LMP

An “EMP” is an intense electromagnetic burst intended to disable electronic systems. An “LMP” is an intense citrus burst intended to disable taste buds. In a really good way.

The chickie babe asked for a lemon meringue pie for her birthday. I tried to stall her with “Merengue? Hon, you know I’m a lousy dancer”, but she wasn’t buying it. So in mid-move, surrounded by towers of cardboard boxes, with recipes packed up already, I made a sweet pie for my sweetie pie.

I snagged a recipe from the America’s Test Kitchen web site and got busy. There were a couple of interesting things about this recipe. The pie crust they suggested was a fairly standard flour pie dough, but when rolling it out, they use graham cracker crumbs as the “flour” to keep the dough from sticking to the rolling surface. So as you’re rolling, you’re embedding this gritty graham cracker dust into the surface of the pie dough. I like the effect they were shooting for, but it did mean the dough was very fragile when it was fully rolled out, and wanted to crumble dramatically when I finally fitted it into my pie dish. Next time, I’ll try leaving the crust a little thicker. The recipe also called for less lemon juice in the pie filling than I would have guessed. But now that I’ve sampled the pie, they were pretty close. I might add a bit more juice (balancing it by adding less water), but not a lot.

Most importantly, the first slice elicited all of the right moans and murmurs from The Girl , and what could possibly be more important?

Okay, now she can pack away the pie weights.