Pie, Pictures and Paternal Grandparent Visit

See what I did with the title?

I promised a strawberry pie recipe this week and I'm delivering just in time for your weekend entertaining plans.  It's so easy you'll be super excited that you, yes you, can make a strawberry pie!

What You Need:
1 pint strawberries (fresh, not frozen)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tsp of your favorite extract (vanilla, almond, orange, oh my!)
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (3 lemons)
1 pie crust

What You Do:

First, make your pie crust.  Any regular dough pie crust will work.  Or, OR, you can purchase one from the store already made in the frozen food section.  Don't be ashamed, it's ok.  No one will know if you remove it from the foil pan it comes in.

Second wash your strawberries and dice them into bite size pieces.  Set aside.  Juice your lemons.  Set aside.

Stir together the condensed milk (lick the lid because you can't let any go to waste) and lemon juice.  Add your extract to this mix and stir.  I am not a huge fan of almond extract so I substitute vanilla.  After the fact I thought orange may be a fun change, so experiment!

Next you will fold the strawberries into the mixture.  Then, take your cup of whipping cream and beat it like nobody's business in your mixer.  Beat until stiff peaks form and then it's ready.  Carefully fold this into the berry and milk mixture.

Pour all of the goodness into your cooled pie crust and chill in the fridge for a couple hours until it firms up.

Ahhhhhh this was such a fun spin on strawberry pie and way easier than using all of that gelatin craziness that the traditional pie calls for.

No picture, we ate it before I thought about one.  This recipe came from a wonderful cookbook called "Moore Groceries".  A friend of my Mom's put it together and every single recipe is amazing.  Amazon it.

Now, on to Ann's pictures.  I have stolen them from facebook while waiting on the cd so I apologize copyright police.  She was a tad on the fussy side Tuesday evening but tried her hardest to act like she wanted to be there.  Let's just say I think two smiles were captured and the rest of the shoot was super serious baby and not the happy little punk she is!  Oh well, I love them just the same and serious baby pics are the new thing.  Whenever a camera comes out Ann freezes up and turns on the pout.  Since height is not in her favor I'm going to tell her in a couple years that serious modeling probably is not in her future so she should begin smiling for ad work maybe?  We'll see.

Ann would cry when we walked away after setting her down alone... so that was fun.  She also did not like sitting on the grass and would hold her legs up so they didn't touch the grass.  That takes serious ab muscles and I have added that to my work out regimen.  Oh wait, I don't work out.  Ugh, remind me of that when I complain about swimsuits.  So, moral of the story is don't schedule evening pictures because of the light with a child that had little patience in the evenings.  I do love the pictures and couldn't love the photographer more so if you live in NWA and need a photog Jessica Ritchie is IT!!

This afternoon Ann and I head to Russellville to hang out with John's parents and get some Teeter Grandparent lovin'.  So excited the weather is going to be gorgeous and Ann can show off her new tricks.  Like crawling.  Everywhere.  Silently.  And fast.  She's a ninja crawler.

Have a wonderful weekend!!