Somehow “what do you think about painting the cabinets and walls and maybe putting down some new linoleum?” has turned into this.
It was just going to be a quick, cheap facelift. Emphasis on cheap.
Because really, who has money to spend on a kitchen renovation? Definitely not me.
It turns out that you can look at the world’s ugliest kitchen for six years and tell yourself “as soon as we get such and such paid off we’ll do the kitchen” until suddenly you can’t anymore and you’re willing to light up your Discover card to make it go away.
True story.
We had an early freeze at my house, which meant scrambling to save what we could and put the garden to bed for the winter. We brought all of this in at once so that it didn’t get frozen. Talk about bountiful harvests!
Throw twenty five of these chocolately buggers into the food processor and grind them up into crumbs. Eat three cookies of your own. You’re working hard and need to keep up your strength.
Mmmm….chocolatey crumbs. Mix these with the melted butter and stir until they’re nice and combined.
Press the cookie mixture into the bottom and up the sides of your pie plate. Bake it for about 5 minutes and then let it cool completely. I’m not a very patient person so I chucked mine into the freezer for 10 minutes or so.
Mix the peanut butter and cream cheese together with your mixer.
Add the powdered sugar and mix again. Now stick your finger in there and taste it. So good, right? You have no idea. I had a friend in Virginia, who was originally from Ohio, and she would mix peanut butter and powdered sugar together, roll it into balls, and then coat the balls with melted chocolate. She called them Buckeyes and they were the shiznit. Melt in your mouth peanut butter crack. You couldn’t eat just one. This filling reminded me of that, only with the added tang of cream cheese.
Now add the cool whip and mix the whole thing again.
Stick your finger in there again, just for quality control. Did your eyes roll back in your head? Yep…then it’s just right.
Look around for someone to help you lick the beaters. Couldn’t find anyone? Me either.
Here’s the part where I deviate from P-dub’s glorious creation. I learned this trick back in high school when I worked in an ice cream shop making the cakes and pies. We would take a glob of hot fudge and spread it around on the crust before putting in the filling for the mud pies. For turtle pies we’d spread caramel around the bottom. It’s like a little secret yum stashed at the bottom that no one knows about but you. I have a feeling PW would understand why I had to add my own little somethin’ somethin’.
Now spread the filling on top of the super secret fudge and refrigerate for at least an hour. Or for as long as you can stand it.
Mmmm…pie. Trust me on this, if you love peanut butter you will LOVE this pie. A little goes a long way, but you have to try it. Remember in When Harry Met Sally when they were in the restaurant and Sally was…ummm…giving a little demonstration? And she was kind of noisy? This is what she ate that set her off, I’m sure of it. Go see 
One of my all-time favorite meals is spaghetti and meatballs, and with meatballs bigger is always better. They usually end up somewhere around racquetball size, or midway between that and a tennis ball. What can I say? I like my meat big. But tender too.
