The Pioneer Woman’s Grasshopper Pie

We’re not much into celebrating birthdays. We recognize them, but generally don’t make a big deal out of them or throw big parties. When we were young, my parents would occasionally give us a small gift, but we always always got to choose what we had for dinner. And dessert.

I would often ask my mom to make grasshopper pie. (What an unfortunate name for a delicious dessert, don’t you think?) Grandmom had passed down an old recipe, and it was a good one.

Fast forward a couple decades, and The Pioneer Woman posted a similar old-timey recipe for grasshopper pie.

But wait.

Grasshopper pie is supposed to have creme de menthe in it?! And creme de cacao?? All those childhood years, deprived of our liquor!

In honour of that revelation, I made it myself, P-Dub style.

A couple modifications:

• I made the mistake of looking at the ingredients on the marshmallow fluff jar. I know, I know. A fatal mistake. I was seriously weirded out by its being primarily made of corn syrup, so on a whim I checked the Health Market section at Hy-Vee for a “healthier” substitute. Guess what I found? Ricemellow. An even weirder but quasi-healthier marshmallow fluff alternative made out of rice syrup. Now you know.
• I also skipped the food colouring because I couldn’t find a natural alternative to Yellow #5, Blue #2, etc.
• The recipe calls for 2T each of creme de menthe and creme de cacao, but then instructs you to taste and adjust. … After tasting, I confess I added a total of 4T each. I wanted the flavour to be WHAMMO-in-your-face. And now it is.