National Pi Day

That's not a typo in the title.  National Pi Day isn't referring to the sweet and savory pies we eat, but the Greek letter (π) used in mathematics to represent the numerical value of the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, approximately 3.14159....  Math is an important part of cooking -- just think of all the fractions!  Since today is March 14 (3/14), I thought it would be fun to use this play on words with pie recipes I've posted in the past.

Pecan Streusel Pumpkin Pie:  The addition of a streusel topping takes a plain pumpkin pie from ho hum to wow!

Banana Cream Supreme:  This cool and creamy, no bake pie is a cross between banana pie and banana pudding.  

Lemonade Pie:  What's more refreshing on a hot summer day than a glass of lemonade?  A piece of lemonade pie!  This beat the heat dessert gets its wonderful lemon flavor from a can of lemonade concentrate.  

Easy Peanut Butter Chip Pie:  The pie is made with peanut butter chips and not peanut butter.  If you love chocolate and peanut butter, top the pie with a bottle of chocolate Magic Shell topping!

Chocolate Dream Pie:  This no bake pie only uses four ingredients and half of them are chocolate!  

Chocolate Cobbler:  This eggless cobbler makes its own chocolate sauce! It's best served hot from the oven with a scoop of ice cream on top!  

Cookie Apple Cobbler:  This apple pie is super easy to make.  The crust is made with a package of refrigerated sugar cookie dough!

Chicken Pot Pie:  The picture doesn't do this pie justice!  Refrigerated pie crusts encase a filling made with canned chicken, vegetables, soup, milk and seasonings.

Broccoli Quiche:  You don't have to make the pie crust, cook the broccoli or, if you don't mind spending a little extra, even grate the cheese!

Bacon Quiche:  This quiche uses a package of refrigerated pie crusts and is baked in a 13 x 9-inch pan.  The filling ingredients can be assembled and refrigerated ahead of time.

© Margaret's Morsels

   

  

Spotlight on Summer: Cool and Creamy

A lot of you are new to Margaret's Morsels.  To help introduce you to the site, I thought I'd compile a list of summertime recipes from previous blogs. The list isn't all inclusive, but includes some of my favorites from five different categories.  To make it manageable, I'm making this a three part series.  Today's recipes are foods that are cool and creamy.  Click the words in bold to go to the page with the recipe. 

Easy Peanut Butter Chip Pie:  This is the recipe that launched Margaret's Morsels.  The pie gets its wonderful flavor from peanut butter chips.  My son came up with the idea of adding Magic Shell topping for a delicious chocolate/peanut butter combination.  No matter how you top it, it's a cool and refreshing dessert on a hot summer day.

Peanut Butter Fudge:  Here's another recipe that uses peanut butter chips, but it also uses peanut butter.  This fudge doesn't require any cooking, unless you count melting ingredients in the microwave as cooking! Since the fudge is stored in the refrigerator, it makes a cool summertime treat.

Quick and Easy Lemon Bars:  This recipe has been in Margaret's Morsels top 10 since it was first posted in 2011.  These are the only lemon bars I've ever made that turn out perfect each and every time.  Storing them in the refrigerator not only keeps them cold, but enhances the flavor.

Lemonade Pie:  This is another lemon recipe posted in 2011 that currently ranks as the sixth most popular recipe on Margaret's Morsels.  The only appliance you need to make this pie is a hand mixer!

Chocolate Dream Pie:  This is a chocolate lover's dream recipe.  The pie only uses four ingredients and half of them are chocolate!  Just like the lemonade pie, the only appliance you need is a hand mixer. 

Banana Cream Supreme:  This isn't a pudding and not quite a pie; it's the best of both!  This no bake dessert is assembled in a spring-form pan with a layer of bananas between the filling.  Although it's delicious in the summer, my teenage son thinks it's also good in the fall, winter and spring!

Cherry Pie Filling Salad:  This first time I ever saw this recipe, I thought it wouldn't be any good.  Boy, was I wrong!  Not only is it delicious, it's versatile and can be served from the refrigerator or freezer as either a side or dessert.

Vanilla Ice Cream:  This is the recipe my mom used to make.  To this day, I think it's the best vanilla ice cream ever!  The only change I've made to the recipe is to replace the raw eggs with egg substitute.

Peach Ice Cream:  This peach ice cream isn't vanilla ice cream with chopped up peaches.  It uses fresh peaches and canned peach nectar. Peaches peak in July and August so this is a great time to make this ice cream.

Orange Peach Soup:  Here's another recipe that uses fresh peaches. This chilled peach soup can be served for brunch, lunch or even supper. It makes a great first course, especially when the meal that follows is light.

Lime Jello Salad:  This has been a family favorite since a friend gave me the recipe over 20 years ago.  If you don't like lime, you can substitute other flavors of jello and fruit.

Fruity Orange Gelatin:  If you prefer jello that jiggles, give this salad a try. Unlike congealed salads made with red jello, there's no mistaking the flavor of this salad.  It only uses five ingredients and three of them are orange!

Cherry Gelatin Fruit Salad:  Here's another jello recipe that jiggles.  This is my most requested congealed salad recipe.  No one will ever guess it only uses four ingredients and all of them are sugar-free!

Sour Cream Cherry Cheesecake:  The kitchen won't get hot when you make this cheesecake.  The crust is the only thing that needs to be baked and that only takes 10 minutes!  The rest of the cheesecake is made by doctoring up a package of cheesecake mix.  I use cherry pie filling on top, but you can use your favorite flavor.

Check back next week for part two of the series.

© Margaret's Morsels

Going Bananas

As the dog days of summer give way to crisp fall mornings, I like to serve something hot for breakfast.  A quick bread, like banana muffins, is a great way to get the family out of bed on a cool morning.  Quick breads can easily be mixed up right before baking, making it easy to get breakfast on the table and everyone out the door on time.

Not only are banana muffins quick and easy to make, they're a great way to use overripe bananas.  The bananas add moisture to the muffins as do the sour cream and brown sugar used in this recipe.  If you use low-fat sour cream like I do, the muffins will still be moist, but they won't be as firm as when you use regular sour cream.

Brown sugar, the combination of white sugar and molasses, is moister than granulated sugar.  The darker the brown sugar, the more molasses it contains.  Unless a recipe specifies otherwise, you can use either light or dark brown sugar.  I prefer the subtle flavor of light brown sugar over the more robust molasses taste of dark brown sugar.

The addition of molasses makes brown sugar moist, but it also makes it clump together which means it isn't pourable like its granulated counterpart. To ensure you're using the right amount of sugar, most directions call for brown sugar to be packed.  This is easy to do.  Put some brown sugar in the appropriate size measuring cup.

Use a spoon to firmly press the brown sugar into the cup.

Repeat the steps until you end up with this.

When the brown sugar is removed, it will retain the shape of the cup.

Although it only takes a few minutes to mix up the batter, it takes 20 to 30 minutes for the muffins to bake.  If you're pressed for time, combine the dry ingredients the night before and store them in a covered container or resealable plastic bag.

The recipe makes 18 muffins so I always have some left over.  It seems to me the muffins get moister with each passing day.  Of course, I don't know how many days that holds true.  With a teenager in the house, the muffins don't stick around long enough to find out!

Banana Muffins

18 Servings

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1/4 cup sour cream

2 eggs

3 large ripe bananas, mashed

1 tsp. vanilla

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

Cream together butter and brown sugar.  Add sour cream, eggs, bananas and vanilla; mix well.  Combine dry ingredients and add to mixture; mix well. Pour batter into greased muffin cups.  Bake at 350° for 20 to 30 minutes until muffins are golden brown and spring back to the touch.

© Margaret's Morsels

Beat the Heat Dessert

I remember the first -- and only time -- I ever made banana pudding.  It was the early 1990's and my husband and I were newlyweds.  We'd invited some friends over to eat supper and, since it was a hot summer day, I decided to make banana pudding for dessert.  I never liked my mother's recipe which called for the custard to be cooked, so I tried a recipe that started with a package of instant vanilla pudding.  Afterwards, my husband and I realized neither one of us really cared for banana pudding, either the old fashioned kind or the no cook version.

Several years later, a friend gave me the recipe for Banana Cream Supreme.  In some ways, it reminds me of banana pudding, especially the versions made with pudding mix and Cool Whip.  It's also layered like banana pudding, but there's no soggy vanilla wafers!  It's not, like my son used to call it, cheesecake because there's no cream cheese in the recipe.

The dessert is made in a spring-form pan.  If you don't have one, substitute a similar size serving dish.  Depending on what you use, you might not be able to slice the dessert into pieces, but it tastes just as good scooped into bowls.

If you use a spring-form pan, don't use nonfat or low-fat ingredients because the dessert won't be firm enough to cut.  This is also true if you substitute sugar-free pudding because it doesn't have the same consistency and won't set up like regular pudding.  

The recipe starts with a crust made from graham cracker crumbs, butter and sugar.  To keep from dirtying another bowl, I mix this up in the spring-form pan and then press it in the bottom of the pan.

The rest of the recipe is pretty straightforward.  Whisk sour cream and milk until blended.  

Add instant vanilla pudding mix and whisk until the pudding is dissolved.

Gently fold in Cool Whip.  

Spread half the mixture over the graham cracker crust.

Slice bananas and dip the pieces in lemon juice.  This keeps the bananas from turning brown.  Arrange the bananas on top of the mixture in the spring-form pan.

Add the remaining mixture covering the bananas completely.

Cover the pan with foil and refrigerate overnight or until firm.


When you're ready to serve dessert, remove the collar from the spring-form pan and slice the dessert into wedges.

For a fancier presentation, sprinkle graham cracker crumbs on top of each serving.

Whether you call it pudding or pie, this is a refreshing summertime dessert. It's also good served in the winter, spring and fall!

Banana Cream Supreme

8 Servings

1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs

1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted

3 Tbsp. sugar

1 (8 oz.) carton sour cream

1/2 cup cold milk

1 (3.4 oz.) pkg. instant vanilla pudding and pie filling

1 (8 oz.) carton Cool Whip, thawed

3 medium bananas, sliced

lemon juice
additional graham cracker crumbs (optional)

Mix graham cracker crumbs, butter and sugar in a spring-form pan; press mixture in the bottom of the pan.  In a large bowl, whisk sour cream and milk until blended.  Add pudding mix; whisk until pudding is dissolved. Gently fold Cool Whip into the mixture.  Spread half of mixture over the crust.  Dip banana slices in lemon juice.  Arrange bananas over mixture in the spring-form pan.  Spread remaining mixture over bananas.  Cover the pan with foil and refrigerate overnight or until firm.  To serve, remove collar from spring-form pan; cut into wedges.  For a fancier presentation, sprinkle graham cracker crumbs on top of each serving, if desired.  Refrigerate leftovers.

© Margaret's Morsels