip the whipping cream and set aside. Combine milk, egg yolks and sugar in a stainless steel or glass bowl and set over a double boiler. Cook until the mixture coats a spoon and you can run a finger through it and a line remains. Remove from heat and add the set geletin; mix well. Set hot bowl over an ice bath and stir until it cools and starts to thicken. Fold the whipping cream in, in 2 parts. Add coconut and fold in. Layer this on top of the pudding in the pie plate and chill 2 more hours.

Really yummy light pie!!!

This is another Taste of Home recipe that we really like, especially in the summer!  It's really good even without the spreadable fruit.

Light Lemon Pie

INGREDIENTS

    * 1 package (.3 ounces) sugar-free lemon gelatin

    * 1/2 cup boiling water

    * 3/4 cup cold water

    * Sugar substitute equivalent to 3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon sugar

    * 1 cup (8 ounces) 1% cottage cheese

    * 1 carton (8 ounces) frozen reduced-fat Cool Whip® whipped topping, thawed

    * 1 reduced-fat graham cracker crust (8 inches)

    * 1/2 cup 100% strawberry spreadable fruit

    * 8 large strawberries, halved

DIRECTIONS

In a large bowl, dissolve gelatin in boiling water. Stir in cold water and sugar substitute. Refrigerate until partially set.

    In a fine strainer, drain the cottage cheese. Place cottage cheese in a blender; cover and process until smooth. Transfer to a bowl; stir in gelatin mixture. Fold in whipped topping.

    Pour into crust. Refrigerate until set. Just before serving, cut into slices; garnish each with 1 tablespoon spreadable fruit and two strawberry halves. Yield: 8 servings. 

Peppermint Pie

This is an incredible pie, light but rich and wonderful!

Bob's Peppermint Pie
This recipe came from Paula Deen's show

1 envelope plain gelatin
1/4 cup cold water
1/2 cup heavy cream, plus 1 1/2 cups heavy cream, whipped
8 ounces peppermint candies, soft type (I found these in a tin a Cost Plus World Market around Christmas)
1 prepared chocolate cookie crust
Crushed hard peppermint candies, for garnish

Soften gelatin in water and set aside. Put 1/2 cup heavy cream in a small saucepan with candies and cook over low heat until candy melts. Add gelatin mixture and mix well. Let cool and fold in whipped cream. Pour into crust, sprinkle with crushed peppermint candies, and chill thoroughly.

Pumpkin Pie variation

My family has a slight variation on pumpkin pie that is a huge hit.

In your basic pie recipes, both for fresh or canned, replace the evaporated milk with egg nog when it's available! It just add that little extra something.

Did You Know You Can Make Pumpkin Pie Out Of Real Pumpkins?

My husband is a pumpkin pie connoisseur. He loves the slimey pastey things. Though I am far from picky, I detest pumpkin pie. However, I have now discovered that a pie made from fresh pumpkin is tolerable to my palate and superb to the rest of my family. I have tried this recipe twice. Once with a regular old pumpkin out of my garden and once with a sweet pumpkin I purchased at the grocery store for $1.09. Both resulted in rave reviews. So, if you like pumpkin pie and have never made it out of a real pumpkin, here is the technique.

And it only takes about 60-90 minutes or so start to finish.

Preheat your oven to 425.

First, cut the pumpkin in half lenthgthwise. Pull off the stem and scrape out the seeds and as much of the stringy stuff as you can get out (an icecream scoop works nicely).

Next, cut the halves into quarters or so and microwave them, covered, for about 10-15 minutes, on high power or until nice and smooshy.

Then, scrape the meat off the rind (those big spoons work nice, the kind you don't use for cereal, I think they are soup spoons, but I don't use them for that either). You will need about 3 cups of pumpkin goo and a pretty small pumpkin does it surprisingly well.

Get out your handy dandy blender or food processor (or a hand mixer if your patient). In it dump:

3 cups freshly cooked pumpkin goop
1 cup sugar
4 large eggs
1.5 cans (12 oz size) evaporated milk
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
pinch of salt

Mix well until smooth. Place pie crust on oven rack and pour pie filling into pie crust (I make the pie crust while the pumpkin is in the microwave, multi-tasking). My husband like it nice and thick, so I fill it up to about a quarter inch from the top. CAREFULLY push the oven rack in - it sloshes. Bake at 425 for 15 minutes then turn the oven down to 250 and bake for another 20-30 minutes (the recipe I went off of said 45-60, but that was too long) - insert a butter knife; if it's done it should come out clean.

I got this recipe off http://www.pickyourown.org/ and they had lots of pictures and great instructions. And, my husband said my pie was a 9 out of 10 and he can't give out a 10 until he is dead, thereby having tasted all the pumpkin pie he will taste and able to judge which was the best.

It was fun to make - my four year old got to see the plant life cycle from seed to pie. Worth the effort.

Never Fail Piecrust

This recipe came from my college roomate Genaura Lee. We had an agreement, I would cook and she would clean. She didn't really think she liked cooking but she did come to school with a recipe box full of tried and true recipes from her mother. I thought my piecrust was great, she very nicely asked me to try her mother's recipe. I never again used the recipe from my family. This pastry is rich and flaky (very flaky). It is so forgiving that I've even rolled the dough twice (think dropping rolled piecrust on counter and tearing it apart, then re-rolling) and had it turn out. The original recipe says it makes 4 9" crusts but we really like crust so I get 2 10" crusts and a nice sized cinnamon sugar scrap crust out of this recipe. Dave's very fond of thick edges on the crusts so when I trim the pastry after placing it in the pie plate I leave about a 1" overhang and then turn it under the rest of the dough. This also makes it easier to pinch the crust and make a pretty edge. I also find it easiest to roll the dough between two silicone baking sheets with just a sprinkling of flour. The dough peels right off and you don't have an excess of flour making the pastry tough or dusty.

3 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 1/4 Cups Shortening

1 egg, well beaten

1 Tbsp vinegar

4 Tbsp cold water

Mix flour and salt in large bowl. Cut in shortening with pastry cutter or two knives until coarse crumbs are formed. Combine egg with water and vinegar, drizzle over the flour mixture. Mix lightly until flour is all moistened and holds together in a ball. If too soft to roll, cover and chill for a short while.