The Kitchen: Lime Curd Pie

I love looking up recipes on the internet.  My latest find involves figuring out how to make lemon curd from honey instead of sugar.  It is more refreshing this way, and sure it is still desert, but there is a little less guilt. 

Tonight I found myself home with most of my kids sleeping.  Bria is still not aware of her bedtime yet.  Charis is choosing to sing instead of sleep.  Other than that I had time for just me.  This is quite rare.  It is so  quiet and peaceful.  As I looked at all my unfinished projects, a baby boy sweater for a friend, some knitting magazines my mom is lending me, more diapers to cut out (yes, Bria is almost on to another new size!), and of course I could think of a million other things to do, I really just wanted to bake a 'healthy' pie. 

There is something about baking that still lets the creative mind run free for me.  I like learning a recipe and then changing it around as much as I can to make it perfect.  When I was little I used to think if I changed a recipe slightly, it would not work.  I will say there was this one time when my friend and I thought we were making a cookie recipe and after the first batch did not work, we realized they were supposed to be cupcakes.  Yes, these things do happen.  They have happened to me more than once, but as for should I use honey, sugar, butter, or coconut oil, these things can be mixed up.  Think about liquid to solid ratios.  If 1/2 my recipe is liquid and the other half is solid (i.e. flour, oatmeal, etc.) then I  can mix and match some things.  Maybe it will not be perfect, but maybe it will be. 

I stumbled upon my favorite way to make chocolate chip cookies this way:

1 cup of flour
2 cups of oats (if you like more oats I have used up to 3 cups)
1/2 cup of butter
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs

bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes and volia, some wonderful cookies.

Is this recipe mine?  As far as I am concerned I figured it out one day when I was running out of some of the other ingredients commonly found in chocolate chip cookies.  Maybe when one really wants to bake, but has not gone to the store, the best recipes appear.  I cannot help picturing the kid who did even think to add pecans to cookies or consider white chocolate chips instead of dark chocolate.

Watching my kids color blobs of what seems like nothing reminds me to try new things.  From blobs on nothing my son learned how to draw a circle and now knows how to write letters and words.  Wow, rules are helpful, but is fun to just ditch them once and awhile in see what happens.