Tart Lemon Pie

We have friends visiting from Salt Lake City this weekend - here for the UTAH vs. UCLA womens' gymnastics meet (I'm sorry to say that the Utes were soundly defeated by the Bruins, but they will rebound - and UCLA looked great this early in the season). Anyway, I knew I wouldn't have much time to work on this blog, so I decided to make something really easy and fast and fun for us to enjoy - both here at home, eating, and here on the blog, for your reading enjoyment.




Kenny brought me a big bag of lemons picked fresh from his lemon tree - so I wanted to make Lemon Pie. I was searching for a recipe from my dear friend Bobbie in Phoenix, but he never got back to me, so I found this recipe on the internet at foodnetwork.... it's so simple and as you'll read later, turned out to be quite tasty - even though my presentation was somewhat flawed.

I picked this recipe because it was simple, and it didn't require separating the egg yolks from the egg whites, and didn't involve making merangue...and the pies were delicious.

The ingredients are basic - except for the right-off-the-tree picked lemons, unless you live in a citrus friendly climate.

2 pre-baked-ready-to-fill pie crusts
4 eggs
1 cup heavy cream
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice.

Really - that's IT. AND you don't have to separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and make meringue to go on top.

I started with Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust dough - so I set my oven to 450, unrolled the pie crusts, layed them out in two pie tins, then baked according to directions.

I ran into trouble - I did not press the dough hard enough against the sides of the pans, and when the heat hit the dough, it caused the sides to cave in - of course I didn't realize this until it was too late to do anything about it. Oh well - what's a budding chef to do other than press onward.

When the crusts are out of the oven, turn the temperature down to 350 degrees. That's the temperature for baking the pies.

While the crusts are cooling, prepare the pie filling. First - squeeze your lemon juice. The lemons I used came from 3 different lemon trees, so they were different sizes and types. I squoze 6 lemons to get my 1 cup of juice. In your favorite mixing bowl whisk together all the ingredients (except the pie crusts - they would gum up your whisk and make the filling really lumpy, and besides, there wouldn't be anything to fill).

Pour the filling into the pie crusts, skimming off the foam (if you do let a little foam get by, it will just bubble up as an unsightly blemish on the face of your pie - but it will still taste delicious). Bake the pies for about 20 minutes, until the filling is set - how do you know? - it will jiggle a bit in the center. Let the pies cool completely - just let them sit on the counter.

When I make these again - and I will - I would double the filling to make the pie thicker (I would also press the pie crust tighter so it doesn't fall). Even though the pies as prepared were not the most beautiful of pies, they were oh so delicious, and really, isn't the taste what's ultimately important?