You can have your cake, and eat your pie too!

This year we celebrated Ben's 30th birthday!!! With this busy week, which included my mom's birthday and my sister's wedding, we barely had time to celebrate, especially since I traveled up to Idaho for the wedding. However, I knew I had to do something special for my man.

So what did I do? I made a pie! Now you might be wondering why in the world I would choose to make a pie, especially as I have limited pie making skills. The week before, I had bought some peaches and apples to make pies for a party. And, I only got as far as the apple pie, which didn't turn out exactly like I wanted. So, I had some very ripe peaches on hand, and remembering the one wonderful pie I made last year, I ventured to try another pie.

My fresh peach pie from last year's Fourth of July BBQ.

Because I was making the pie on Ben's birthday, I felt like he deserved some input, and instead of my fantastic fresh peach pie, he requested a baked peach pie. I found this recipe, which was fantastic! For the crust, I used the Lion House Pie Crust recipe. I've included it here, just so that

Lion House Pie Crust Recipe
(for 2 nine inch pie crusts)

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup lard
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. nonfat dried milk
3 cups unsifted all purpose flour
1/2 cup ice cold water, plus about 1 tbsp more

Put dry ingredients together in a bowl with only about 1/2 the amount of flour. Mix well with butter and lard, then add the water and remaining flour. Divide the pastry into two equal balls, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for about one hour. Remove and roll out as needed for pies.

I decided to make the pie more decorative than I usually do, and so I used my little star cookie cutter to cut out the shapes from the center. Then, I used the scraps to make additional stars, which were then used to line the crust. Didn't it turn out well?


After making the pie for Ben, I decided that he needed a birthday cake as well. Really, you can't have a birthday without birthday cake, right? So, using a boxed cake mix and packaged frosting, I made Ben his chocolate cake:


For dinner, Ben requested Chicken Caesar Salad. It's kind of an odd request coming from him, but he said that he had been craving it all day. And I thought pregnant women were the ones with the cravings! So I made the salad by cutting up romaine lettuce, broiling chicken tenders, and then dicing them. I topped it off with shredded parmesan cheese, croutons, and salad dressing. I added some sparkling soda for the beverage, since we definitely had something to celebrate. Doesn't the birthday boy look pleased?


After dinner, we watched Alice in Wonderland (2010), which was a fantastic film. We both really enjoyed it. Then, we finished the day by eating cake AND pie!