Chocolate Silk Pie

Earlier this week I posted a recipe for an easy pie crust. And that pie crust is for this delicious chocolate silk pie. Yeah, it was pretty good! So, I'll just go ahead and get right to the recipe.

Chocolate Silk Pie

Printer-Friendly Recipe

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (Hershey's Dark Chocolate would work well)

3 eggs

2/3 cup evaporated milk

1 stick unsalted butter, melted

1 tsp vanilla

1 unbaked (9 inch) deep-dish pie crust (frozen pie crusts would work just fine)

whipped topping (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place ungreased baking sheet in oven to preheat.

Place sugar and cocoa powder in large mixing bowl. Stir until just combined. Gradually add eggs, evaporated milk, melted butter and vanilla. Mix until blended, about 1 minute. Scrape bowl and mix again, whip until smooth and slightly thickened, about 2 minutes.

Pour into prepared crust. Place pie plate on baking sheet in oven and bake for 55-60 minutes OR until center puffs up and pie has set.

Cool completely on a wire rack. Garnish with whipped topping, if desired.

Enjoy!

I doubled this recipe and froze the second pie after it completely cooled. I'm saving it to take for a Super Bowl party tomorrow.

I baked both in the oven at the same time and upped the time to about 70 minutes. I did start out at 55 minutes, as every oven is different and checked the pies every 5-6 minutes. I felt like the pie didn't set in the middle when I was looking in the oven, but as it cooled, it did and it wasn't mushy or runny in the middle. It was a little warm when it was served and it was perfect!

It was a very chocolaty pie and good. And the whipped topping made it better. The crust was amazing and it was a very pretty pie. I hope you enjoy!

Friday Favorite Finds

SnoWhite over in Joy in my Kitchen is doing a linky on your favorite recipes. Go join the fun! I am!!!

Here are my favorite recipes I want to try soon!

Breakfast Items in the crockpot

A Year of Slow Cooking

Giant Breakfast Cookies

Heavenly Homemakers

Italian Chicken Subs

Food Plus Heat

Cajun Chicken Noodle Soup

Cooking During Stolen Moments

Dutch Oven Chicken and Brown Rice

Food Plus Heat

Homemade Applesauce

Frugal and Simple

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip

What Meghan's Making

This post is linked to Joy in my Kitchen's Friday Favorites.

Easy Pie Crust

I love to bake... obviously from my recipe index!

Recently an old friend on my mom's came into town so I brought a dessert to the dinner party. The dessert was Chocolate Silk Pie and it was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! The homemade pie crust was just as good. I love a good crust on a good pie. In my opinion, if the crust is no good, the pie is ruined. So here's my recipes for an easy pie crust.

Easy Pie Crust-from Kitchenaid

Printer-Friendly Recipe

2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup shortening, well chilled

2 Tbsp butter, well chilled

5-8 Tbsp cold water

Place flour and salt in large mixer with paddle attachment, mix about 2 seconds. Cut in shortening and butter and mix until the mixture is the size of peas.

While the mixer is going, add water 1 Tbsp at a time, until moistened and begins to resemble dough (it won't quite come together like a ball, but close enough).

Divide dough in half, wrap in plastic wrap and chill 15-30 minutes.

Roll one half to 1/8 inch thickness, roll onto pastry roller and unroll into ungreased 8 or 9 inch pie plate. Pour in pie filling and if recipe calls for 2 crusts, repeat above step and place on top of filled pie. If recipe is only for 1 crust, wrap other crust well and freeze. (I doubled the recipe I was doing so I made 2 pies, baked as directed and cooled completely, wrapped well with clear wrap and froze. It was just great.)

After you've rolled your pie crust and filled it with desired filling, bake as directed by recipe you are using until golden brown. Enjoy!

Menu Plan Monday-January 31

I don't know about y'all but I'm wore slap out (as my Grandmama would say) from a busy weekend! :)

Friday, Nyla and I met up with my Mom at the mall to walk around and talk. Saturday, Daniel, Nyla and I took advantage of one of our Christmas gifts and went to The Memphis Zoo (1 year membership) and were there for a good bit of the morning. Saturday evening an old friend of my Mom's came in town, so we had dinner out there. Then Sunday, we went to church in the morning and had a fellowship meal at church Sunday night! Whew, I'm tired!

This weekend isn't much different. Saturday night we have plans with our Sunday School class to go to dinner at Spaghetti Warehouse. Daniel and I are taking advantage and using it is our monthly date night, so no sweet baby Nyla that night. And Sunday evening is our annual Souper Bowl party. Yes, you read that right, it says SOUPer Bowl. We bring a soup to share and then hang out and watch the game. It's always good times. I'm very excited about the soup I'll be making. I will make sure and take a picture and post the recipe. It is super delicious!

You'll also see leftovers galore on our menu this week. Our freezer has decided it's going out of commission... again (it did this a few months ago, we got it fixed, but it's not cooperating)! Thankfully, we have a deep freezer, but it's pretty well stocked, so all my uncooked meats, vegetables and Nyla's homemade baby foods were the only food items able to fit in there. Unfortunately, my convenience meals are stuck in the freezer that's dying. So, we'll be eating on them a lot this week.

Here's our menu:

January 31-February 6

Bbq chicken, rice and vegetables

Pork loin with potato fries and vegetables

Bbq chicken pizza (a family favorite)

Leftovers-convenience meals

Leftovers-convenience meals

Leftovers-Cheesy Chicken Rotini

Spaghetti Warehouse, Saturday night with S.S. class

Unfortunately, because of our dumb freezer, I won't be trying any new recipes, that makes me sad. But hopefully soon again. I'll still be posting a couple of recipes in the next couple of weeks, desserts and appetizers!

Have a great week!

Living with Less

I love the blog Frugal and Simple. I love that R and her sweet family love living simply and not get bogged down in all the "stuff." Her blog is a constant reminder that you can live a happy life with little. Her blogs encourage me to purge more than usual and get rid of the clutter in my life and house. If you haven't checked out her blog, head on over there. You will be encouraged by her and her sweet family. They love the Lord, save for their future and aren't surrounded by clutter. It's refreshing, when in other cases, the whole world is telling us we need this, this and this to be happy. Well I don't think so and it's nice to have others who feel the same way.

Some of my goals for 2011 include de-cluttering and purging of unused items. I'm not one to keep a bunch of items around, I'm good about through my clothes every 3-6 months, books, etc. I don't like a bunch of knick-knacks sitting around, it's more for me to move around when I have to dust. I don't like picking up a bunch of stuff that we don't need in our lives. If I have to pick up all day long, then I don't vacuum, dust, etc, because I'm tired from all the picking up I just did. It's annoying! So as January is almost over and I feel like I haven't de-cluttered much, that's what I'm spending this week doing, de-cluttering.

We recently added a new addition, sweet Nyla, and she comes with a lot of stuff. But we've really tried to not have an overabundance of baby stuff, we don't feel its needed. We don't buy into all the "stuff" they say babies need now. So today I went through her closet and her stuff and now I have a pile that needs to go to Goodwill. A great start for her stuff!

Yesterday I went through my cookbooks and found about 8 that I've used once or never, they are stacked by the door to leave the house.

Tomorrow I'll go through all the books on our bookshelves. We love to read and our collection shows it! But, why do I need so many books when I have a local library where I can check books out for free?! And Daniel has an IPad, with the Kindle app, so we can buy books (or get some for free) for that and save them there, instead of piling more books on the bookshelves.

Next week, I have plans to clean out the 3rd bedroom closet. It's full of craft supplies, puppet ministry books, Daniel's paint supplies, personalized card packs I never sold, my Mary Kay products for my business and so much more. It needs a good cleaning for sure! It's on my to-do list because it has become a catch-all and it's awful. Every time I walk in there it makes me mad! That is the next big space to be de-cluttered and organized:)

And then, we have a storage closet off of our carport, oh my! It needs de-cluttering for sure. That will wait until the Spring when it's a bit warmer.

I want to live with less. I can't take it all with me, so why do I need it now? And a lot of it, I rarely look at. My rule with clothes, if I haven't worn it in 6 months, I probably won't wear it. I need to do that with all our stuff. If I haven't opened a drawer containing that item or used whatever it is I'm looking at in 6 months to a year, it's time to give it to someone who may appreciate it more than I do.

What do you want to de-clutter in 2011?

How are you making steps to get there?

What areas do you need help to de-clutter?

Menu Plan Monday-January 24

We've been enjoying some good food in our house the last couple of weeks. I just love that menu planning keeps me on track to keep cooking. We know we'll have a nice hot meal each week and that is a HUGE blessing.

I'm making a new recipe this week, the beef enchilada soup. I can't wait to try it, I know it'll be delicious! I think we're in for some more cold weather, so this will be great to keep us warm.

I'm still planning 7 meals a week; 5 weeknight/weekend dinners and 2 weekend lunches.

Have a great week! Are you trying anything new this week?

January 24-January 30

Pizza

Wheat-Blueberry Pancakes, eggs and bacon

Chicken Vegetable Marinara

Beef Enchilada Soup-from Lynn's Kitchen Adventures... I can't wait to try it!

Velvetta Cheesy Chicken Rotini

Homemade chicken tenders, waffle fries (from Angel Food Ministries) and vegetables

Leftovers

This post is linked to I'm an Organizing Junkie.

California-Style Barbecue Chicken Pizza

We LOVE pizza in this house!

Let me rephrase... We are CRAZY about pizza in this house! We eat it for lunch or dinner at least once a week. It is pure deliciousness, in our opinion. Since we eat it so much, I'm always on the hunt for new pizza recipes. Well, I've found my new favorite one (at least for now)!

It's from Kraft foods. This is one of my favorite sites and it made me happy to see this wonderful pizza recipe. It's California-Style barbecue chicken pizza. And it's great. And easy. I'm all about easy these days!

I tweaked it suit it to our needs and will even do some different things the next time I make it, which will probably be this weekend. :)

The measurements for this recipe are personal preference. It depends on how much meat, cheese, veggies, etc you want on your pizza. Make it to your tastes. I'm not one to create recipes, but on pizza I know how much of what I like, so I feel comfortable eye-balling the ingredients.

California-Style Barbecue Chicken Pizza- modified from Kraft foods

Printer-Friendly Recipe

Ingredients:

-cooked, shredded chicken (I always have in the freezer my shredded chicken I make from crock pot chicken, so I just use that). I probably used 1/2 cup-1 cup of chicken

-red bell pepper, green bell pepper and yellow bell pepper slices, sliced or minced; I use 1/4 each of the bell peppers

-1/2-1 red onion, sliced or minced

-try our homemade bbq sauce and use 1/4 cup to 1/3 cup on the pizza, spread it just like marinara sauce

-1-1/2 cup mozzarella cheese or cheese or your choice

-pizza crust; homemade or store bought (I made my bread maker pizza dough, then my bread maker died, so I mixed it in my stand mixer and let it rise 1-2 hours, then cut it in thirds and used one of those thirds, this made a thinner crust; we're all about the thin crust in this house).

Directions:

1. Make pizza dough, if homemade, roll out to right consistency for you. Store bought works fine too!

2. Spread bbq sauce on top of sauce just as you would marinara and sprinkle with desired amount of chicken.

3. Place veggies, chicken and cheese on pizza.

4. Bake at 450 degrees F for 8-15 minutes, as every oven is different. I started mine at 8 minutes, took it OFF the pizza pan placing the pizza right on the oven rack for another 5-6 minutes, until cheese was bubbly and crust was brown and crunchy.

5. Cool a bit, cut and enjoy! It's awesome!

Freezer friendly:
Before adding toppings place crust on a cookie sheet, top with ingredients and freeze for 1 hour or overnight. Wrap in plastic wrap. When ready to eat bake just as you would a frozen pizza. Leave frozen while oven preheats and bake as directed. Depending on your oven depends on how long it will bake. We do this all the time. I'll make a batch of dough and we'll make 3 pizza's for the freezer. These are easy to pull out when you need a quick meal!