Caramel Pie with Moxie Crust

I am about to let you in on a Secret Family Recipe. This pie is the best pie you will ever make. No contest. Bake it for Thanksgiving dinner and even your snippy mother-in-law will have nothing bad to say (if she tries to open her mouth, stuff more pie in it). Caramel pie with Moxie Crust is easy, fast, and you can make it the day ahead of time!


Caramel Pie with Moxie Crust

Ingredients:
6 Tbsp. butter
1/2 cup flour
2 cups brown sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups milk
1 box Trader Joe's pie crust (in the freezer section)

Now before you even start to say what I know you're going to say: that homemade crust is better. Frozen crust is just meh. That frozen butter and vodka pie crust is the only way to go. I say phooey! I tried Trader Joe's pie crust last year on the advice of Jane from Buzzmills. My family loves pie. I love to make pies, I just hate to make the crust. I never have butter frozen into pats ahead of time and to be honest using the Cusinart scares me. It's a surprise I have all my fingers given my sewing mishaps. That Cuisinart promises to mangle my hand on day. No joke. It's the pie crust making that prevented my family from eating more pies.

So I tried Trader Joe's frozen pie crust. And we loved it. Given a handmade pie crust versus Moxie Pie Crust taste test, I don't think you would be able to tell the difference. Since making the switch, we've had so many heavenly pies with Moxie Crust. Try it. Don't tell anyone. They'll never know. (Note: this is not a sponsored post. I'm letting you in on my pie baking secrets. Shhhh!)


Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

Butter a 9" pie pan and put your pie dough in it. Blind bake your crust for 10 minutes or until a lovely golden color. Don't forget to use a piece of parchment paper or a coffee filter and dry beans, rice or lentils to weight your pie crust while baking. (I may have forgotten once and had to pick black beans out of the bottom of my crust. Hey, no one knew.)

Cream butter, flour, sugar, and vanilla.

Beat eggs and milk. Add to butter/sugar mixture.

In a 2 quart sauce pan, cook over medium heat until thick like pudding. Use a spatula and/or a whisk. Do not stop stirring and don't let it get chunky. Seriously, do not walk away. You will burn it. Not that I have ever done that.)

Cool caramel pie filling a bit, then pour in baked pie crust. Pour any extra into a small ceramic bowl. Eat it before anyone realizes there is extra filling. Refrigerate Caramel Pie. Read a magazine. Have a cup of coffee

Put your apron on and toss a bit of flour on yourself. Sigh as your serve your Caramel Pie with Moxie Crust, and smile like you're exhausted from making for hours. Make sure you get an extra big piece for yourself. Enjoy as everyone tells you what a damn fine pie you've made. Wink at your snippy mother-in-law.


Warning! Once you bake a Caramel Pie with Moxie Crust, everyone will always want you to bring one again. Consider baking two for Thanksgiving. No one will want Aunt Martha's pumpkin pie again.

Pirate Ship Birthday Cake Pictorial Tutorial

This past week we celebrated Jimmy Quinn's first birthday with friends and family. I had planned on making pirate cupcakes. My husband was disappointed with my choice given birthday cakes I have made in the past; full size dragons, moons, owls, lego man. I even melted a Buzz Lightyear onto a rainbow cake one year. (Unintentionally) My husband suggested a pirate ship cake would be more worthy a first birthday celebration.

What you need:
Three 9'" x 13" cakes
3/4 pound of butter made into frosting (three sticks)
Chocolate covered sugar wafer cookies
Gold coins, gold nuggets, Rolos and gummy sharks
Computer paper (tear the edges, dip your hands in coffee and wipe on paper for sails)
Three sets of chopsticks

Here she is!

Confessions

It's not even 10 a.m. and I'm already day dreaming of going to work. Who longs to go to work? Stay at home mothers of obstinate girls and cranky boys. Jimmy has mastered the sound of an angry dinosaur dying out in the woods. It makes me want to turn myself inside out. Yesterday I explained to Jane that she would see her cousin, X-Man, again in the fall. So she has decided today it is fall. She's been wearing her fleece hoodie and sunglasses, and insisting I do the same. In honor of fall, I defrosted some roasted pumpkin and made chocolate chip pumpkin bread.

Last weekend we picked 43 pounds of peaches and 30 pounds of tomatoes. I oven dried some tomatoes and canned them with garlic and olive oil, froze the rest. Half the peaches have been made into butter and canned. I was going to do the other half today. After I did all the dishes.

The kids are having *a day*. So we're all having *a day*. My mother says this is why most people with two small children don't can things. The thing is, I like to cook. It gives me a concrete thing that I can do every day. Like I'm contributing and have something to show for it. You know, other than the food crusted, scabbed up kids, and the toy and book littered floor.

I'm a great wife and an average mother. I was never the girl who dreamed about having babies. Pregnancy didn't become me, I didn't really enjoy it and I'm not very happy with what it did to my body. There are women out there who were just made to be mothers. My friend, Stephanie, is one. She's got four little girls, three of which are under two and a half. She does everything good mothers do and then some. She looks lovely doing it and genuinely enjoys it all.

Our country has an image of mother. I do not like to tell people I stay home with my children. I think it implies that I don't have marketable job skills, that I couldn't make a living so I got married and had kids. I think it implies that I wear yoga pants all day, clap along at Mommy & Me time, and carry fruit snacks in my purse. That I have goldfish crackers and sing along to Elmo's World music in my mini van. I am not that person; at all. But people will treat you that way. It makes me want to show them my closet of suits and fabulous shoes and say, "Look! See? I'm more than this." I want to do math for them, discuss Neil deGrasse Tyson and write a million dollar business plan.

The character, Ellis Grey, from Grey's Anatomy said, "I gave birth to a child, Richard! That makes me a mother. It doesn’t make me inept. It doesn’t make me less of a woman. It doesn’t make me less of a surgeon, no matter how much everyone wants it to."

I chose to be the parent that stayed home with our children. I agreed that it was the best thing for them. I knew it would be a sacrifice. But on days like today, when all that I will accomplish is not having my kids maul each other, I dream of work and look for the light at the end of this tunnel.