Hillbilly Pie (Poor Man's Pie) - Direct From All Over The Web To My Kitchen

This recipe is just too simple not to try.  It came to me on Facebook.  However when I researched it, I just got dozens of hits with the same recipe.

How about that, must be good, so lets try it?

Think of this as a "Butter Bomb".  I will make it again but I will cut the butter back, most likely by 1/2.

I had a can of Peach Pie Filling on hand and since I am the only one in the house who likes Peach Pie, I used it.   Excellent!

Verifying the recipe, I also found comments that said that fresh fruit can be used on this in more than one place.

If you want it to be Vegetarian or Vegan, use Margarine and nut milk.  From a dietary standpoint, the Hydrogenation process that turns oil into Marge is not the best for your heart, but you knew that already!


Hillbilly Pie (Poor Man's Pie)
A simple, comforting dessert that’s easy to make and oh-so-delicious. Perfect for when you want a homemade treat with minimal effort!

 Ingredients:

• 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
• 1 cup self-rising flour (See Tip at the end if you don't have any)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup milk
• 1 (12 oz) can fruit pie filling (cherry, apple, peach, or your favorite)

 Instructions:

•  Preheat the Oven: Set your oven to 350°F (175°C). Place the butter in an 8x8-inch casserole dish and let it melt in the oven while preheating.
  
  
•  Mix the Batter: In a mixing bowl, whisk together self-rising flour, sugar, and milk until smooth.
  
  
•  Assemble the Pie:  Remove the casserole dish with the melted butter from the oven. Pour the batter evenly over the butter—do not stir!
  
  
• Add the Filling: Spoon the fruit pie filling evenly over the batter. The filling will sink slightly as it bakes, creating delicious layers.
  
  
•  Bake:  Place the dish back in the oven and bake for 30 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown and cooked through.
  
  
•  Cool and Serve: Let the pie cool slightly before serving. Enjoy warm, either on its own or topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Servings: 6–8
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes

 Tips:
No Self-Rising Flour? Substitute with 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, and 1/4 teaspoon salt.

Try New Flavors: Experiment with different fruit fillings to find your favorite combo!

Not to egg you on, but rack your noodle and you can do it. There's mushroom for improvement.

 Ya know, a dad joke one liner is an amusing way to start the day.  Right kid?




 The frog and the loan

A talking frog shows up in the offices of a posh downtown Manhattan bank. He proceeds to ask a bank officer for a loan of $1 million.

Patty Whak , the loan officer , said she didn’t understand and he says “well, My name is Kermit and my father is Mick Jagger. We have banked at various branches of this institution several times .”

The loan officer still protested and said for that size of a loan they would need some type of collateral, so Kermit produced a small ceramic elephant and placed it on her desk.

Patty was very confused and excused herself to go speak with the manager carrying the trinket with her . When she relayed the crazy story to her manager, she showed him the small ceramic elephant and said “I don’t know what to do, what even is this?”

The bank manager replied “it’s a knickknack, Patty Whak. Give the frog a loan . His old man is a Rolling Stone. “

I’ll leave now….

I’ve trained my dog to go and fetch me a bottle of wine. He’s a Bordeaux collie.

As I sit here on an aging laptop contemplating my navel and how to repair a tiny USB C Port, I'll drop this beast of a story on you. 

For the laptop, I'm leaning towards removing the hard drive and simply mounting it in a new-to-me machine.  Just like the way we used to do things in the 1990s, Linux to the Rescue.



 The Scottish painter

There was a Scottish house painter named Smokey MacGregor who was very interested in making a penny where he could, so he often thinned down his paint to make it go a wee bit further.

As it happened, he got away with this for some time, but eventually the Baptist Church decided to do a big restoration job on the outside of one of their biggest buildings.

Smokey put in a bid, and because his price was so low, he got the job.

So he set about erecting the scaffolding and setting up the planks, buying paint and yes, I am sorry to say, thinning it down with water...

Well, Smokey was up on the scaffolding, painting away, the job nearly completed, when suddenly there was a horrendous clap of thunder, the sky opened, and the rain poured down washing the thinned paint from all over the church and knocking Smokey clear off the scaffold to land on the lawn among the gravestones, surrounded by telltale puddles of the thinned and useless paint.

Smokey was no fool. He knew this was a judgment from the Almighty, so he got down on his knees and cried: "Oh, God, Oh God, forgive me; what should I do?"

And from the thunder, a mighty voice spoke..

"Repaint! Repaint!* And thin no more!"*

Right Sized Brownies Recipe. Not Too Big, Not Too Small!

205+72+400+126+153 = 956

956 /  8 = 119.5

What that blather is about is a calorie estimate for a "right sized" brownie.

See, I needed a snack, that was between 100 and 200 calories.  I needed something that I would look forward to in the middle of a very intense workout.  I needed it to survive being in a closed Jeep Wrangler sitting in summer heat outside in a park in South Florida summer.

Brownies!

I also wanted a simple recipe.  Got it!  See below.

The realization was that all I needed to do was to cut the recipe into 8 pieces, put the batter into cupcake papers, and bake. 

12 minutes at 350F/175C and test with a toothpick.  That should be early, close the oven and retest in a wee bit.  When it is done, is when that toothpick comes out reasonably clean.  You probably will want to account for different oven "speeds" and adjust your cook time.

And finally, these were good.  I mean Gooooood.  I don't know what the common vegetarian/vegan substitutions are for eggs, so this is "conventional".  Martha Stewart to the rescue - this link suggests Banana/Applesauce/Yogurt at 1/4 cup per egg.

As always with substitutes, Your Mileage May Vary!

For each cupcake paper, use 1/8 of the batter.  In my case, it worked out to be 42 grams or 1.4 ounces.  It's also 3 tablespoons level and measured off the top of my head.

Also, this is a shameless copy of a recipe I put out about a month back.  I used an air fryer to cook it and while it was awesome, this method is more to my needs.

Note:  I measured everything with a gram scale.  I have one and it works well, however typically volumes are used.  Maybe next time, huh?

I followed the recipe below faithfully and got some wonderful treats.  It fell together in about 10 minutes.  Cooked in 15.

They. Were. Excellent!

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup (42 grams) whole wheat flour or all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup (29 grams) Cocoa Powder (sifted if needed)
• 1/16 teaspoon salt (nobody has one of those, I eyeballed "half" of a 1/8 tsp)
• 1/4 cup plus 2 teaspoons (65 grams) coconut oil or unsalted butter (melted and slightly cooled)
• 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar or coconut sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg (about 50 grams, out of shell)
• 1/4 cup (43 grams) chocolate chips, plus extra mini chips for the top

How to make them:

1. Prep your pan: Line cupcake pan with 8 cupcake papers.
2. Mix the dry ingredients: In a bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Set aside.
3. Mix the wet ingredients: In a separate bowl, stir together the melted coconut oil or butter with the sugar and vanilla.
4. Once blended, mix in the egg until just combined.
5. Combine everything: Add the dry mix to the wet bowl a little at a time. Stir gently until almost no flour is visible. Fold in the chocolate chips.
6. Preheat the oven: Set it to 350°F (175°C).
7. Pour and top: Transfer the batter into your prepared pan. Sprinkle mini chocolate chips on top for extra gooeyness.
8. Cook for 12 to 20 minutes. The top should look set with a thin crust.
9. A toothpick in the center will come out a bit wet. The edges should have soft crumbs.
10. Cool before serving: Let them cool completely in the pan. They’ll continue to firm up as they sit.

If you give these a try, let us know how they turn out. They're dangerously easy to make.

No Snowflake Feels Responsible In An Avalanche

I just don't need to be reminded that Restaurants actually Exist.  Just came back from a half marathon (13.24 mi) on my Inline Skates.  Now I need to refuel.






 Sitting in a posh restaurant, a man spots a gorgeous blonde at the next table...

He spends ages checking her out, but doesn't have the nerve to speak to her.

Suddenly, she sneezes and her glass eye comes hurtling out of its socket towards him. He reaches out, grabs it in the air and gives it back to her.

"Oh,l am so sorry, the woman says as she pops the eye back in. "Let me buy you dinner to make it up to you."

They enjoy a fantastic meal together then go to the theatre, followed by drinks. They talk, they laugh, she shares her deepest thoughts and he shares his.

After paying for everything, she invites him back to her place. Next morning, she cooks them both a gourmet breakfast.

The man is amazed. You are the perfect woman, he says. Are you this nice to every man you meet?"

"No,' she replies. You just happened to catch my eye."

Apparently you can’t use “beef stew” as a password. It’s not stroganoff.

I have a dear friend who speaks often of Beef Stroganoff.  May she have all the Stroganoff she wants!


 
 My Girlfriend and Uncle Eddie

I called my girlfriend earlier today, but all my calls went straight to voicemail. So, I decided to call her from a coworker’s phone.

When someone picked up, I heard a sweet little voice say, “Hello?”

It was my girlfriend’s daughter.

I said, “Hey, honey! I’m at work. What are you and Mommy up to?”

She goes, “Well, I just ate a sandwich, and Mommy’s upstairs with Uncle Eddie.”

I paused. “Uncle Eddie? We don’t have an Uncle Eddie.”

She confidently replied, “Yes, we do! Uncle Eddie is upstairs with Mommy in the bedroom.”

At this point, my alarm bells were going off. Something was fishy.

So, I calmly asked, “Hey sweetheart, can you leave the phone downstairs, go upstairs, and tell Mommy that Daddy just pulled into the driveway?”

I heard little footsteps running upstairs. About 65 seconds later, she picked the phone back up.

I asked, “What happened?”

She said, “Mommy ran downstairs naked, but she slipped and fell. She’s not moving.”

I was like, “Oh, shoot… okay. What about Uncle Eddie?”

She replied, “Uncle Eddie jumped out of the window, but he barely missed the pool. He’s not moving either.”

And that’s when I realized…

We just lost two people today.

And I don’t have a pool.

So, I hung up the phone… because that was the wrong number.

Congratulate me, It's A Boy And A Girl, And they're Orange and Black. More Monarchs Visit Me.

Ok, I'll admit it, good idea, poor execution.

The cage I slapped together did keep Momma Monarch away from my personal stash of Milkweed.  What it didn't do is keep Momma's little babies from wandering in and eating their fill.

What is this blather?

Lather, rinse, and repeat. 

In this case what I had done wrong was to leave some exposed Milkweed on my front porch.  I used up my supply of hardware cloth to build an ugly steel cage around my personal Milkweed. 

Caterpillars don't share.  Just ask any farmer.  The milkweed I left on the porch drew lots of Monarchs.  Beautiful critters, really.  That is why I plant and propagate the stuff, to help the butterflies. 

Very low effort hobby.  I can watch the little beauties fly in on the breeze from my easy chair in the front room of my house.  Momma floats on in, finds the exposed Milkweed, drops an egg on a leaf, and moves on to the next plant.

In reality she drops a couple eggs and lets Darwin take charge.  You hatch first, you get the tasty leaves.  You hatch last, you get eaten by a brother or sister who eats the plant you are stuck under.

It has worked for millennia this way.  I can't change them. 

You see the issue.  My personal stash within the milkweed cage was adjacent to the exposed plants.  The caterpillars hatched, ate those plants, then moved on to mine.

Only two caterpillars got in the cage, and ate about half of my milkweed.  Greedy little beauties.

They left their jade colored chrysalis behind.  One was inside the cage, the female.  The male came back out of the cage and wandered up the leg of a plastic chair on my porch.

Both did hatch from the pupa.  Both fledged and flew away. 

My neighborhood in the land named after flowers has lots of butterfly friendly flowers.  Who knows, maybe my butterfly's children generations removed may come back and grace my yard.

Hopefully I will get my seeds that I was looking for in the first place.  You know, so I can grow some more milkweed?

Greedy little beauties that you are.

Just leave me a little, Huh?