Dinner & Dessert

Pinterest has me thinking of desserts ALL the time. Stinking Pinterest...it's going to be the death of me! I found a dessert a few weeks ago that reminded me of an amazing chocolate chip pie I'd had at a steakhouse we go to on occasion near our small town. It's altogether decadent and wonderful. One slice is way too much for one person. It's that rich.

Some family friends were coming over to discuss a book I'm going to be helping design, so I was fixing dessert for us to enjoy while we worked. I googled and whaddaya know...the recipe is super easy! So, I gathered up my cooking buddies and set out to make a delicious pie.

(Side note: If anyone wants to buy me a decent camera for Christmas, I won't mind! These iPhone pics are starting to get on my nerves. Amen.)

You'll need one unbaked, 9-inch deep dish pie crust, sugar (brown & white), flour, 2 large eggs, butter (only the real stuff, man!), chocolate chips, and pecans. My mouth is drooling just thinking about it.

Now for the fun and ridiculously easy part. In case you're wondering, we are officially making a Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Pie. And the angels sang a heavenly song.

Now, if you're not OCD like me, you can skip this step, but I always find that it helps to portion out my ingredients before I get started. It helps me be less stressed in the kitchen, and keeps the mess from getting out of control.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

Beat the eggs until foamy, then add in the flour and both sugars. Beat in butter. Just don't beat it too hard or it might get a restraining order.

Stir in the chocolate chips and pecans, and for goodness sakes try not to bury your face in this mixture!  Once everything is combined, it's going to resemble a slightly moist, less dense chocolate chip cookie dough.

While still trying to keep yourself from spooning this into your mouth, plop it into your pie crust.

Smooth it out, pop that baby in the oven for an hour, then realize you haven't even THOUGHT about what's for dinner. Oh, snap.

At this point in our week we were low on groceries and pizza just didn't sound good, so I scrounged in the pantry and pulled together ingredients for an old standby that we hadn't had in ages. We used to eat it every week when I was a kid. My Grama used to fix it for my great-grandpa. Every time we fix this I always hear the story about my great-grandpa, and it makes me smile every time.

Apparently my Grama fixed this a lot for her dad when he got older, and it just worked out that she would always fix lemon cake to go with it. It was Grandpa's favorite. So whenever we sit down to eat, Dad always says, "Where's the lemon cake?" It's an old family favorite. Chicken and rice casserole. Easy, filling and comforting. Like those old sheets you had when you were a kid, where you could see through in the middle, but you kept using them.

Uh...yeah. Back to the casserole!

Fix yourself 3 cups of rice. Minute rice was always what we used before we discovered the glorious magic of jasmine rice prepared in a rice cooker. It will change your life folks. Please, go buy yourself a rice cooker, grab a bag of jasmine rice, and follow the instructions in the box. Life. Changing. I promise! When the rice is done (about 20 minutes) pour it into a 9x13 glass dish.

In a saucepan, mix together 1 can of cream of chicken soup, 1 can of cream of mushroom soup, 2 large cans of chicken, about half a can of milk (just pour it into the empty soup can to get all the good stuff out) and salt and pepper to taste. You can also add it about 1/2 cup of chicken broth at this point. I didn't' have any, so I went with the milk, and it was just a touch on the dry side. So go ahead and add in the broth if you have it.

Just warm this on the stove until the rice is done. I don't let it get too hot, because (a) I don't want it to burn and (b) I'm usually in a hurry. Just warm it until the soups have become slightly creamy and everything is combined.

Pour this mixture in with the rice, and mix it all up.

If you find the rice seems to be overpowering the sauce, just stir in some more broth. Trust me. You'll need more broth. It doesn't need to be soupy, you just don't want it to dry out.

Smooth it out, and stick it in the oven alongside the pie. Now, if I had been sensible, I would have started the pie about 20 minutes sooner, so it would be done before the casserole went in. Because you want the casserole cooking at 350 for about 20-30 minutes. However, it was a weeknight, and I didn't completely have my wits about me, so I let it go for about 10 minutes until the pie was done, then turned the heat up on the oven.

I'm always bad at detecting when something is really done, especially when it has gooey chocolate chips in it. I let the pie go for a good 60 minutes before pulling it out. The toothpick/knife/whatever you use to stick in it should come out pretty clean except for any residual chocolate you pick up.

Let the pie cool while you eat dinner. It stays warm for awhile, so it will be totally fine!

Ain't nothing better folks. I could eat this all the time. I even eat the leftovers for breakfast. I love it that much.

Simple, easy and delicious. My kind of dinner! We love green beans at my house, and we happened to have a leftover ham hock in the fridge, so I cut off some chunks of ham, and boiled up some delicious green beans to go with the casserole. And you can't forget the crusty bread!

And now...for the piece de resistance...

Oh dear heavens. Serve up the pie with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream and some warmed hot fudge sauce if you can stand it.

Believe me...it will knock your socks off. It's SO easy but packs such a sweet punch. The slices I cut were entirely too big to eat alone, so I will definitely be sizing down the portions next time. But friends, this is probably the best dessert I've ever made in my life. And I've made a ton of desserts.

It. Is. That. Good.
Amen.

Go, eat, and prosper.

-Jenn (With 2 N's)

Click recipe for link.

Click recipe for link.