Dorothy's Chocolate Meringue Pie

Over Easter, I was on a baking roll! (pardon the pun.) I got this recipe from a dear friend of my in-laws'. She is known far and wide as a pie maker. Everytime she comes to see my boys, she brings a homemade banana meringue pie because that is my boys' favorite. Dorothy grew up in a very large family, and her job was to make the pies for the family as a young girl. I sat and picked her brain before Easter, and this is the recipe she gave me. I made it and it turned out WONDERFULLY! Not quite at pretty as hers, but just as tasty. I need to practice on the pretty part. This recipe makes 1 pie.

Crust:

1/2 stick of crisco

1 cup of flour

Dash of salt

2 Tbsp of sugar

3 to 5 Tbsp of ice water

Mix the flour, salt and sugar together in a small bowl. Cut in the crisco and add the ice water. Roll out crust and put it in your pie plate. Poke holes in the bottom of the crust to keep it from bubbling up. Bake at 350 degrees for abotu 20 minutes until lightly brown.

Pie Filling:

3 Tbsp. of cocoa

Dash of salt
1 C. of sugar

1/4 C. of flour

2 C. of milk

3 egg yolks, beaten (save the whites for the meringue ... leave at room temperature)

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 stick of butter, cut up

Mix all of the ingredients in a pan (if you have a double boiler, you can use this, but I just used my hard anodized pot) adding the butter last. Continually stir it until it comes to a boil and bubbles. Turn the heat down, continually stirring it, until the mixture thickens up like pudding. If you are using an electric cooktop, you may want to remove the pan from the burner while you stir the mixture and it thickens ... I'm used to cooking on gas which I like much better, but for the time being, we are in a house with electric burners and it is taking some getting used to.

Pour the hot mixture in the baked pie shell.

Meringue:

With your mixer (stand mixers are best for this), beat three egg whites, 2/3 cups of sugar, 1 tsp. of vanilla, and 2 tsp. of cream of tartar. Beat it until it forms stiff peaks. Smooth the meringue on top of the warm pie filling, smoothing it all the way to the edge of the crust to prevent shrinking. Bake in a 400 degree oven for about 8 to 12 minutes ... watching to make sure you don't burn it but that the peaks are delicate brown.

A BIG thank you to the anonymous poster who asked how much sugar was needed in the filling!!! I forgot to put that ... I surely hope no one tried to make this without the sugar. I would feel TERRIBLE! My sweet mother-in-law made a pumpkin pie one year and forgot the sugar ... not so good ... actually pretty AWFUL. Anyway, a big thanks to the commenter who noticed!

Cool Lemon Pie

Because it has been so darn hot in Texas the past couple of days, I offer this cool, refreshing dessert. It is one of my favorite pies ever. It is also super easy and no baking is required ... meaning you don't have to turn the oven on and heat up the house when it is 105 degrees outside! It comes from Weight Watchers Quick, Light and Healthy cookbook, and if you are counting points, it is 5 points for 1/10 of the pie ... not a lot of pie, but yummy.

NOTE: Serve this pie right out of the freezer. If you let is set out before you serve it, it will be too soft ... still delicious but it doesn't look as pretty glopped on the plate instead of nice and firm in a perfect pie triangle.

Ingredients

1 (14oz) can fat-free sweetened condensed milk

1 (6oz) can frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed and undiluted (I can't find 6 oz. cans here, so I just get the bigger can and use have and freeze the other half for later)

1 1/2 cups frozen reduced-calorie whipped topping, thawed

1 (6oz) reduced-fat graham cracker crust

Combine Sweetened condensed milk and lemonade concentrate; fold in whipped topping. Pour mixture into crust. Cover and freeze 8 hours or overnight. Cut pie into 10 equal slices.

Yields: 10 servings

Also, be sure to check out Shannon's recipe blog! She is a dear friend who is one of the best cooks I know! Her desserts are her specialty I think ... or maybe I just really like sweets. Anyway, be sure to check it out. Here's the link: A Dash of This and a Pinch of That