Wine Pie

Oh, dear blog, how I've missed you. I have no good excuse for why I've been away (except maybe Candy Crush Saga). As I was scrolling back through pictures in my "Cooking Blog" photo folder, I saw these and giggled and thought it would be perfect, albeit probably not very helpful or interesting or even entertaining to anyone except Jen.

In 2011 Jen and her family came and celebrated Thanksgiving with my family at my mom's house. It was a blast. This past Thanksgiving it turned out her family was going to be alone again, so they joined us for 2012 Thanksgiving as well. We were both taking a side dish and pie. Neither of us are bakers, and the husband had plans to go out with a friend the night before Thanksgiving, so Jen came over here and we threw back a few bottles of wine and made our pies together. I don't remember what hers was...something with pudding maybe? At some point (maybe because I had an extra crust?) we had the idea to make a pie with random ingredients and see how it turned out. Wine Pie was born.

We started with taking any potential pie ingredients out of my pantry, fridge, and freezer. I'm not sure if the Goldfish were out as a consideration or had been left out after my kids had a snack. And maybe Jen's pie was pumpkin of some sort, hence the opened can of pumpkin.



We systematically went through the ingredients to figured out what was realistic to use and what wasn't. By process of elimination, this is what we ended up with. Cool Whip, Nutella, Bananas, Puffins cereal, Teddy Grahams, chocolate chips, pudding mix, Cookie Butter (although I don't see it in this picture), almonds, a Toblerone bar. I think that was it. Oh, I think we dug through my kids' Halloween candy buckets, too.



Now, how to proceed. A layer of cookie butter spread on the crust. By the way, if you haven't tried Cookie Butter, I'm really torn on whether or not to advise you to try it. Crack in a Jar is what it could easily be called. My brother bought it when he was here for Boy #2's birthday, and we all ate it by the spoonful. And it's vegan! Or at least I assume it is because my brother is vegan. It's the consistency of peanut butter but tastes like cookies.



Cookie Butter was topped with another crack-like ingredient, Nutella.



Lovely Jen layering on some bananas. The bananas were a delicious addition to Wine Pie, but the husband and I had to run to the store the next morning to get some for fuel before a seven mile run. Oops. We were a couple bottles deep at this point.







Next: vanilla pudding.



Topped with Cool Whip...because what's a pie without Cool Whip on top?



And to really show off how drunk we were, the toppings. Mini chocolate chips, sliced almonds, crumbled Puffins cereal and Teddy Grahams, and to make it really festive: candy corns.



So, the verdict? This pie was AWESOME. Seriously, it was so good!! So don't let the lack of an official recipe for something hinder your kitchen creativeness. Great things can come from randomly combining ingredients you have on hand!

And the last picture...the pie after having been cut into on Thanksgiving:

Red Velvet Poke Cake

I may be in the minority here, but I had never heard of a poke cake before. The husband LOVES red velvet cake, so when I saw this on Pinterest I figured it was worth a try. And it sounded super easy, which I totally dig when it comes to making desserts. My desserts board on Pinterest is pretty ridiculous, considering I don't like to bake. When I just went to get the link for it, I saw it contains 287 pins. See? Ridiculous.

I had wanted to make this for a bible study party we had a few weeks ago, but I wasn't going to have enough time. We were out at my mom's for the day, and I did my grocery shopping out there. By the time we'd get home from her house I knew there wasn't enough time for it to set. But, then we had another bible study party a few weeks later (hey, we're a fun group! Wednesday nights at my house if you're interested!) and I figured I could make it for that.

Red Velvet Poke Cake
Source: Adapted from The Country Cook via Pinterest.com

1 box Red Velvet cake mix
ingredients needed to make cake (eggs, oil & water)
2 (3.4 oz.) boxes instant Cheesecake-flavored pudding
4 cups milk
1 (8 oz.) tub frozen whipped topping, thawed

Prepare cake mix according to package directions for a 9x13 cake. Once cake comes out of the oven, allow it to cool for just a couple of minutes. Then, with a wooden spoon handle or some other similarly-sized object, begin poking holes in the warm cake.

You want the holes to be fairly big so that the pudding has plenty of room to get down in there. Be sure to poke right down to the bottom of the cake.

In a medium bowl, prepare instant pudding. Whisk together pudding mix with 4 cups of milk. Whisk until all the lumps are gone. Pour pudding over cake. Taking care to get right into the holes as much as possible. Spread it all out and using the back of the spoon, gently push pudding down into the holes. Put the cake into the fridge to set and cool (about 2 hours). If you have anything hanging out in your fridge that is stinky, be sure to cover your cake.

Once your cake has completely cooled, spread on whipped topping. Spread it out evenly over the pudding layer.

This cake needs to be kept refrigerated.

*****

The original recipe called for crushed Oreos on top, but I've never had Oreos on red velvet cake, so I left them off. Plus having Oreos in my house would be a very dangerous thing. And I just don't buy junk food like that, even though I do love them. Anyway, it also took me a few minutes to find the cheesecake pudding. At my grocery store, it was down on the bottom shelf with cheesecake making kits instead of with the puddings. Same section, just not with the other pudding, if that makes sense. Just trying to save you the hassle of having a minor freakout that you can't find the right pudding and what kind should you use instead. :) I'm nothing if not helpful.

This cake was DELICIOUS. It was a huge hit at our bible study party, and there was not a whole lot left, which was a good thing considering how delicious it was. In fact, Boy #2 tried to grab a chunk out of the pan with his hand. Thankfully one of our friends was there to witness it and stopped him. Sheesh...it's like he's related to me or something. The husband and I may have taken a fork to what was left in the pan the next day. Maybe. There's no proof that we did or did not do that. This was a super easy and super tasty cake to make...it's one I will definitely make again!

Peanut Butter Cream Pie

I was so impressed with myself for getting those three recipes posted in one day and then never got around to posting the fourth. Sigh. So here it is. It's from a random baking cookbook I got at Costco something like nine years ago. It has awesome recipes in it. I haven't made anything from it that's been bad. Just wait until I make my special brownies sometime. Not that kind of special!! I think I first made this pie for Easter dinner with my friend Gina and her husband Mike. It was awesome. I kind of forget about it, so when I make it it's a huge treat.

Peanut Butter Cream Pie
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
1 baked 9-inch pie crust
1 cup milk
1 cup sour cream
1 package (4-serving size) instant French Vanilla pudding mix
5 peanut butter candy cups, divided
2 cups thawed Cool Whip

Combine peanut butter and powdered sugar with fork in medium bowl. Place evenly in bottom of pie crust. Place milk and sour cream in large bowl. Add pudding mix. Beat with wire whisk or electric beater 1 to 2 minutes or until thickened. Pour half of filling over peanut butter mixture. Coarsely chop 4 candy cups; sprinkle over filling. Top with remaining filling. Spread Cool Whip over filling. Cut remaining peanut butter cup into 8 pieces; place on top of pie. Refrigerate until ready to serve.