Reese's Pie!

For Father's Day, Wesley picked out a delectable pie and dessert book (by Martha Stewart, no less!) So as part of that gift, I told Brad to pick any pie and I'd make it :)

He surprised me by flipping past all the fruit concoctions... and we almost settled on Coconut Cream Pie (Wesley's favorite)... then we spotted it and it was love at first sight.

Frozen Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie!

I had recently had delicious success making these peanut butter brownie cookies so I thought I could handle this :)

One look and you'll want to try it, too.

See what I mean?

Here you go, I'll save you a step:

RECIPE

First, I gathered my ingredients and made a Wal-Mart run.

Then, I donned the very flattering chef hat made by my adoring husband and set to work.

I knew I'd have no trouble with the chocolate crumb crust... We didn't have the exact type of cookies it called for, but I improvised with these. The substitution made beautiful crumbs in my food processor.

After baking and cooling the crust it was time to mix up the yummy filling.

The trouble started when I realized it really does matter if the cream cheese is at room temperature. It never would get what I'd call "fluffy".

After I got the cream cheese to an acceptable consistency, it was time to add the peanut butter. I called Brad in to help with that step so we could test out his other Father's Day gift (see photo). It worked like a charm and was easy to clean up, too!

My next problem occurred with the recipe being written by Martha Stewart :) The first part of the filling has to be mixed by a mixer... the second part also requires a mixer and a chilled bowl... Ug! I had to clean up the sticky peanut butter goo with hot water and then chill the bowl in order to whip my cream.

Somehow, I bypassed the "soft peaks" phase and went straight on to cool whip. If I knew that would happen I would have just bought a tub and skipped that step!

Just look at it!

After I made cool whip, I was supposed to whisk it in batches into the peanut butter mixture.... Well since my cream cheese wasn't warm, that mixture wasn't light and fluffy. It was like whisking into regular ole peanut butter! Not easy!

Not surprisingly, the end results looked nothing like it did in the book - but it sure did taste great!

And despite having to wash my mixing bowl in the middle of the process, I still wound up with a ton of dirty dishes after I was done.

I was going to write this whole process off and never make the pie again ...

Then, as I looked for images to use in the blog, I spotted these.

Hmmm...

Ah ~ Romance :)

Wesley has been out of town visiting his grandparents so it seemed like the perfect time for a date with my hubby. And I must say we crammed a LOT into this past Saturday!

We tried on various glasses styles at the Wal-Mart vision center... And walked away empty-handed, unfortunately.

Then, to replace our rusted and broken fire pit, we picked out a beautiful new chiminea :)

 Next, we headed to our little Thai restaurant. I had been eying their wonderfully ornate mirror and thought a self-portrait was a good excuse to get a picture of it :)

Sadly, the picture doesn't do it justice. In the daylight, it twinkles with tiny gems. It's really, really something to see!

After dinner, the one thing Brad has been longing to see was finally spotted along the highway.

The blueberry sign was out signifying that it was time to go get our first bucket of berries!

And even though I had tried to dress cute for our date and it was 95 degrees outside... we picked blueberries! Thank goodness I keep a hair band in the car for just such an emergency!

I have to say that's the weirdest thing I've ever done on a date, but Brad was so excited and we had a great time.

I'd love to hear from my 5 readers. What's the weirdest thing you've done on a date?