Poor Man's Cheesecake!

Anyone else having a hard time coming up with recipe ideas? I stood in my kitchen tonight, my hands on my hips, staring at my cupboards. There were plenty of items in the those blasted things but my brain wasn't just making any connections :) Until WHAM!!! I figured out what to make!! I had some raspberries in the fridge that were fixin' to go bad if I didn't hurry it up. I was craving cheesecake something fierce. But alas! It's Sunday and I had NO cream cheese. To, I decided to do a poor man's cheesecake! :) :) If you close your eyes while you eat it, it IS cheesecake!

Whatcha Need:

1 1/2 c finely crushed graham crackers

3-4 TBS melted butter

1/4-1/3 C sugar

1 tsp cinnamon (optional)

2 packages vanilla pudding

milk to make pudding :)

fresh raspberries

roughly 1/4 C raspberry jam NOT jelly

Whatcha do:

To prepare the crust, simply combine the graham crackers, butter, sugar and cinnamon. Press into pie plate. Set aside :) Combine milk and pudding. Whisk until almost set. Pour into pie crust. Top with raspberry jam and fresh raspberries. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

**If you're lucky, you have the best raspberry jam in the world-my father in laws homemade!! Homemade works best!**

Crumb Top Apple Pie

****UPDATE****

HEY GUYS! With the holidays coming up, I've been thinking of ways to update some pies. My buddy Tisha hook me up with a cool trick :) To make this super easy, SUPER tasty pie tastier, add 12 caramels, chopped up, to the apple mixture.!!!! OH SO TASTY :) Caramel Apple Crumb Top PIE! OH BABY!!

Hi ya kids! So again, spoiled hubby :) But this time, he wasn't the only one! We were going to family get together on the 4th of July and I was in charge of dessert. I had no clue what to make. I knew that I was outta cocoa and other fun stuff. I looked in the fridge at least 3 or 4 times. Apples. Apples. Apples. But I didn't want to make the effort to make 2 pie crusts and stuff. It was FREAKIN' hot. How could I do this easy?! I didn't wanna make a crisp...to plain LOL So...I did a google search for one pie crust apple pies. CRUMB TOP was the first thing I saw. So, I went with it! Now, this recipe is strictly a made by Mrs. B's. Some of the measurements are not EXACT. I got that nasty habit from my Grams-no measuring everything :) But, I have faith it will turn out no matter what :)

What you need:

Filling:

1 unbaked pie shell-

you can use either a store bought one, or make my super easy pie crust

1/4 C sugar

1-1 1/2 tsp cinnamon.

1/8 tsp salt

Enough apples to fill crust-roughly 5-6-peeled, cored and sliced. I usually use some red delicious, fujis and at least 1 granny smith.

Topping:

3/4 C brown sugar, packed

3/4 C flour

1/3 C butter, NOT margarine.

What to do:

Preheat over at 375. Combine apples, sugar, cinnamon and salt. Spoon into crust. In seperate bowl, or if you hate during dishes like me, you just use the bowl from the apple mixture :), using a pasty cutter, cut together the brown sugar, flour and butter. Cover entire pie with crumb mixture. Bake for 35-40 mins at 375.

It's super tasty with french vanilla ice-cream.