QUESTION:

I am looking for a great peanut butter pie recipe for a graduation party next weekend and would prefer one that doesn't need baking. I enjoy your recipes and I look forward to hearing from you.

ANSWER: Here's a quick trivia question for you. How many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches do Americans eat each year? Correct answer: 10 B, as in billion!I like peanut butter, but I must be a lightweight in the PBJ race. There have got to be some real peanut butter champions out there, and I'm sure they all want to know where their favorite food came from.A lot of people were taught that George Washington Carver invented peanut butter. That's not exactly true, and I'll get back to Mr. Carver in a minute because he really was a peanut hero. But before there was peanut butter, the peanut had a history of its own. And let's just get this over with ... the peanut is not a nut; it's actually a legume that originated in South America. It finally arrived in North America by way of Africa and in this country they were originally called goobers from the African word nguba. Eventually they took on the name peanuts and sometimes groundnuts because they grow on bushes close to the ground.Though there are many claims about the true origins of peanut butter, we do know that as early as the 15th century Africans and Chinese were grinding peanuts to a creamy texture for sauces and stews. The peanut butter we enjoy today was pioneered in 1890 by Dr. Straub, a St. Louis physician who was trying to help his older patients whose bad teeth made it hard for them to chew meat. He patented a mill for grinding peanuts into butter and was able to convince a food company into packaging it for his patients and other people with poor teeth. This company (Bayle Food Products) took its new product to the St. Louis World Fair in 1904. Thinking that they had enough of a supply to last for weeks, they sold peanut butter samples for a penny a piece (it cost almost a penny to make each sample). After three days they were completely out and they made more than $700 in profit!It was such a hit that people wanted peanut butter all the time and grocery stores were more than willing to supply it. In the 1920s companies were jockeying to come up with the best product, and one of the newer innovations was to produce a stabilized peanut butter with a longer shelf life. The E.K. Pond company was one of the first to do this and in 1928 it was renamed Peter Pan. Joseph Rosenfeld, the entrepreneur who came up with shelf stable peanut butter, became Captain Hook and had a dispute with Peter Pan. Being a crafty pirate, he started selling another peanut butter brand called Skippy.All this brings us back to George Washington Carver. When the cotton crop was destroyed by the boil weevil, Mr. Carver, an educator, scientist and botanist from Alabama's Tuskegee Institute, smartly convinced farmers that the peanut was the best replacement. By 1903, he had hundreds of recipes using peanuts and he printed a paper in 1916 titled "How to Grow the Peanut and 105 ways to prepare it for human consumption" (it didn't have a pie recipe, but included three killer recipes for peanut butter cookies). If it hadn't been for Mr. Carver's promotion of the peanut, Peter Pan and Skippy might never have seen the inside of a jar.I forgot. Was your request for a pie? Well I'm glad you brought that up because we have ancient Egyptian pie records. ... OK, don't worry. I'm not going to get into the history of pie, but I hope you enjoy these peanut butter pie recipes. You can thank Normandy Farm Banquet Chef John Smith (who makes his version whenever he goes camping and doesn't use refrigeration) and Pastry Chef Colleen Winston for the following recipes. Translation? Don't blame me if you don't like them!

1 9-inch graham cracker crust shell½ cup fudge sauce1 cup chopped peanut butter cupsFilling:4 ounces cream cheese1 cup smooth peanut butter½ cup 10-x sugar½ cup heavy whipping creamGarnish:1 cup heavy whipping cream½ cup 10-x sugar1 cup salted peanutsLightly toast the graham cracker shell in a pre-heated 350-degree oven for 10 minutes. Let cool. Lightly warm the fudge sauce, and pour into the bottom of the pie shell. Sprinkle the chopped peanut butter cups on top of the fudge sauce. Set aside.In a bowl, whip the cream cheese, sugar, and the peanut butter until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, whip the heavy cream until soft peaks form. Lightly fold the cream into the peanut butter mixture until well blended. Pour into pie shell and smooth out until even. Cover with plastic wrap, and chill overnight in the refrigerator.The next day, whip remaining cream along with the sugar into stiff peaks. Using a spatula, or a piping bag, cover the top of the pie with the cream. Sprinkle the cream with the chopped salted peanuts. Allow to set for approximately 1 hour before serving. Serves eight to ten people.

1 9-inch graham cracker pie shell1 large package of instant vanilla pudding1 cup peanut butter2 ½ cups confectioners sugar3 cups whipped toppingMix ½ cup peanut butter and the confectioner's sugar to a crumbly streusel like texture. Divide mixture in half, putting half of the mix in the bottom of the piecrust. Mix pudding according to package directions minus ½ cup milk.Stir in the other ½ cup peanut butter and combine well. Pour into the pie shell on top of other mixture. Allow to set up, then top with whipped topping and the remainder of the peanut butter and sugar streusel crumbs.