Sunday(Monday) S'mores: S'mores Mud Pie



Does anyone else see the face? It amuses me.

 It's Sunday S'mores! On a Monday. Thought I would shake things up a bit. Okay, actually this is not what I was going to post for this week's Sunday S'mores. It was supposed to be a brownie s'mores pie with a layer of ooey-gooey toasted marshmallows on top. But this weekend was the annual family barbecue at my Uncle Hugo's house in Brooklyn and I made lemon cookies for Aunt Ida and pasta salad and we went and played volleyball in the pool and ate copious amounts of Aunt Sophie's potato pie and bet on the kids racing horses...

Not real horses. Wooden horses. See there are six of them, and the back patio is made up of all these blocks, so we roll three dice and the horses that are chosen move up a block. And then there are hurdles (brooms, or Bella the dog as she generally chooses to lie down in the middle of the "racetrack") that you need a double to get over. And we bet in quarters and Kevin does the odds...

It's one of those traditions that loses something in the translation.

So this weekend was kind of busy, and a little emotionally wrought as it was the first real family gathering without my grandmother, and I hadn't had anything planned for Sunday S'mores come Sunday. I was going through my cookbooks and came across a recipe that I would have sworn would be a sure bet. It was a brownie pie from a Betty Crocker cookbook. Simple recipe, basic ingredients, I'd just swap out a graham cracker crust for the pastry one, and broil some marshmallows on top. Easy-peasy, right?

Wrong

If you follow me on Facebook, then you already know that the recipe had far too much batter for the regular 9 inch pie plate it called for. But my troubles started before that. I first made way too much graham cracker crust (not the worst problem, but I should have been wary after that). I'm not much of a nut fan, so I added two cups of chocolate chips rather than the one cup plus one cup chopped nuts and immediately saw that it was far too much, which only exacerbated the excess batter problem. Then, as I was dishing the batter into the plate, I saw that I had done a crap job of mixing in the flour; there was maybe 1/2 cup of dry flour at the bottom of the mixing bowl. I tried to hurriedly mix it in to the remaining batter, which is probably why I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have to how much I was dishing out.

Not one to be discouraged, I placed it in the oven, and half an hour in to the 45-60 minute cooktime, the smoke alarm started blaring because the pie had overflowed and batter was burning on the bottom of the oven.

So brownie pie=epic fail.

But I had the extra graham cracker crust, so I figured I would persevere. Just, not with anything baked, because I had to wait for the oven to cool so I could scrub off the burned batter. So I thought, how about a marshmallow mouse pie? Toasted marshmallows, whipped with whipping cream and vanilla, fold in some chocolate shavings and drizzle with chocolate. Except I only had half a bag of marshmallows, and that didn't make enough for a pie (you'll notice in the recipe that I tell you to use a full bag; that's because the marshmallow layer was still a bit thin for me).

Then I remembered that I had some chocolate pudding mix in the pantry. I poured chocolate pudding over the marshmallow, chilled it for a couple hours, and had Sunday S'mores ready for Monday. What're you gonna do, eh?

S'mores Mud Pie {Printable Version}
Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients
For the crust:
1 ½ cups finely crushed graham cracker crumbs
5 tbsp. melted butter
3 tbsp. brown sugar

For the filling:
1 pkg. (10 oz.) marshmallows
1 cup heavy cream, chilled
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 pkg. chocolate instant pudding mix (plus ingredients on box)

Directions
Prepare the crust: Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a mixing bowl, mix together graham cracker crumbs,
brown sugar, and melted butter. Press the crust mixture evenly into a 9 inch pie plate, allowing it to
come up the sides. Bake 6-8 minutes, until the crust is fragrant and the edges start to brown. Cool
completely on a wire rack before filling.

Prepare the filling: Place the marshmallows on a baking sheet lined with tin foil, and place them under
the broiler for about 30 seconds, until the marshmallows are a dark golden brown and have just started
to smoke. Carefully flip the marshmallows over and repeat on the other side. Add the toasted
marshmallows to a blender with ½ cup of the heavy cream and pulse a few times until smooth. If the
mixture is still warm, chill it in the refrigerator 30 minutes to 1 hour, or until completely cooled.

Add the remaining heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla to the bowl of a stand mixer and whip on high with
the whisk attachment until soft peaks form. Add the marshmallow mixture and whip on high until stiff.
Spread evenly into the prepared crust.

Prepare the pudding according to the directions on the box. Pour the pudding on top of the
marshmallow mousse, being careful not to overfill the pie plate. Cover in tin foil and refrigerate 4-6
hours, or overnight. Or freeze for 4 hours. Can be served chilled or frozen.

Recipe by Kim

Peanut Butter Banana Bread Smoothies

I'm going to tell you a love story. It will beat any love story you've ever heard before. The Notebook? Forget it. Romeo & Juliet? Please. Pride & Prejudice? C'mon. This is the purest, most wonderful love story in all the land.

This is the story of the love one girl has for peanut butter.

Oh, you're so hooked now, right?

When this girl was little, she didn't like peanut butter. In fact, she hated it. When the teachers would ask if anyone was allergic to peanuts, she would raise her hand. She didn't really know what allergic meant, but she knew if she said she was allergic, she wouldn't have to eat it. She was a pretty smart kid, and I can say that totally and completely objectively.

But peanut butter was patient, for it knew that they were destined for a love like no other. It stayed close and waited until one day the girl tried it again and found that she did like it. But not only did she like it, she came to love it. She loved it more than ponies, more than cheese, maybe even more than rainbows, but that is unconfirmed. She'd rarely even eat chocolate without the addition of peanut butter.



This might seriously be my new favorite song

As the girl grew older, she and peanut butter grew into a comfortable sort of love. She knew that peanut butter would always be there when she needed it. In fact, when she was in college, she would spend many a night alone with it; just her, peanut butter, and a spoon. And she would call it dinner, you perverts.

Then when the girl graduated, she started to bake. And blog. And she discovered something amazing called Peanut Butter & Co. And she fell in love with peanut butter all over again, for this company had varieties like Dark Chocolate Dreams and White Chocolate Wonderful, and her newest discovery, Cinnamon Raisin Swirl.

The girl would have preferred Cinnamon Raisin Swirl without the raisins, since she'd never been much of a fan, and found them a little odd in the peanut butter, but she knew it would make a killer banana bread. Except temperatures had been reaching the hundreds and it was just to darned hot to bake. So the girl turned that killer banana bread into something cool and almost healthy: a smoothie.

Peanut Butter Banana Bread Smoothies {Printable Version}
 Yield: 4 smoothies

Ingredients

3 medium ripe bananas, chopped and frozen*

1½ cups cold vanilla soy milk

¾ cup Cinnamon Raisin Swirl peanut butter (or ¾ cup creamy peanut butter plus 2-3 tsp. cinnamon)

2 tbsp. brown sugar or Splenda Brown Sugar Blend

Pinch salt

Directions

Add all ingredients to a blender, and blend until smooth. Serve immediately.

*Smoothies are a great way to use bananas that are about to go bad. Peel and chop before freezing and seal in a zip-top bag. Freeze for a minimum of two hours. Keeps in the freezer indefinitely.

Recipe by Kim

Please note that I am in no way affiliated with Peanut Butter & Co. They have not paid me, sent me free samples, or asked me to review their products. They just happen to manufacture a product that I truly enjoy.