G is for Grasshopper Pie

One week into this year's A to Z Challenge and you may have figured out that I'm kind of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of person. Every year, I swear I'm going to get at least half of my posts written before the Challenge even begins, and guess what? I don't! I start out like gangbusters, or maybe just gangbuster, because I DID plan and write ahead of time, but it was only one post and it was for "M." 

I have scrambled a couple of times this week to (a) come up with a post idea and (b) get my post done before midnight (can you say "haikus about food that begins with the letter 'E'"?). Yes, you would THINK someone who had to make (or find) a food that corresponds with each letter of the alphabet before a post could be written would actually DO that, but Thursday afternoon, I had absolutely NOTHING in mind for today's "G" post, and I was having people over that evening and wouldn't have a chance to work on anything.

My boss (and bestie) rose to the challenge and kept offering up ideas for "G". Guacamole (I don't like it). Gyros (I'm pretty sure I don't like them). German chocolate cake (not bad, but I didn't have that kind of time since I had company coming over). Grasshopper pie.

Hmmm. Simple. Delicious. Nice segue from Frog Eye Salad. 

Naturally, I didn't have all the ingredients, so I went to Walmart this morning just after 6:00 a.m. to get whipped topping, mint extract, and an Oreo pie crust (I had cream cheese, powdered sugar, and green food coloring at home). I also packed up my hand mixer and a decent spatula, because we have neither at school, and took all of it with me to work. I figured it would take me all of five minutes to make the pie, and I could sneak away from my classroom right after the kids went down for their naps to make it. Note: I cheated on the pie crust and bought it ready-made, because I would have had to buy Oreos AND lug my food processor to work, and it just wasn't worth it, despite the recipe saying it was much better to make my own than use store bought - pffffftttt!

It probably DID take only five minutes to make this pie, if I had had five minutes IN A ROW in which to make it. I was in the middle of beating powdered sugar into the cream cheese when there was a poop fiasco with one of my littles; I'm not going to go into any details here, nor do you really want me to, but it ended up taking me about half an hour to complete a five minute pie. 

When I resumed the pie making, all I had to do was add a blip of mint extract and a couple of drops of green food coloring to the cream cheese mixture, then fold in the whipped topping. I spooned it into the pre-made crust, popped it into the freezer so it would set up more quickly, and was able to serve it two hours later.

Had a little help with the project from
my boss....

Finished pie. The kitchen lighting is crap for
photography of any kind. Also, it would have 
looked better if I had sprinkled some crushed
Oreos over the top, but since I CHEATED and
didn't make the crust myself, it just nekkid

The first piece never comes out of the pan
very well, but it didn't matter because it
was MINTY DELICIOUSNESS!

The boss pronounced it to be amazing, as did the taste testers who wandered in for a piece. 

Definitely make again. And again. And again.