"New Wave" Lemon Meringue Pie - by Lisa

Wow...it's finally here. My last recipe from this wonderful and amazing project! It only took me four kitchens and two states to do it, but here we are. :) I had aspirations of completing this recipe before we moved, but life kinda got complicated for awhile and with all the packing and preparation I just ran out of time. Fortunately I am obsessive about setting up the kitchen ASAP when we move, so I was actually able to get this done without too much muss or fuss!

Like Summer mentioned, I did actually consider buying the shortbread and meringues, but I experienced the same line of reasoning as she did, and I decided to make it all! I also thought I'd spread it out over a couple of days, but I wound up being able to get everything completed in the same day!

I started in the morning with making the lemon curd. I was surprised to see how many egg yolks (6!) went into it! Fortunately I knew exactly where my double boiler was, so I pulled that out, dumped in all the ingredients and started whisking away. Funny little side story, Summer told me measuring out the 1 inch of water was really beneficial, so I decided to do the same. Except....all of my measuring tools were still packed away somewhere. So I improvised with an iPhone app, a spatula and a rubber band. :)

It all worked out and about 22 minutes later my lemon curd was thickened up real nice. I strained it into a bowl, covered it and set it in the fridge to chill.

A little while later, I made the shortbread. This was super simple to make and I had it in the oven within minutes. It baked for 13 minutes before I pulled it out (yep, learning another oven and its quirks). Somehow my scoring disappeared, but I was able to cut them pretty easily anyway. Mine were a little thicker since I only had an 8x8 pan to work with.

Finally I made the meringues. I had no idea how simple those were! Egg whites and sugar - that's it! It took a lot longer than I expected for them to stiffen up, but once I put the mixed on super high speed, they really thickened up. I stole Summer's idea for using a piping bag and decorator tip and plopped them on to the baking sheet. After 45 minutes, I turned the oven off, but I was disappointed to see that they had over baked and started browning. :( Oh well...hard to learn a new oven in one day.

After dinner, I assembled them and distributed them to the kids, hubby and his folks who were here helping with some lingering move items. I thought it looked really cute all put together, and I loved the taste of the lemon curd! So yummy! These made for a really cute little twist on the classic pie and everyone enjoyed them. :)

So there you have it. That brings us to the conclusion of this fantastic journey! I can't wait to continue later this summer with the direction we're heading in with the blog. Hope you'll stay with us! :)