From Nerdy to Thirty: Pi Day Recipe: Cutie Pie!

The KLAW is now an 18 month old toddler with a strong will. He knows what he wants, and even though he has a very small vocabulary, lets us know exactly what that is. Lately the thing he wants most is FRUIT! He will eat fruit for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Today he has had five bananas. I know this is about four too many, but at least it's something unprocessed and full of nutrients. He can say banana (nana), but also loves apples, pineapple, grapes and citrus, especially clementines or mandarins.

mmm nanas!

peeling Cuties

The Cuties clementines/mandarins are especially great because he likes to peel them once I get it started. Then they break up in to bite-sized seedless wedges, perfect for little hands (as advertised). I made the mistake of buying another type of orange citrus (tangerines, I think) and made a huge mess every day as I unseeded the darn things for him.

Cuties!

Pi Day is here, an annual tradition observed on March 14th (pi=3.14=3/14) by nerds like me around the world. This year is going to particularly epic. Pi to many decimal places is 3.141592653 which makes the magical moment 3/14/15 at 9:26:53 a.m. or if you want to be extra specific 3.14159265359 which rounds to 3/14/15 at 9:26:54 in the morning. But with a toddler around, I would be doing pretty good to have anything coordinated in the nine o'clock hour, in some time zone somewhere. We'll be having breakfast pot pies (the cheapie Budget freezer ones) at that epic moment, or thereabouts.

But I still wanted to have a sweet pie, so I came up with an idea for a pie I can make ahead of time and serve after our supper (or maybe lunch, we'll see). Combining my kid's love for the Cuties and the momentous Pi Day, I came up with... wait for it... the CUTIE PIE! Get it? Get it? I crack myself up. I have a family-favorite standby recipe from my Gram for key lime pie. It is so universally loved that it even won a bake-off at my former employer which meant the recipe was printed on their Recipe Hand Towels and sold to the public!

Wisteria Recipe Hand Towels

For the Cutie Pie, I simply substituted orange juice concentrate for the lime juice and added a dash of lemon juice to give it some extra tang. I was going for a Creamsicle type flavor. Garnished with some fresh Cutie wedges, and voila, a simple Cutie Pie that even a toddler can help make.