Long before Congress decided to recognize it, I gathered non-math geek friends together every March 14th for good conversation and good pi(e). In the years since those first small gatherings, my annual Pi Day celebration has grown to include St. Patrick's Day in a mid-March extravaganza of baked goods and green beer. Even with my love of all things pi, pie, and baking, I'm not a big fan of actually making and rolling out my own pie crust - It's intimidating, and there are several nice companies that make them for me. Luckily pie crust is one of those things that can be made vegan by default (instead of requiring adaptation), and several commercially available products are. My favorite is Marie Callender's frozen crust - cheap, easy to use, and completely animal-product free (until you fill it up with something creamy, that is).
On that topic, below is my award-winning vanilla cream cheesecake pie recipe. I'm lazy today, so I'm going to copy/paste the two-pie amounts below, but you can halve it if one is enough for you. Enjoy!
Michael's Vanilla Cream Cheesecake Pie
2 9-inch pie shells or graham cracker crusts
1 large box instant vanilla pudding mix
2 1/2 cups whole milk
10oz no-bake cheesecake filling (or 8oz cream cheese combined with 1/2 cup sugar)
8-10 vanilla cookies
Whipped topping
1 pint heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
Directions
Bake and cool pie shells, if needed.
Prepare pudding/pie filling as directed on box, mixing pudding powder with 2 1/2 cups whole milk. Whisk two minutes. Stir in prepared no-bake cheesecake filling, whisk until mostly smooth (about 1 minute). Add 1/2 of pie filling to each shell and refrigerate for 10-30 minutes.
To make topping, add sugar and vanilla to heavy cream in a large mixing bowl, and using an electric mixer, whip for 3-4 minutes, until mixture holds soft peaks when beaters are removed. Smooth over the cooled pies using a large spoon or spatula, or pipe on using a piping bag. In a plastic zip-top bag, crush vanilla cookies by hand into small pieces, and sprinkle cookie pieces over pies.
Happy Pi(e) Day!
