Coconut Cream Pie

After Thanksgiving I got into a baking mood. Since my crab quiche, a savory pie, came out so well I wanted to make another pie but this time a sweet one. I attempted one of my favorites, coconut custard pie!

Coconut Cream Pie
Ingredients
1 cup white sugar (I used only 3/4)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups milk (I used 3 cups of coconut milk)
4 eggs
3 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup flaked coconut
1 (9 inch) pie shell, baked

Directions
1. In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, flour and salt over a medium heat; gradually stir in milk. Cook and stir over medium heat until the mixture is thick and bubbly. Reduce heat to low and cook 2 minutes more. Remove the pan from heat.
2. Separate the egg yolks from whites. Beat the egg yolks slightly. Gradually stir 1 cup of the hot mixture into yolks. Return the egg mixture to the saucepan and bring the entire mixture to a gentle boil. Cook and stir 2 minutes before removing the pan from heat.
3. Stir butter, vanilla, and coconut into the hot mixture. Pour the hot filling into the baked pie crust. Cool. Cover and chill to store the pie if not serving immediately. (I actually baked it for 15 minutes.)

Ta-daaaa, my first coconut cream pie:

The consistency was a bit too soft, next time I would bake it longer. The pie filling was so good and creamy! The coconut milk gave it a lot of coconut taste. It wasn't too sweet but I think I could have use less sugar because the milk is already very sweet. I will definitely make this again!

Last Minute Thanksgiving Dinner 2009

My Thanksgiving Dinner 2009:

4 hours of food/supply shopping

5+ hours of cooking

7 dishes

Spending thanksgiving with people I love = Priceless

Our thanksgiving feast:

This Thanksgiving we did everything last minute! I planned what I wanted to make and shopped the night before thanksgiving. I was going crazy running around finding ingredients for each of the dishes. After all the shopping, I was just too tired to start prepping so I told myself I would wake up really early (at 7am) to start everything...I over slept and totally missed my alarm so I woke up around 9. I was panicing because dinner is suppose to start at 2ish. I didn't think I could finish all 6 of the dishes in 5 hours but with the help of my father and sister (Vivian) we managed cook everything we wanted to make. Yay!

So this year I decided to make 7 dishes, 2 of them are my all time favorite potato shrimp salad and corn casserole (I make these every year! My fans, I mean my family members always request them). Five other dishes are new recipes which came out great!

Lumpia Shanghai (Flipinino egg rolls): I love Filipino food so I wanted to attempt my favorite Filipino dish. Special thanks to Maribeth and Joanne for their recipe:

String bean casserole:

Shrimp and prosciutto with alfredo sauce

Crab quiche

Crown Jewel Cake

Let me know if you want any of the recipes, everything was so simple to make!