Blueberry Cream Cheese Pie

Or you can make it cherry cream cheese pie if you like...and use a chocolate crust...and die of happiness...


• 1 graham cracker crust
• ½ pint heavy whipping cream (DO NOT use Cool Whip or canned whipped cream – it’s not the same!)
• 4 oz Philly Cream Cheese, softened (Do not microwave! Cream cheese gets too soft & ruins the pie.)
• ½ cup sifted powdered sugar
• ½ tsp. Vanilla
• 1 can blueberry (or cherry) pie filling

Before you begin, put a glass bowl and the beaters to your mixer in the freezer for at least 10 or 15 minutes. These are going to be used to whip the cream and must be really cold.

Graham Cracker Crust:

You can either buy a ready-made crust or make one using the recipe on the back of a box of graham cracker crumbs. Bake either according to directions and cool thoroughly before filling.

Filling:

With a fork, cream together the cream cheese, sifted powdered sugar and vanilla. Set aside.

Pour your whipping cream into the cold glass bowl and start mixing. After about 10 minutes the whipping cream will get thicker and form stiff peaks. Gently fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture until well blended.

Assembly:

Spoon the filling into the cooled crust and smooth, not quite to the edges of the crust. You want to make the center of the whipped cream filling a little lower than the edges so your pie filling won’t spill over the sides. Spoon the pie filling over the whipped cream filling. Sprinkle a few drops of lemon juice on top and refrigerate, preferably overnight.

Pizza Pasta

Yay pizza! Yay pasta! What more is there to say?

1 lb. whole grain rotini
12 oz. ground Italian sausage
2 oz. turkey pepperoni
1 green bell pepper, diced
1/3 red onion, diced
2 cups pizza sauce
1 cup mozarella cheese, grated
1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated

Boil water and cook the rotini per package directions.

Brown sausage and drain most grease, but leave just a little bit (maybe a teaspoon or so).

While sausage cooks, dice the bell pepper and onion. You'll want enough onion so you've got roughly equal portions of onion and bell pepper. Also, cut the pepperoni into quarters.

Turn the oven on to 350. Add onion, bell pepper and pepperoni to drained sausage (in skillet) and saute for about 4 minutes, or until veggies start to soften.

Mix noodles, pizza sauce, and meat mixture in a 2 quart casserole dish. Top with cheese. Bake for 22 minutes, or until heated through and cheese is melted.

This is my re-work of a recipe I found at Life's Ambrosia. For the pizza sauce, I used her recipe and it turned out great. If you use her pizza sauce recipe, just use the entire batch for the casserole.