Chess Pie

My favorite pie to make recently is Chess Pie. The rumor is that the name comes from someone being asked what kind of pie it was and the reply was it’s Just Pie – which was misunderstood to be Chess Pie…. this pie is really rich. It is mainly made up of eggs and sugar, but I like it once in a while.

Ingredients:

12cupbutter  
2cupssugar  
1tspvanilla
4eggs  
1tspcornmeal  
14cupevaporated milk  
1tbsvinegar  
1pie crust  

425 degrees

Mix the butter, sugar and vanilla together then mix in the eggs, and stir in the cornmeal, evaporated milk and vinegar until smooth.

Bake for 10 minutes in the preheated oven, then reduce heat to 300 degrees F for 40 minutes or until appears solid (doesn’t jiggle). Enjoy! I like mine plain but some people eat with cool whip.

Pie Crust Snacks

Have extra pie crust? I love snacking on pie crust! So it seems like a good way to make a quick snack is to use the pie crust with some butter, brown sugar and cinnamon on top. I rolled mine up and then cut them as spirals and laid them out on a cookie sheet. They taste a little like cinnamon rolls that way, but they were a nice small snack. Making them was super easy! I ended up baking them at 350 degrees for approximately 15 minutes but I checked them at 10 minutes and then at 15. I could see adding a little bit of nuts to them also. I’m sure they could be made to look nicer, but this was just for us to snack on with some leftovers.

Creme Brulee – Oh so simple!

I had some creme that was at the point that I was nervous it would go bad if I ignored it for even one more day. I shook it up and took a drink just to be sure it hadn’t even already passed the point of no return and it was still yummy, so creme brulee seemed the way to go! I’d been wanting to try it, really I want to work through my cookbooks, making all the recipes that look good and then get rid of the cookbooks after picking out the good choices. Cookbooks (and books in general) in our house are taking so much space.

I have to admit that my idea of following a recipe is really to look at it and then use it as a suggestion for what I’m doing. Sometimes it’s that I don’t have the same ingredients (so I substitute) and sometimes I just don’t like the ingredients listed.

This time I had a copy of a recipe from the KitchenAid Cookbook to start with. I used the same ingredients, though I can’t say my measurements were as exact as they might have been following the recipe normally. For baking and then browning the top I went completely off script. All in all my version came out tasting pretty good – even my little one gave it a try!

Recipe

Ingredients:

2 cups Creme
1/4 sugar
4 egg yolks
Extra Sugar for Top

Heat creme on stovetop until it reaches boiling, stirring off and on.
Whisk sugar and egg yolk together, then add heated creme.

Pour mixture into small containers inside casserole dish that is filled with water. Water should be up to half way up sides of small containers. Bake at 300 degrees until firm.

Cool in refrigerator

Add sugar to top and brown with torch or in broiler.

Portabella Mushroom Fries

I love using my airfryer and fried portabella mushroom fries seemed a healthy snack to make over.

To make some portabella mushrooms in the air fryer I first needed to mix up some breading…. I tend to just grab things from the counter, but for this time I used flour, garlic, ranch seasoning, onion salt, pepper. I’m sure I would have added more, but I was just grabbing what was close from the cabinet.
After mixing what I could together for breading, I mixed a couple eggs up too. I’d love to say I whisked two eggs, but really I mixed them with a fork that was close. – I had also bought pre-sliced portabella mushrooms, so that removed that task from the list also.
To be fancy, most people would then dip in the egg and then coat in the flour mixture….. I on the other hand, throw them all in the egg, make sure they are covered and then put them in a zip lock back with the flour mixture. Shake several times.

Heat the air fryer. Mine is the Ninja Foodi, so I just hit the air crisp button and then change the time to 10 minutes. It will preheat and tell me when I can add food. As soon as the add food message appears, I use tongues to take the mushrooms from the ziplock and spread them around the bottom of the air fryer. Finally I spray them with oil. I ordered a spray bottle I filled with oil just to make this easier! I try to make sure I’m not seeing a lot of dry flour before I close the lid.
After about 6 minutes I open the fryer and turn my mushrooms, spraying them with oil one more time. After closing the lid for the final time, the mushrooms should finish cooking.

I’ve used a similar method for frying with breading just about anything I want to cook, varying the amount of time cooked. Yum! (Fried oysters, Chicken, onion petals, and more)

Crab Quiche

Crab Quiche was quick and easy for dinner last night. To make it I first baked some pieces of pie shell in my dish for a few minutes at 400 degrees while throwing ingredients into a bowl.

Ingredients:
3 eggs
Onion chopped
Crab (Imitation worked)
Milk (about 1 cup)
Pepper
Feta Cheese

I mixed all the ingredients together then pulled the pan out of the oven and added the mix on top of the pie crust. Then I baked approximately 45 minutes at 375 degrees. Yum!

The amount I made was just enough for the three of us with no left overs. It wasn’t a large container of crab…. We will definitely make it again.