Key Lime Pie in The Keys

Our amazing vacation to Isla Morada in the Florida Keys was only enhanced by the fact that I was responsible for cooking and cleaning up for only ONE night! (And I have to say, it was a little tempting to order out for pizza on our night!) However, I decided against it and tried to instead embrace the local ingredients and the fact that we had seafood markets and produce stands practically on top of each other for miles and miles. In the end, I decided on a simple dinner of fish tacos and black beans with none other than Key Lime Pie for dessert. With the help of Nellie and Joe's Famous Key Lime Juice and a blender, I whipped up two of these pies in about 10 minutes. Just a few hours later, we were all enjoying a tart and tangy slice. Gotta love Key Lime Pie! So easy and so good!

INGREDIENTS:
9" graham cracker pie crust
14 oz. can of sweetened condensed milk
3 egg yolks (whites not used)
½ cup key lime juice (different than regular Persian Limes)

DIRECTIONS:

Combine milk, egg yolks and lime juice. Blend until smooth. Pour filling into pie crust and bake at 350º for 15 minutes. Allow to stand 10 minutes before refrigerating. Just before serving, top with freshly whipped cream, or meringue, and garnish with lime slices.

Slab Peach Pie.

**I am so sorry about the spacing on this recipe! Blogger is not cooperating!**

This is the best pie I have ever made. Ever. Really, this was good. The crust was crisp, had beautiful layers, and the filling wasn't too sweet. Make this.. please, please make this. This recipe come from Martha Stewart's "Baking Handbook".

Fine specimen's.

I could have just eaten this and been a happy camper.

The beauty..

Slab Pie Pate Brisee: (only Martha would call her pie crust pate brisee)

**A couple of notes. I tried making this without the food processor because I like to do things by hand, but it did not turn out nearly as well! And, if you do not use unsalted butter, leave out some of the salt or it will be too salty.

3 3/4 cups all purpose flour

2 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt

1 1/2 teaspoons sugar

3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) unsalted butter

1/2 cup ice water, plus more if needed

Place the flour, salt and sugar in the bowl of a food processor, and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs, about 10 seconds.

With machine running, pour the ice water through the feed tube in a slow, steady stream, until the dough just holds together when squeezed. If needed, add more ice water 1 tablespoon at a time. Do not process for more than 30 seconds.

Turn out the dough onto a clean work surface. Divide into two pieces, one slightly larger than the other. Form into flattened rectangles. Wrap each in plastic, and refrigerate at least 1 hour or overnight.

Filling:

7 medium peaches (2 3/4 pounds), cut into 1/2 inch pieces (about 8 cups)

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

1/4 cup cornstarch

Juice of 1/2 lemon (about 1 tablespoon)

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons heavy cream (I used half and half)

1/4 cup sanding sugar (or granulated sugar)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the larger piece of dough to an 18-by-13-inch rectangle. Fit into a 15-by10-inch rimmed baking sheet, pressing into corners (pastry will hang over sides). Chill while assembling the filling.

In a large bowl, combine the fruit, granulated sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, and salt. Stir to combine. Spread mixture over the chilled pie shell.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out remaining piece of dough to a 16-by11-inch rectangle; drape over filling. Fold edge of bottom dough over top dough. Pinch edges to seal. Prick the top dough all over with a fork. Brush the entire surface of the pie with the cream, and sprinkle with the sanding sugar.

Bake until the crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbling, 40 to 55 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack, and let the pie cool until it is just warm to the tough, about 45 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature, cut in 12 pieces. Slab pie is best eaten the same day it is baked, but it can be kept at room temperature, loosely covered with plastic warp, for up to 2 days.

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Pie

I found this recipe on Weight Watcher's website. 10 servings and 7 points a piece. It is good enough that your guests won't know it's lite!

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cups reduced fat peanut butter
4oz light cream cheese, softened
4oz fat free cream cheese, softened
12 oz fat-free sweetened condensed milk
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 cup lite whipped topping, thawed if frozen
5 tbsp mini chocolate chips, divided
6oz pie crust

INSTRUCTIONS:
In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat together peanut butter and both types of cream cheese until smooth. Gradually beat in milk and lemon juice; fold in whipped topping and 4 tablespoons of mini chocolate chips.
Spoon peanut butter mixture into prepared pie crust; sprinkle remaining 1 tablespoon of chocolate chips over top. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze until firm, at least 4 hours. Slice into 10 pieces and serve.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

Strawberry-Rhubarb is Jer's favorite pie. I'm not the pie lady though. This wonderfully sweet, amazing lady at our church is. Potlucks, holidays, family get-togethers? Grandma Lori brings the pies. End of story. As for me? I make cookies. And I dabble in other baking things. But pie? No way! Too hard! Too scary! To...crust-y. That is until Thanksgiving. Fixed on having a Gluten Free pie for my sister to eat, I dared to make my own. And GASP! It actually turned out! And it was kinda easy! I've figured since then that if I can make a GF pie crust, I can make a regular one. So I spent some time searching for a Strawberry-Rhubarb recipe and came across Smitten Kitchen's. Her recipe, paired with few tips from the Internet, yielded an incredible finished result. But then again it is strawberries and rhubarb. And really how can you go wrong with that?

DIRECTIONS:
For crust: 3 cups all purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup chilled solid vegetable shortening, cut into pieces
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
10 tablespoons (about) ice water

For filling:
3 1/2 cups 1/2-inch-thick slices trimmed rhubarb (1 1/2 pounds untrimmed)
1 16-ounce container strawberries, hulled, halved (about 3 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons milk (for glaze)

Make crust: Combine flour, sugar and salt in processor (or using pastry cutter). Using on/off turns, cut in shortening and butter until coarse meal forms. Blend in enough ice water 2 tablespoons at a time to form moist clumps. Gather dough into ball; cut in half. Flatten each half into disk. Wrap separately in plastic; refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour.

Make filling: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine first 7 ingredients in large bowl. Toss gently to blend. Allow filling to sit for 3o minutes. Once juices have started to accumulate in bowl transfer to sauce pan and cook over medium heat for 10 minutes. This will allow for the filling to thicken before baking.

Assemble Pie: Roll out 1 dough disk on floured work surface to 13-inch round. Transfer to 9-inch-diameter glass pie dish [er, I used a metal one and it was just fine]. Trim excess dough, leaving 3/4-inch overhang.

Roll out second dough disk on lightly floured surface to 13-inch round. Cut into fourteen 1/2-inch-wide strips. Spoon filling into crust. Arrange 7 dough strips atop filling, spacing evenly. Form lattice by placing remaining dough strips in opposite direction atop filling. Trim ends of dough strips even with overhang of bottom crust. Fold strip ends and overhang under, pressing to seal. Crimp edges decoratively.

Brush glaze over crust. Sprinkle with course sugar. Transfer pie to baking sheet. Bake 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F. Bake pie until golden and filling thickens, about another 40 minutes.