Chocolate Fudge Pie

Whoever it was that said "diamonds are a girl's best friend" had a thing or two to learn.  Personally, my husband is my best friend, but if he isn't around for some reason, I won't be running towards diamonds; I'll be running towards chocolate!  That's right, good old always-there-when-you-need-it chocolate.
In my entire life, I think I have met one female who did not like chocolate, and to this day I think she is crazy.  I'll grant you that my waistline would be smaller if I didn't like chocolate, but I would miss out on so much culinary chocolaty goodness, so I don't think it would be worth it.  I'll just spend some extra quality time with the treadmill instead. :-P
But, what if I told you that you could have rich, creamy chocolate pie AND not feel guilty about eating a nice big slice of it?  Well, I recently came across a blog called Chocolate Covered Katie.  She specializes in making "healthy" desserts.  Now, I'll be honest, the first recipe I tried from her blog was a not a big hit.  It was edible, but it wasn't something I would make again.  Yesterday though, I saw this pie recipe and had to try it immediately.  It's a very rich, very chocolaty, very creamy pie with only about 150 calories per (large) slice (fewer if you cut smaller slices of pie - and really it is so rich, you could be perfectly satisfied with a half a slice!)
So, I whipped this up yesterday morning, enjoyed a slice with my husband yesterday evening and plan to enjoy more of the leftovers with him this evening after work.  Yum!

The secret of the pie is tofu.  I have seen many recipes that use tofu in desserts before and have never been brave enough to try on on my own before, but this was a real winner.  Just make sure you get the right kind of tofu.  You want the silken kind which is not the kind that is sold in the refrigerated section.  You want the kind in a box that doesn't need to be refrigerated until opened.  I used the Mori-Nu Lite Firm Silken tofu with excellent results for this pie!

Alright, get yourself some silken tofu and let's make this pie!  Now! :)

Ultimate Chocolate Fudge Pie
-1 12.3 oz pkg silken tofu

-1 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder

-1 tsp pure vanilla extract

-2 Tbsp milk (use soy/almond/rice/etc. if you want to make this pareve)

-Scant 1/8 tsp salt

-8-10 oz chocolate chips (I used the full 10 oz because I am a chocoholic!)

-3 Tbsp sugar substitute (I used Splenda, but Katie recommends Agave)
-Optional: flavorings, extracts, or liqueurs (I didn't add anything, but there are so many things that compliment chocolate, you could have a lot of fun playing with the flavorings!) 

Melt the chocolate.  Add all other ingredients to the melted chocolate and blend really well with an immersion blender, or put everything into a food processor and blend until very well processed and very smooth.  Pour the batter into a pie crust (or forget the crust and just pour into a pie tin) and refrigerate for several hours.  

I suggest serving the pie with fruit - just about any fruit goes well with chocolate so have fun with it!

We have a lot of graham crackers in this house so I made a simple graham cracker crust.  I didn't want to add a lot of calories to the pie because of the crust so I didn't want to use the standard crust of mixing graham cracker crumbs with butter.  I googled "low fat graham cracker crust" and found a recipe that used yogurt instead of butter - brilliant!  So I took the basic idea of that recipe and mixed 1 1/2 C of chocolate graham cracker crumbs with about 4 Tbsp of low fat vanilla yogurt, pressed it into a pie plate and baked at 350 for 5 minutes.  That's it.

(The recipe also called for added sugar and cocoa powder, but I didn't think the sugar was needed and I was already using chocolate grahams, though plain would have been good too.  I didn't miss the omitted ingredients.)

ENJOY!!