Entertaining Appetizer - choco pie

Simple chocolate pie should not need to exist. In a perfect world, we'd all get to enjoy deliciously baked pies every day. Each one would be made with hours of individual attention, perfect by any standard. Maybe you pie like your thick and rich, or light and fluffy - you could get it even halfway in between. But there's the dream world, and then there's reality.

In the land of feet-planted-firmly-on-the-ground, sometimes you just need something quick and easy. In those cases, putting together an amazing French Silk Pie is not probably going to be an option. You have very little time, lots of things on your plate, and you just need something that's going to be ready right now.

Well, there's good news. It might not be gourmet, but you can have a simple chocolate pie with almost no preparation and it still tastes pretty good. It's going to be almost all packaged ingredients, but then that's what the doctor ordered, is not it?

First start with a pre-made pie crust. You'll usually need to put it into a pie pan and bake it for a while (the instructions will be on the package). While that's happening, you can work on the chocolate pie filling. Get a package of either instant or cooked chocolate pudding. Instant less work, and is faster, but the cooked stuff will give you a better end result. Either way, follow the instructions to make the pudding.

Once the pie crust is done cooking and has had a chance to cool, pour the pudding into the crust. Then set you stick the whole thing in the fridge and let it. Nothing to it! You probably want to finish it off with some whipped topping or one of those cans of spray on whipped cream. Either way, the total amount of work involved is very low to put together a pretty good tasting desert.

Sure, the end result probably is not something you'd want to get when you ordered a piece of pie at a fancy restaurant. But you can easily make this while dinner is cooking, or in between doing some odd chores around the house.

You could also buy a pie, but if you look at the ingredient list for this simple chocolate pie, you can see that it's going to be quite economical. And for the less picky eaters in the house (aka kids), they will not notice the difference at all

For a similar write-up from a more authoritative source, take a look at simple chocolate pie. For a different take on the little chocolate pie thing, you could look at creamy chocolate-mint pie