Lovely Lemon Meringue Pie

Lemon Meringue Pie is one of my FAVORITES!!!

If I make it with the right ingredients then it's one that I can even eat. So yummy!!

I use a paleo crust by Against All Grains...

I use her Honey Graham Cracker Crust , but switch out a few ingredients I use maple syrup instead of honey because I can't have honey. I omit the cinnamon. Sometimes I use hazelnut flour instead of almond flour.

For the lemon filling I use Betty Crocker recipe....

Filling

3

egg yolks

1 1/2

cups sugar

1/3

cup plus 1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 1/2

cups water

3

tablespoons Ghee

2

teaspoons grated lemon peel

1/2

cup lemon juice

Meringue

3

egg whites

1/4

teaspoon cream of tartar

6

tablespoons sugar

1/2

teaspoon vanilla 

Steps

• 4

  Reduce oven temperature to 400°F. In small bowl, beat egg yolks with fork. In 2-quart saucepan, mix sugar and cornstarch; gradually stir in water. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir 1 minute.
• 5

  Immediately stir at least half of hot mixture into egg yolks; stir back into hot mixture in saucepan. Boil and stir 2 minutes; remove from heat. Stir in butter, lemon peel, lemon juice and food color. Pour into pie crust.
• 6

  In medium bowl, beat egg whites and cream of tartar with electric mixer on high speed until foamy. Beat in sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time; continue beating until stiff and glossy. Do not underbeat. Beat in vanilla. Spoon onto hot pie filling. Spread over filling, carefully sealing meringue to edge of crust to prevent shrinking or weeping.
• 7

  Bake 8 to 12 minutes or until meringue is light brown. Cool away from draft 2 hours. Cover and refrigerate cooled pie until serving. Store in refrigerator.
  

  

  So so delicious!!!

  
  

  I've also used this recipe...https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/lemon_meringue_pie/

National Lemon Meringue Pie Day....

Yes, it is!

Aug. 15th is the official Lemon Meringue Pie Day!

I made a couple for my husband to take to work to share with his office and one for later.

I promise if you ever come to visit I'll make one just for you!

I started off making this Paleo Pastry Crust from my Against All Grain Cookbook by Danielle Walker.

Her book here on amazon or here is another similar recipe of her's at her website, Honey Graham Cracker Pie Crust.

I have also made pie with this ah-maz-ing crust...

Flaky Butter Pie Crust 

by Amy Thielen of Heartland Table

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
9 ounces (2 sticks plus 2 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

Directions

For the flaky butter pie crust: Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. Add the butter and cut it in with a pastry blender until the largest pieces are the size of small peas and the mixture begins to clump on the pastry blender. Shuffle through the mixture with your hands, pinching chunks of fat to flatten them.

Stir the vinegar and 5 tablespoons ice water together in a bowl. Add the liquid to the flour mixture and stir with a fork. Pinch a clump of dough in your hands: If it feels moist and clumps together easily, it's probably hydrated enough. If it feels really crumbly, add another tablespoon or two of ice water until you can form a baseball-size clump of dough, packing it on as if you were making a snowball.

Divide the dough in half and form each half into a flat disk. Wrap both disks in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days. Thirty minutes before you're ready to roll out the dough, remove it from the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature to soften.

* This recipe is for her blueberry pie, so it doesn't have separate directions for baking just the pie crust. I found other instructions from Martha Stewart...

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prick the bottom of pastry all over with a fork. Line the pastry with parchment paper; fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake until pastry begins to color around the edges, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the parchment paper and weights, and continue to bake just until the pastry dries out and turns a light golden color for a partially baked shell, and a deeper amber for a fully baked shell, 5 to 20 minutes more. Cool completely on a wire rack before filling.

For the filling I followed this Betty Crocker recipe...

Filling

• 3 egg yolks
• 1 1/2 cups sugar 
• 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 1/2 cups water 
• 3 tablespoons butter or margarine
• 2 teaspoons grated lemon peel 
• 1/2 cup lemon juice 
• 2 drops yellow food color, if desired

Meringue

• 3 egg whites 
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 6 tablespoons sugar 
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla  

 Directions

• Oven temperature to 400°F. In small bowl, beat egg yolks with fork. In 2-quart saucepan, mix sugar and cornstarch; gradually stir in water. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir 1 minute.
• Immediately stir at least half of hot mixture into egg yolks; stir back into hot mixture in saucepan. Boil and stir 2 minutes; remove from heat. Stir in butter, lemon peel, lemon juice and food color. Pour into pie crust.
• In medium bowl, beat egg whites and cream of tartar with electric mixer on high speed until foamy. Beat in sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time; continue beating until stiff and glossy. Do not underbeat. Beat in vanilla. Spoon onto hot pie filling. Spread over filling, carefully sealing meringue to edge of crust to prevent shrinking or weeping.
• Bake 8 to 12 minutes or until meringue is light brown. Cool away from draft 2 hours. Cover and refrigerate cooled pie until serving. Store in refrigerator. 
•  

I've never done a meringue pie before and it's quite fun.

I have lots of perfection to make!

 
Maybe one of these days I'll be able to make a Lemon Meringue Pie like Julia Child, hopefully!

Which, Aug. 15th is also the amazing Julia Child's Birthday. Perfect.

Here's to pies and Julia!

Bon Appétit!

Baking A Whole Chicken

I love to regularly bake a whole chicken. This time I got a special "Poultry Seasoning" pack filled with fresh rosemary, thyme, and oregano at our local grocery store and put most of the herbs inside the chicken with sliced lemons.

I cut some of the rind off the lemons, but not all of it. Then I added the rest of the herbs around the chicken.

This is the process I follow usually over a two day period...

• Brine the raw chicken, to get the crispy skin. Get a big pot filled with water and add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of sea salt (enough to cover the chicken once immersed). Let it sit up to 4 hrs. or over night. I like to make sure the chicken is on its back in the water so it's in the salt water.
• Then pour out the water and pat the chicken dry. Put it back in the pot, on it's belly, and let it sit in the refrigerator for a few more hours.
• When I'm ready to bake the chicken I drizzle butter or oil over it and sprinkle sea salt, garlic powder, and black pepper and rub it all in.
• Stuff inside the chicken all the herbs and sliced lemons.
• Bake at 375 deg. for 1 hr. and 45 min.
• Internal heat should be 165 deg. before done.

Nice and crispy skin.

We love serving it with roasted or steamed veggies, mashed cauliflower, and salad. The chicken is reflecting light from my bright orange shirt.
There is also plenty of meat for leftovers for the next few days.

Organic Applesauce

 I've been wanting to make my own applesauce and oh my goodness, the homemade stuff is so much better than the organic applesauce we buy at the store! I never really liked the texture of applesauce, but this stuff is good! I buy the 10lbs bags of organic red apples at Costco for juicing and eating, but this time I bought an extra bag to make applesauce. Here's the process I did...

I had to buy a apple corer and cored out the center of the apple.

Have you ever heard of controversies over toxins found in manufactured apple juice and applesauce....Los Angeles Times: Dr. Oz vs. FDA, Arsenic found in Mott's apple juice, Eco-News. I've known that apple seeds are toxic, containing cyanide, so can we be sure that the prepared foods we buy are the best quality and safe? I'm all about knowing exactly what is going into my food. When you prepare your own food, you most likely are using crazy toxic chemicals and preservatives that are put in processed foods. The more you know about your food the better off your body and health will be!

 Next, I peeled off the skins, quartered the apple, and then chopped 'em up in cubes. And tossed them into my steaming basket in a pot on the stove. I let the apples steam for about 5-8mins.

In this first batch I added some fresh squeezed lemon to help the applesauce coloring stay light and yellow.

 

 I put all the steamed apples and lemon juice into the vita-mix on low speeds.

 I slowly turned up the speed and used the tamper stick to push down the apples, so everything was getting blended. 

  

 It came out nice and smooth!

 The jar on the left is the applesauce with the lemon added and the jar on the right has nothing added.

Finished product and oh so good! I like to save all my glass jars and they are really starting to add up. My husband will be delighted I'm finally using them, all in good time!