{A little pie story about the unexpected dessert I ended up making for Jeff’s birthday…..}

We celebrated Jeff’s birthday over the weekend. I figured I would probably be baking a chocolate cake, but we did something different this year. When I asked Jeff what he wanted for his birthday dessert, I handed him some favorite cookbooks and asked if there was anything he saw there that he’d like me to make. He looked at all the delicious pictures (while telling me how much he loved key lime pie), and then settled on the Chocolate, Avocado, Coconut, and Lime Pie from Cooking with Coconut Oil by Elizabeth Nyland. (You long time readers will remember me mentioning that cookbook quite a few times before, it’s a favorite. I wrote about the Apple and Fennel Slaw recipe here last May.)

The day I wanted to make Jeff’s birthday dessert, it was stormy and we lost power early in the day. When it came back on hours later, we ran around doing dishes, washing laundry, filling up jugs of water (in case we lost it again) and going out in the wind and rain to bring in more firewood to load up the wood stove. I said a little prayer that the power would stay on so I could use the food processor long enough to make his pie. It did, and I was grateful.

The pie recipe was so unique, and unlike anything I had ever made before. The pie wasn’t baked, instead you put it in the freezer. It wasn’t the first time I had made a dessert with avocado, though. (There are avocados in my Paleo Pudding recipe.) B was by my side helping to smush the soft crust (with dates) into the pie pan with our hands. (That was fun.) After the crust, was a layer of chocolate. When that was frozen, the sweetened avocado and lime layer was added. A few coconut chips sprinkled on top, and it was ready for the freezer to finish up.

Before that, I wanted to take a picture. It was late in the day, and dark and stormy outside, so there wasn’t much natural light near the window to take one, but I had to take a picture of his green pie. That night, after dinner, we dug in. The pie turned out amazing. I was so glad he chose the recipe he did. Jeff raved and raved about it, I don’t think I’ve ever made a dessert he enjoyed quite that much. He told me on a scale from one to ten, it was a ten. (No better review than that!) He was so sad when the last piece was eaten a few days later. He wants another pie. I’ll definitely be making that recipe again, and the next time we all decided that the one thing it needs is another chocolate layer!