First of all, happy pi day! Two quick and easy pies this year: a chocolate chip cookie pie and a bittersweet chocolate pie on a coconut crust. The former is for my two teenage sons and the latter is for my husband and me (we are doing gluten-free and low sugar these days).

Here’s a couple of pictures and the basic recipes.

Chocolate chip cookie pie (no crust)

2 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 c (1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup chocolate chips

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Butter an 8 inch pie plate. Beat eggs until frothy. Add in flour, brown sugar, and sugar. Mix in butter. Add chocolate chips. Spread in pie plate and bake for 35-45 minutes. Serve warm or cool.

 

Bittersweet chocolate pie with coconut crust

Coconut crust: Mix 1-1/2 cups coconut (I used half unsweetened and half sweetened) with 3 tablespoons of butter. Press into an 8 or 9 inch pie plate and bake at 325 degrees F for 15 minutes. Cool crust, then fill with a round of bittersweet chocolate pudding and chill. Serve with whipped cream.

I was really looking forward to this week of skating, since I am on spring break. Last week I finally got my skates sharpened and was feeling pretty good. But wouldn’t you know it, last Thursday I was doing power pulls on my newly sharpened skates and caught an edge. Down I fell! and bruised my tailbone and right thigh this time. Fortunately this was not as bad as the bruise I got in January, but it is enough to make me contemplate wearing pads.

Ouch redux! So I have been a little tentative on my right side this week (maybe this will force me to work harder on my left side). I have also gotten behind on this blog because even thinking about skating made me feel more bruised.

I am feeling much better today. Pi(e) helps!

So do a couple of good lessons (which I will detail in a future post) and this note of wisdom from poet Robert Burns, from his classic “To a Mouse” (he has just destroyed the home of this “Wee, sleeket, cowran, timorous beastie”):

That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble

Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!

Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,

          But house or hald,

To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,

          An’ cranreuch cauld!

But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men

          Gang aft agley,

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,

          For promis’d joy!

Everyone has grief and pain sometimes. But not everyone celebrates January 25, Bobby Burns Day, with the dread haggis. I’ll take pie anytime!