February 22, 2011: Key Lime Pie

Oh, I remember this day. It was cold and dreary after we had a few days of sweatshirt weather and sun. It pissed me off something fierce. I remember that I went to Meijer to buy a bottle of rum and just sit in my room reading all night, but I got distracted. Very much so. I bought two bags of key limes, whipped cream and a pie crust... but why?! Also, don't ask me why, but I always have two cans of sweetened condensed milk on hand.

I thought that making a pie like this and drinking Rum would help combat the return of the cold, so I took a chance. I know the recipe by heart, it's been in my family for years, so I didn't even have to think about what I needed to get or how much of anything to get. It was all instinct. My family hails from northern Illinois on both sides, which makes it strange that Key Lime Pie would be an old family recipe. The recipe came from my Grandparent's time in Key West. My grandfather was an airplane mechanic in the Navy during the Korean War, only instead of being shipped to Korea, he was shipped to Key West and worked on TBM Avengers at the Naval Base. And that's how a fairly particularly localized recipe made its way to my family in Northern Illinois. Funny fact: the reason that you don't see pies like this in a lot of other parts of the nation is because of the fact that you could get milk in most places. The Key Lime Pie uses sweetened condensed milk, instead of regular milk, because it was some of the only dairy they could get before refrigeration.

After shopping I came home with that rum and realized that I couldn't cook and read at the same time, my solution: BOOKS ON TAPE! I ended up listening to Joanne Harris' Chocolat on my Ipod while I made the pie. The first step is the worst: hand squeeze a cup of lime juice. And you can't just use lime juice, you have to use Key Lime Juice. A lot of places use just plain old lime juice, but it's not a Key Lime Pie unless you use Key Limes, I once became enraged at Ina Garten as I watched her use regular lime juice in the Key Lime Pie, Blair thought I was crazy. In the time is took me to type all of this post so far and upload the pictures, I was only about a quarter done with those limes.

That's really the worst part. After that you simply empty the Milk into a bowl, pour in the cup of lime juice and plop in a few egg yokes and whisk until it coats the back of a spoon. When the "custard" is ready, pour it in the pie pan (I always cheat at this part, cause I SUCK at making pie crusts). Traditionally, you're done a this point. But the world of coddling and political correctness has convinced most of the world not to eat eggs raw. Because of my girlfriend, I'm forced to put the pie in the oven to raise its temperature to kill any egg bacteria that's already been killed by all the citrus in the lime juice. It's supposed to cook in a fashion similar to ceviche. I mean, come on! I even used brown eggs!

The pie turned out being a little tart and overpowering, but altogether decent. I attributed the tartness to the limes being out of season. I sure had to squeeze a lot of them to get the proper amount of juice. Even used some of the left overs to make a daiquiri... not good. Despite the pie being tart, it was almost completely eaten in two days. When I talked to my mom about it, I learned why it was so tart... I used twice as much lime juice as I should have.... woops!

Also, this conversation took place that night.
Blair - Yeah, why did you listen to Chocolat? Are you supposed to be a better cook after you read it or something?
Me - No, it's for my class.
B - Oh, I couldn't figure out for the life of me why you read that, it made no sense. I never thought it could have been for class. That makes a lot more sense.