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Erika's Chocolate French Silk Pie

3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
3 one ounce squares unsweetened baking chocolate, melted
2 tsp pure vanilla
3 large eggs

*Optional: 1 cup milk chocolate chips

Melt chocolate in a small bowl over boiling water. Make sure the chocolate won't harden.
In your kitchen aid or mixer, cream the butter at medium to high speed about 1 minute.
Add sugar, 1/4 cup at a time and continue to beat until light and fluffy. This will take about 3-5 minutes. Scrape bowl the bowl often. It must be mixed long enough so it is no longer gritty.
Slowly add the melted chocolate to the butter mixture, beating on low to medium speed until the chocolate is well blended and mixture is smooth and creamy. Scrape again.
On medium speed, add eggs one at a time, beating after each one before adding the next egg. Scrape the bowl. Add vanilla and give it one more mix. Decide if you would like to add the chocolate chips or not (without the choco. chips it's a smooth, mousse like texture, by adding the choco. chips it gives it an extra chocolaty crunch)

Spread the mixture into a pre-cooked and cooled pie shell. Chill for a couple of hours. Before serving, add fresh whipped cream and garnish with chocolate curls. (Run a potato peeler along a chocolate bar for chocolate curls). Enjoy!

This is a chocolate lovers dream! Beware...it's VERY rich! Yum! We served this for dessert on Christmas 2008.

Makes one 9 inch pie

Chicken Pepper Stir Fry

1 (of each) small green, sweet red, and yellow pepper, julienned

1 medium onion quartered

2 garlic cloves, minced

4 Tbls. olive oil, divided

1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed

3/4 tsp. Cajun seasoning

1/3 c. packed brown sugar

2 tsp. cornstarch

1 Tbls. water

1 Tbls. lemon juice

1 Tbls. honey mustard

1 tsp. soy sauce

1 tsp. Worcestershire

Hot cooked rice

In a large skillet, stir-fry the peppers, onion and garlic in 2 tablespoons oil until crisp-tender. Remove and keep warm. In the same skillet, stir-fry the chicken and Cajun seasoning in remaining oil until juices run clear.

In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar, cornstarch, water, lemon juice, mustard, soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce; pour over chicken. Return pepper mixture to the pan; cook and stir for 1 minute. Serve with rice if desired.

Pumpkin Pancakes

2 cups pancake mix (we used krusteaz mix)
1 1/2 c. water
2/3 c. canned pumpkin

Mix ingredients together. Cook pancakes accordingly.

We like to serve pumpkin pancakes with Buttermilk Syrup. Enjoy!

We love to have these when we have leftover canned pumpkin from pumpkin pancakes. These are yummy!