Chocolate Pecan Pie & Taco Dinner

Friday night, John and I went over to Ryan & Amanda's place for dinner.  

I told them that we would make a dessert since they were making dinner, so I pulled out my new favorite pie cookbook that I got for Christmas last year, and picked out a recipe! 

I decided to go with the Chocolate Pecan Pie, because it sounded decadent but simple at the same time.  

Seriously, I'm in love with this cookbook!  So far I've made 3 different pies from it (Bean Pie, Coconut Pie, and this one), and they've all turned out utterly delicious.  I love that they're really not terribly complicated to make, and she always gives a brief description of the pie's history & origins.  You get to learn while you cook!  Yeah!! 

Look at that FILLING - doesn't it look amazing!?  It's basically butter, chocolate, sugar, & corn syrup - then you add in the eggs and vanilla.  I think mine got a bit screwy because I realized we only had margarine left (not real butter), and I had about 1/2 a cup less corn syrup than was required.  I think that caused it to be a bit "liquidy" in the end, but everyone still gobbled it right up!!

The leftovers were even better the next day - straight out of the fridge. :)  This pie would be AH-MAZING with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream too - or even better CARAMEL ice cream.  *drooling... 

For dinner, Ryan & Amanda made tacos, and they were SO GOOD.  

Just sauteed veggies (meat for the carnivores), salsa, tomatoes, black beans, freshly made guac & cheese.  They were scrumptious!!  

OM NOM NOM!!  TACOS!! :D

John always knows how to make a picture perfect! 

 

 Amanda & Ryan! 

After dinner we had pie, and daylight turned into twilight - then into evening.  It was a totally gorgeous and perfect evening, so we sat out on the porch & started playing cards! 

A friendly game of "Oh Hell" to be exact.  We played it all the time when I was in Florida with Garvey & Amanda a couple of years ago - it was super fun.  You have to bid on how many "tricks" you're going to take for each hand.  It's really fun (and hilarious)!

I apparently forgot everything about how to play the game (and lost miserably the first round), but started getting the hang of it again, and came back eventually.  We laughed, and talked, drank wine, ate pie... all in all, probably one of the best ways to play a beautiful Spring evening! 

My empty pie plate.  Yeah, it was pretty darn good. :)