Jeopardy

Answer: What is 413?

Question: How many days will it take before the weight of not making all fifty-two pies becomes too much for me to bear and I make the final eighteen?

Here we are, just over a year later, and I am claiming to be back on the wagon. I have made an occasional pie in that time, but infrequently, and nearly always a repeat of one of the original thirty-four. In those days, I have had occasion to think long and hard about whether or not to finish the game. Now, 413 days later, it seems as though I am ready to do just that.

This past weekend, we were lucky enough to be invited to a paella party thrown by Diego and Sharon. If you have never had real-deal paella, believe me, you should! It was fantastic. I volunteered -- truth be told I was voluteered -- to provide the dessert. And thus, the origins of this post...

Lemon Meringue

Two pies were on the docket for paella night. Given the opportunity, it seems that I will always make a double crust rhubarb-pineapple, so that was the first. Second, I made a lemon meringue, which is similar to a prior pie (clementine meringue), but a classic in its own right.

An interesting twist for both of these pies is that there were some dietary restrictions (essentially no cow dairy), which meant modifications to my standard crust recipe (of course I have my own twists on that recipe, too). I substituted a couple of other fats, replacing about half of the butter with butter-flavored Crisco and the other half with coconut butter. All in all, it did not turn out bad (I have made, and eaten, worse crust), but I am even more firmly of the opinion that there are times where there is simply no substitute for the flavor that butter provides. An alternate option would have been to use goat or sheep butter. Perhaps another time I will try one of those.

To make a long story marginally shorter, here's the only surviving picture of the lemon meringue pie. I think that it turned out quite well. Other attendees enjoyed it too, or they were just nice enough to lie to me and claim that they did.

The recipe that I used for the filling came mostly* from here. Keep in mind that the name of the blog there is gotnomilk.wordpress.com. It turns out that one of the ingredients in the dairy-free pie is margarine. It turns out that most margarine -- Land O'Lakes anyone? -- includes some dairy. It turns out that I am a complete idiot (I know what some of you are thinking... You finally realized that?). So, I was genius enough, after being told no dairy, to serve... dairy. Lucky for me, in this small amount, there was not an issue the other night. But, talk about feeling like a fool. I sure hope to not make that mistake again.

* As usual, I insisted on messing with someone else's recipe in a valiant attempt to ruin it. So, with a nod to the all-powerful Martha and this recipe, I included some freshly grated ginger. In this case, I think it was a good choice and really improved the overall flavor.

I hope and plan to be back in a week with the next installment. I do have a backlog of pies that have been suggested to me to make, so making selections should not be difficult, at least for the next few weeks. Until then, enjoy what is left of the beautiful fall weather.