In Celebration of Pi Day Last Sunday

You all know I'm pie crust phobic. I am still working on my anxieties. That, however, is no excuse for not celebrating Pi Day on 3.14!
So, on Sunday, I made another Lemon Chess Pie and a new one, Almond Custard Pie. The Lemon Chess Pie was still fabulous, and the custard pie was quite good, too, for those of us who are fans of custard. I really wanted a Coconut Custard Pie, but it turned out that my daughters used the package of coconut I had in the freezer, and I never knew it. There are only 3 of us who are fans of coconut, so I don't get much opportunity to use it; thus, I was stunned by having none! Maybe I need to institute stricter inventory control methods? Nah. That would take the excitement out of "Guess what food's in the house?"

ALMOND CUSTARD PIE

4 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
dash of salt
2-1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1 deep dish pie crust

Use a deep dish store bought pie crust, roll out one of those new fancy ones in your own pie plate, or try the one my dearly beloved says is the best he's ever had. Preheat the oven to 450F, and bake the pie crust for 5 minutes. Lightly beat the eggs with the sugar, the add the extracts, salt and milk, and beat for a minute, until very smooth. Pour into the partially baked pie crust, and sprinkle the top with slivered almonds. Reduce the oven temperature to 350F, and return the pie to the oven for 40 to 45 minutes. Let the pie cool before serving.
To make this gluten free, you could use either a ground nut crust or the marvelous coconut-chocolate crust I made for the banana cream pie last fall. The custard is silky smooth, similar to flan. The cookbook which had the recipe from which I jumped off for this pie urged me to leave the crust on the oven shelf and pour the filling into it. Should you have a cookbook make such recommendations to you, I must STRONGLY urge you to IGNORE it! I pulled out the shelf, poured the filling in, and the stuff splashed into the inside of my oven. With expletives deleted, I had nothing to say about this insulting turn of events.

And since my dearly beloved whines that he hates corned beef (I believe he's whining at the memory of his mother's boiled dinner, where the corned beef, potatoes, carrots and cabbage all landed in the same pot), I'm going to make my Dirty Corned Beef Brisket for dinner tonight. Happy St. Patty's Day, everyone! May the sun shine on you today!