Peanut Butter Pie with Pretzel Crust

It's time again for  Secret Recipe Club (Secret Recipe Club) reveal!  My secret blog assignment this month was Micha's blog Cookin' Mimi.  Micha has loved cooking since she was a teenager and focuses on creating and sharing easy recipes that not only taste good but are pleasing to the family budget.  My philosophy exactly!  I think we're going to get along splendidly.  Her blog has so many recipes to choose from.  Here are just a few I thought looked amazing:

• Smothered Beef Burritos
• Roasted Cabbage
• Buffalo Chicken Salad
• Southwestern Beef & Black Bean Bake
• Cinnamon Pecan Biscuit Twists

It was the pretzel crust that sold me on this one.  That, and one of my fathers-in-law (Fred) loves peanut butter pie, so I'm always looking for that perfect recipe.  This might be the one!

Peanut Butter Pie with Pretzel Crust
from Cookin' Mimi

Ingredients
For the crust:

• 1-1/2 cups pretzel crumbs (about 80 mini twist pretzels)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, melted

For the pie:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup unbleached flour
•  1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1-1/2 cups milk
• 3 eggs yolks, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup peanut butter

Instructions
For the crust:

1. Preheat oven to 375° F
2. In medium saucepan, melt 1/2 cup butter, then stir in pretzel crumbs and sugar.  Press into 9" pie plate
3. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until browned around the edges. Let cool completely on a wire rack before use.

For the pie:

1. Melt 1/2 cup butter in the saucepan; mix in sugar, flour, and salt, then add milk.  Cook over medium heat, stirring, until bubbles start to form around edges.
2. Beat egg yolks in a small bowl.  Slowly add 1/2 cup or so of the hot milk mixture to egg yolks, stirring the whole time.  Add egg yolk mixture to saucepan and continue cooking, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens.
3. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and peanut butter.
4. Pour into pie crust. Let cool to room temperature and then refrigerate until well chilled.
5. Serve with whipped cream and a drizzle of chocolate syrup.

I tried using a zipper bag and rolling pin to make my pretzels into crumbs, but I ended up with salt and crumbs everywhere!  So I used my Ninja Master Prep, and that worked perfectly. (affiliate link)

So many peanut butter pie recipes don't really call for much peanut butter, but this one has a whole cup, and it is full of peanut butter flavor.  It's a really rich and creamy pie, so a small piece is all you really need.  At least it's all I need.  My guys would be happy with bigger pieces, but smaller pieces mean the pie lasts longer, right? 

A dollop of whipped cream - ours came from a can - and a drizzle of chocolate syrup, because peanut butter needs some chocolate, and this pie is amazing.  I also took some of the crumbs left in the pie plate and sprinkled them on top, because they just looked pretty.

An InLinkz Link-up

How to Cook Your Holiday Dinner without an Oven

Two days before Thanksgiving my oven quit.  Definitely not good timing - as if any time is a good time for the oven to quit.

I had plans for Wednesday, plans that involved lots of baking.  I was going to cook the turkey in my roaster oven while I used the oven to bake pies and rolls.  Without a working oven, those plans changed.  Thankfully I had already baked a pie on Tuesday afternoon, before the oven quit, so I only had two more to bake.  And the rolls, and - well, the oven plays a very important part in fixing any big family dinner.  How do you cook everything without an oven?



Use the roaster oven!  Yep, that's right, those pies and rolls can be baked in the roaster oven.  It's not just for turkeys and big pots of chili.  Preheat the roaster with the rack, then place the unbaked pie on the rack and bake.  Do not remove the lid to check it, because that will let the heat out - at least until the designated baking time is up.  I found that my pies needed more time in the roaster than in the regular oven, so next time I will just bake them longer before I check on them. 

German Chocolate Pie

You may also need to adjust your baking times, but try the regular recipe time first.  An advantage to knowing you can bake in your roaster oven?  You can use it in the summer time when you want to bake, and you don't want to heat up your whole kitchen!

I baked my pies and my turkey in the roaster oven.  It took longer because I couldn't do it all at the same time - one pie at a time and then the turkey - but I did get it done.  Instead of baking the rolls on Wednesday like I'd planned, I mixed them up and formed them into rolls after letting them raise the first time, and then I covered them and refrigerated them overnight.  The next day I pulled them out of the fridge and let them warm up and raise (about 1-1/2 hours), and then I baked them in the roaster oven.


Use crock pots!  Another option for cooking that holiday dinner without an oven is to use crock pots - in addition to the roaster oven.  I bought a triple crock pot last year, and that thing really came in handy.  I mixed up my dressing, and instead of baking it in the oven like I would normally have done, I greased a crock pot (actually I needed 2 of them), spooned the uncooked dressing in, and cooked it on high for about 4 hours.  It turned out great.  Same thing with my sweet potatoes.  I boiled them first, then peeled and sliced them, and layered them into another greased crock with a butter and brown sugar syrup.  Again, normally I would have put the sweet potatoes into a casserole dish and baked them, but they turned out just fine in the crock pot.  Yummy!

The mashed potatoes were, of course, boiled on top of the stove, and I made the gravy on the stove, too - as usual.  I warmed the turkey in the roaster oven the same way I would have done it in the oven - put some of the sliced turkey in a 13x9 cake pan, add some broth to keep it moist, cover with foil.  The hardest part was getting the pan of turkey out of the roaster oven without burning myself when it was time to eat, but I managed.

Yes, it would have been easier to cook Thanksgiving dinner if I'd had the use of my oven, but everything still turned out great.  It just took a little extra planning and time.

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German Chocolate Pie

This is Jeffrey's favorite pie. I got the recipe from his mom. He says I don't make it often enough, but I figure it's more special if he doesn't get it all the time, right?

German Chocolate Pie

Ingredients:

• 1 pkg. (4 oz.) Baker's German sweet chocolate
• 1/4 c. butter
• 1-2/3 c. (14 1/2 oz. can) evaporated milk
• 1-1/2 c. sugar
• 3 tbsp. cornstarch
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1-1/3 c. angel flake coconut
• 1/2 c. chopped pecans
• 1 unbaked pie shell, fluted high

Directions:

1. Melt German chocolate and butter in saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in evaporated milk.
2. In bowl, mix with electric mixer: sugar, cornstarch, salt, eggs, and vanilla. Gradually blend in chocolate mixture.
3. Pour into unbaked pie shell and top with mixture of coconut and pecans.
4. Bake at 375° for 45 minutes, then cover with foil to stop browning and bake another 15 minutes.
5. Remove from oven and cool at least 4 hours before cutting or refrigerating.
6. Enjoy!

and I'm not giving away Mom's secret recipe, because I found (almost) the same recipe online at Cooks.com. You'll want to cut this pie into fairly small pieces because it is so rich.

• Print this recipe

Coconut Custard Pie

INGREDIENTS

• 1 (9 inch) pie shell
• 4 eggs
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups milk
• 1 cup shredded coconut

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl beat eggs then stir in sugar, salt, nutmeg or cinnamon, and vanilla extract.
3. Heat milk in a small saucepan then pour milk slowly into egg mixture, whisking constantly. Stir in coconut, then pour mixture into pastry shell.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Serve slightly warm or chilled. Store in refrigerator.

Source: allrecipes

It didn't seem to be set at all at 30 minutes, so I baked it for an additional 10 minutes. It looks good and smells good, but I haven't gotten to taste it yet.