Poor Easter Bunny

20140419-214013.jpg

Happy Easter! (If you celebrate. If not, Happy Sunday!)

I think the big question here is, did the Easter Bunny make it to our house, on time, this year?

Yes, this is an actual question in our household.

Folks, he’s been late before.

I know!

What?!

Don’t look at me!

I can’t control a giant bunny!

And, as I have explained to my children, Santa is spoiled. There. I said it.

Well, he is!

He has a troop of little creep creatures elves doing all of his work for him. A team of reindeer to cart his belly full of jelly (no judgement here. I have one, too. Just replace jelly with wine, and we are practically the same person) around the entire world.

And, let’s not forget his biggest luxury.

His sleigh.

Does the poor Easter Bunny have any of that?

No!

He just has to keep hoppin’ along.

All by himself.

Delivering eggs.

Yes. Eggs. Bunnies and eggs go together like… My belly and jelly… I am sure he is just as confused as we are. I mean, the fellow must be a wee bit out of sorts.

Confused, if you will.

So, it’s no wonder that sometimes he is a day… Or two… late to some of our houses.

Who can blame the guy?

Maybe he stopped and took a nap. The urge does run in his family. We’ve all read about his famous whiny little cousin in “The Tortoise And The Hare.”

And his Uncle (incidentally not the father of “The Hare” above), The March Hare from “Alice in Wonderland.”

That dude always thinks it’s tea time.

In that very same story, his Great Grandfather, The White Rabbit, almost ruins everything with his messed up pocket watch, and his silly little excuse of a chant, “I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date!”

Can we all see the connection here?

It could have carried over into The Easter Bunny’s genes.

I mean, why not?

His whole entire family of rabbits have some seriously poor time management skills.

Let’s cut the giant dude some slack.

I know I will.

Poor Easter Bunny.

Chocolate Pie

20131202-152218.jpg

I am a pie girl. I love it. I like how pretty it looks when it comes out of the oven. The smell of it cooking. This is my first sweet pie I have posted. I have done three savory pies: chicken pot pie, tuna pie, and sloppy joe pie. I kind of want to eat them all. Right now. Yum!

20131203-173733.jpg

Speaking of which: I made a tuna pie tonight. Excuse my diversion, but isn’t she perty?

20131203-185129.jpg

Oh! And for dessert, I made a pistachio pudding pie. So, when I do not fit into any of my clothes next week, please just whisper one torturous word into my ear: “pie.”

Notice: “pie” rhymes with “thigh.” Coincidence?

I think not.

Excuse me while I “cry.”

20131203-185459.jpg

Anyhoo, we’re talking about chocolate pie. Here it is: the chocolate pie I grew up with. The one that no other chocolate pie has ever stood up to. I had stopped making this pie for many years. It made me sad to make it. It was my uncle’s favorite thing at the holiday meal. I remember how excited he would be about it. He passed away a few years ago and I just could not bring myself to make or eat this pie. But a few months ago, The Pioneer Woman made a very similar pie. And it made me want to make my family’s pie again. I wanted a new generation to enjoy it. My uncle would have been happy about it.

There was only one problem. I could not find the recipe. Surprise!

I called my sister for it. “We just use your recipe,” she said. I assured her she was incorrect. I’ve always used our mom’s recipe.

I called my mom. She replied with, “Sweetie, we use your recipe.”

At this point, I was feeling more than slightly crazy (well, more than usual).

“Mom, I use your recipe.”

“No, honey. Remember when you changed it with Egg Beaters?”

Awwww. Now it made sense. Years ago, I had changed my mother’s recipe to use Egg Beaters instead of raw eggs and now it was “my recipe.”

I happily got “my recipe” from her.

I made it for Thanksgiving. It was a huge hit. I went home. The next day I made another pie for our family. This is because a day without pie for lunch is no day you want to be a part of. Again for lunch, not with lunch. Big difference.

20131202-151001.jpg

Ingredients:

1 cube (8 Tbsp.) softened salted butter
2/3 cup Egg Beaters or you could use 3 pasteurized eggs
1/4 cup chocolate chips
2 squares or 1 oz. unsweetened chocolate (4 small rectangles if it comes like that.)
3/4 cup of sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 pie shell (I use Pillsbury. My mom always made her own. But this is my recipe, so we take shortcuts.)

Optional:

Whipped cream for topping individual slices

Preheat oven to 425 degrees or 400 degrees convect bake.

In a pie dish, lay your pie crust. Crimp the edges. Pierce the bottom and sides several times with a fork. If you are scared of shrinkage (mine always shrinks a little, but it doesn’t bother me), you can line your pie sheet with foil and beans or marbles to weigh it down. I never do this. But you could if you are not as lazy as me. It does not affect the taste one bit.

Bake for twelve minutes.

Remove the pie pan from the oven. Turn off the oven. Let pie shell cool completely (I usually wait one hour before moving on to the next step). If you added marbles or beans with foil, now would be the time to remove all of that (after it is cooled). This might seem obvious, but I am a maker of a chocolate pie recipe I did not know was mine. Therefore, I have lost my marbles. I do not want you to eat yours.

20131202-151220.jpg

Melt chocolate chips and unsweetened chocolate in a small bowl in the microwave for thirty second intervals. Stir. Keep repeating until chocolate is completely melted.

20131202-151259.jpg

20131202-151331.jpg

In a mixer or with a hand mixer (be warned if you are using this method, you will be mixing for 17 minutes. I guess you could think of it as working off chocolate pie calories), mix together sugar and butter for one minute. Add Egg Beaters and beat on medium high speed for three minutes.

20131202-151525.jpg

Turn mixer to low and very slowly start drizzling in the melted chocolate. After all of the chocolate is incorporated, scrape sides, and turn mixer to high. Mix for 10-15 minutes. I usually do thirteen minutes. This is the extent of my patience. I can not wait longer than thirteen minutes for anything.

It’s called being a grown up.

20131202-152411.jpg

Pour the chocolate heaven mixture into the pie shell. Carefully cover pie without touching the covering to the filling (if this happens, you will have to explain to the surgeon why your stomach is full of foil. Nobody got time for that). Refrigerate until ready to serve. This needs to refrigerate at least three hours before serving.

20131202-152251.jpg

Lunch is ready! Enjoy!

* Update: Lovely Lisa just asked me about whipped cream. You can absolutely top your slices with that airy heaven. Most of my family does! Thanks Lisa! : )

Dear Easter Bunny

We arrived home from vacation at 1:30 in the morning on Easter. Being the completely unprepared mommy that I am, I had absolutely nothing put together. Everything was purchased but it was not going to happen. The kids were told before our trip that eggs would wait an extra day.

This bad mommy wrote the sweet Easter Bunny a sad little letter. This is what it said (I have horrible writing. Thankfully, the Easter Bunny isn’t picky):

20130404-110539.jpg

Yes, we asked the Easter Bunny to please visit us on Monday. He is very accommodating. This is not the first letter I have had to write to a fabled character. The Tooth Fairy has had an earful from me after forgetting not once, but twice to pick up my son’s tooth. She is a very flaky entity.

Here is what the Easter Bunny left:

20130404-110636.jpg

20130404-110734.jpg

I separated the eggs by color. My daughter’s were pink, purple, orange and yellow. My son got blue, green, and limey yellow. They were filled with small trinkets, stickers, candy, chalk and some notes that said, “See your parents.” They turned in the notes for items too big for eggs. This consisted of bubbles, a giant bouncy ball each, and pez dispensers. Each of them got one golden egg. Let’s bring some Christmas into this post (yes,I know that the lyrics do not quite go like this) and repeat that in song, shall we? “One golllllllddddeeeeeennn egg.” Thank you! I feel better now. This was turned in for Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate for the 3ds. My husband and I live and breathe this game. It is our family heritage. That, and being very close friends with holiday magical beings.

20130404-110829.jpg

My son is so cute with the notes saying, “see your parents.” He carefully walks the precious note over to me and exchanges it for a prize. My daughter, on the other hand, will look up and ask for her prize from across the room, “mom, I got another note.” I think the Easter Bunny really likes my handwriting, because he copied it perfectly for the eggs. At least, that’s what my son’s theory is.

Did the Easter Bunny come to your house? Have you ever had to write these holiday figures?