My pie melted in the freezer!

I am not even kidding here. I spent way to much time on this thing for my beautiful whipped cream dollops to just ...just melt!!

I found myself complaining (isn't this where so much trouble begins?) about a jar of peanut butter and how oily it seemed and then went on to say I thought it might be good to make up a batch of my peanut butter bars (this is quick and I can practically do it in my sleep and they always get rave reviews) to use it up quicker. However, my completely and totally deprived husband says "How about a peanut butter pie" . I'm thinking now this is probably something his mother made (my MIL is a fabulous pie maker BTW) and mine would be nothing like it and why would I want to do this and I would definitly need to go get some ingredient . . .on and on it went in my head...but all that came out of my mouth was something like "are you crazy? have you no idea what you ask?" Well, I do love the man, I just do not love cooking anything that takes to much time or effort unless I get to show it off (oh dear, downfall number 2- pride).

So, yup, after dinner, I put the little one in his arms with a bottle and said I'll be back. I googled a few recipes and came up with pie filling and crust recipe that looked straight forward enough.

Now mind you, I simply can not follow a recipe as it is written. There are many reasons for this. Sometimes I just don't read it right! oopps!
Sometimes I am clueless as to what an ingredient is.
Sometimes I simply do not have time and take shortcuts. (this worked great more than once and now we have a few new casserole recipes, if I could just remember what I did!)
Sometimes I just don't have all the ingredients and I substitute (um-hm, you know what's coming) . This can be either disaster-ish or quite brilliant.

Tonight I decided that a peanut butter pie should definitly have a chocolate crust and surely I had just the thing. A bag of on sale Mickey Mouse chocolate graham crackers. Just enough for 2 cups finely chopped. I quickly hid the bag in the trash before anyone could moan about the tragedy Mickey had faced. Then said peanut butter was crunchy not creamy as it was suppose to be for crust, oh well. And wa-la. The perfect crust! Oh and I forgot it should have gone in a 9 inch pie plate , I put it in 8 inch. So nice thick chocolate crust. I'm tasting it already. Except it was suppose to freeze for one full hour before I filled it. . .bother. It was already almost 9pm by now.

On to the filling. Whipping cream? Surely not. That stuff in the can you top ice cream with would be fine. (substitution #1) Yup, it says whipping cream on the can. Now my brain does work and all the time I'm workiing on this I'm thinking about how it will come out, if my substitutions will work, blah, blah, blah. Hey, this filling really looks great! Now I'm suppose to fill the crust, top it with more "whipping cream" , and freeze for two more hours! oh dear. I decided to make my whipping cream (hey! there were 2 1/2 cans in the fridge, I do shop at warehouses with this crew) look pretty. I dolloped it on in an ornate and oh so nice looking pattern and showed hubby before I put it in the freezer.

For the next hour, my 3 year old won't stop asking when he can have pie with Daddy. (why isn't this child in bed yet?) Then hubby starts asking when it will be done. I decide an hour surely is enough. uh, not. I open the freezer door and low and behold my pretty whipped cream dollops have melted! I am shocked! I think cry or laugh? (actually what I think is thank God this wasn't for company!) And ever logical reasonable hubby says, yeah, that's what that stuff always does on top of strawberries too? But in the freezer? So I'm thinking oh well, it'll eat. I pull it out to cut a piece and the whole thing is still like pudding! Now I'm worried, I had added that can stuff to the filling as well. hhmm. Better let it freeze some more.

Emory goes to bed crying for pie which he will eat for breakfast tommorow no doubt. Finally at midnight I cut a piece for hubby and he proclaims it good.

You know, those frozen pies in the WalMart freezer section that say just "thaw and eat" for $2.99?? Don't you think they taste nearly as good as the 4 hour homemade version that looks not so fancy by this time? Yeah, me too.

And my 13 and 11 year olds? Mom can you still make those peanut butter bars?

Gotta love 'em.