Peaches and Cream Pie

Well the actual recipe I found was "Award WinningPeaches and Cream Pie" by Debbi Borsick, but seeing as how I changed the recipe a little, and I have won no prizes, I didn't think it fair to keep the Award Winning.

Anyways, I had a ton of peaches to deal with (and still have a few more), so what is the first thing you think of when your peaches are getting ripe on you - Peach Pie! I wanted to do something fun with this one, I knew I would get sick of them soon, and who doesn't like peaches and cream. The recipe had some great review and looked easy enough, so I hauled my Hubs to the grocery store and then got cooking.

Now, this is not a traditional pie crust, but I have to say that it is pretty tasty. It isn't what you think of though when you think of traditional peach pie.

Peaches and Cream "Pie"

"Crust"
1 box (non instant) vanilla pudding mix
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 Tbsp butter
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp salt

Filling:
~26 ounces of fresh peaches, pealed and sliced

Topping:
8 ounce block of cream cheese
1/2 cup white sugar
Any juice left from the peaches

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 350F and grease the sides of a 10inch deep pie plate.
2. Mix together the pudding mix, flour, baking powder and salt. Mix in the egg, milk and butter. Beat at medium to high for 2 minutes before pouring into the pie plate.
3. Arrange the peaches over the batter.
4. Cream the cream cheese until fluffly, then add in the sugar and up to 3Tbsp of the peach juice. Spoon this mixture over the peaches.
5. Sprinkle the top with sugar and cinnamon ( I don't know the proportions I used or how much, as I have a premixed shaker in my cupboard I use to top stuff).
6. Bake in the oven for 30-35 mintues until the top is golden.
7. Allow to cool and chill in the fridge slightly before serving.

Review:
Hubs loves this, it is one of the few food that has been called "great" in a while (high praise from the man with no discriminating taste - he will eat pretty much anything). He has not gotten sick of it yet, even though last night he said "I never want to see another peach". When asked if that included this pie - he quickly said that the pie could stay!

It's Peachy

Well, Peach season is upon us, and thankfully I have inlaws living in the okanagan - which means amazing peaches picked and shipped to me. However, I failed to specify the number of peaches I wanted on the last shipment. Boy was I shocked when I went to pick them up (from out trucker friend) and found myself with 4 cases of peaches! Oh and that would be around 80lbs - of fresh peaches, either ripe or well on their way to being ripe.

2 cases were promplty sent to my mother for canning and dehydrating, leaving me with 2 boxes to try and figure out what to do with. So far the list is:

1. A peach and cream pie
2. Freezer pie fillings
3. Fresh peach pie
4. Eating a whole lot of peaches.


If anyone out there has any ideas that do not involve canning or jam ( I do not the equipment or kitchen space) please let me know!

"Mississippi Mud" bars

So I am a major chocoholic and every once in a while I have to give in and bake myself some brownies or something equally full of chocolate. Yesterday as I was killing time at work I came across a recipe for "Mississippi mud bars" on allrecipe.com that had some good reviews, so I thought i would give it a try. After making a couple of changes based on some of the reviews, this is what I came up with:

Ingredients:
1 cup margarine or butter
1/3 cup coco powder
4 eggs
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
1 pkg mini marshmallows

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. In a saucepan over medium low heat, melt the butter or margarine. Then remove from heat.
3. Mix in the coco powder until smooth. Add the eggs, sugar, salt and vanilla. Once the sugar is mixed in add the flour.
4. Fold in the mini marshmallows.
5. Pour into a 9X13 pan (I line mine with parchment paper rather than greasing and it works extremely well).
6. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the brownies pull away from the pan.

The original recipe also had a recipe for a frosting to go on top, but I didn't bother with it. I tend to like my brownies best without a frosting, and these did not disappoint.

Reviews:
Hubby: He loved these brownies and ate almost half a pan when he discovered them!

The Baker: While these aren't what I normally think of when I think Mississippi mud bars (I usually think marshmallows on top), I thought that these were delicious and they satisfied my chocolate craving.

Other: The girls at work also loved these, and the guys were so disappointed that they missed out on getting some that I had to promise to bring more in.

Super Quick and Easy Key Lime Pie

I have been told that I am odd due to a strong aversion to cooked fruit resulting in me not eating pie. However, I do love cream pies and pies that do not include chunks of cooked fruit and at the top of my list is Key Lime. However, I really just do not have the patience for juicing limes in order to actually make to pie. I was excited upon opening an issue of Real Simple to find a quick (and cheater) recipe for making key lime pie. I couldn’t wait to try it, and due to the sweltering heat that has been moving in over the past few days, it would be the perfect dessert.

Ingredients:
1 frozen limade concentrate
1 cup heavy/ whipping cream
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 prepared graham cracker crust.

How to:
1.Mix together the frozen limade concentrate, cream and condensed milk in a bowl and cream with an electric mixer (with a whisk attachment) until it is light an d fluffy, forming soft peaks.
2. Pour the filling into the crust and smooth the top.
3. Refrigerate until chilled and loosely set (4hour to overnight)

For garnish, sprinkle to top with lime zest before surving.

Reviews:
This was a great light and refreshing desert. It has gotten rave reviews from all my coworkers (who managed to polish off 30 tarts in a lunch) and friends who told me they were keeping the leftovers after a BBQ.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars

I was in the mood for something sweet and chocolately, but as the outside temperature was around 33C (and the inside of my little apartment wasn’t much better) turning on the oven to actually bake something was not going to happen. I needed something that would require no heat to make and minimal effort on my part, as I feeling like I was starting melt just sitting on the couch! I managed to come across a recipe for peanut butter bars on allrecipe.com – and a comment saying they tasted just like a Reese peanut butter cup sinched the deal – I needed to make these.

Ingredients:
Base:
½ cup margerine, melted
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
½ cup peanut butter

Topping:
¾ cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 tbsp peanut butter

Directions:
1. In a bowl mix together the margerine, peanut butter, graham cracker crumbs and confectioners sugar until well blended. Pour into and 8x8 pan and press evening into the bottom of the pan.
2. In a double boiler (or a bowl over hot water / a microwave safe bowl) melt the chocolate chips and peanut butter for the topping together. Melt, stiring occationly until smooth.
3. Spread the chocolate over the peanut butter base in the pan and smooth. Refrigerate for at least one hour or until set, before cutting into squares.

Review:
I loved this, but them I am usually a fan of anything involving chocolate and peanut butter. Hubby thought this was great and didn’t want to share. His lucky friends that managed to sneak one from him loved them.
Actually, he ate them all so fast, I wasn't even able to get a picture of them - although that is my fault for not taking the picture before he was able to get his hands on them! Sorry, I will update with a picture as soon as I make these again (tonight maybe?).

Perogie Casserole!

I needed a quick supper one night that I could just through together quickly. I found a bag of perogies in the freezer and remembered a casserole that my friend and old roommate used to make that was great. I knew I had everthing I needed (including a greenpepper in desperate need of being used), but I couldn’t find the recipe – even allrecipe.com yielded no help. Then I stumbled across the recipe on another blog – r2bcluvs2cook. Thank you r2bc for posting this recipe.

Ingredients:
20 perogies (frozen)
1 onion chopped
¼ cup milk
1 tbsp butter
½ cup cooked ham
1 green pepper
1 can cream of mushroom soup
¼ cup shredded chedder cheese

How To:
1. In a skillet sauté the onion and green pepper with the butter for 5 mintues.
2. Combine in a medium sized casserole dish the onion, green pepper, ham and frozen perogies.
3. Mix the milk and cream of mushroom soup together and pour over casserole.
4. Top with the shredded chedder cheese.
5. Bake at 375C for 35 minutes.

Reviews:
I have always loved this casserole and was excited to make it again. I found it to be a little runny as far as casseroles go, but this could be easily fixed by adding a little less milk, or a few more perogies.

Hubby thought this was a great casserole and happily took all the leftovers (oh, and I for once had leftovers, the bottomless pit that is my husband wasn’t able to eat the whole thing in one night, although that may be due to going to a friends place for the evening.)

I am sorry there is no picture, but alas, my camera batteries have died.

Low Fat Cheesecake

After some channel flipping one day I came across a show on the foodnetwork called "Eat Shrink and be Merry", well who wouldn't be intrigued by that title? I decided to watch and found they had some really good ideas for how to lower the fat and calorie content of some of my favourite foods. So while trying to find some of their recipes I discovered they also have a cookbook out, and on their website they have a few sample recipes. I decided to try a recipe before buying the cookbook, and this is the result:


Low Fat Chocolate Cheesecake:
I followed the Eat Shrink and be Merry recipe pretty much exactly.

I used the Betty Crocker Low Fat Brownie mix, and it worked great.

Reviews:
Everyone loved the cheesecake. Hubby happily ate seconds when I told him that I needed to get a picture of piece