The Art of Pie... Lemon Meringue

I need to make an effort to clean out the fridge and freezer.  Both of them are too full at the moment.  So I grabbed a ball of pie dough from the freezer and the jar of local-lemon juice that's been sitting in my fridge for the past month (remember this?) and decided to try my first ever lemon meringue pie.  I love lemon desserts, so I'm not really sure why I've never attempted one before.  May be I was a tad intimidated by the meringue.

I followed Kate's recipe (not for the pie dough... I'm still waiting for my order of leaf lard to be delivered and I had that ball in the freezer so I couldn't justify making more...) and it worked just perfectly.  The only change I made was that I did not have any lemon zest, so I added in a bit of homemade lemon extract instead.

I couldn't have been more pleased with the results.  The youngest took one bite and said "oooooh!  This is GOOD!"  The oldest ate vegetables at dinner so she could have dessert.  The husband said "You've never made Lemon Meringue before!" (15+ years of marriage and THAT'S what he notices???)

The struggle was waiting for it to cool completely before cutting in to it.  It was a long, hard wait.

It was real good, y'all!  When I can get my hands on more calamansi, I'm going to try that instead of the lemon.  Kate, you're killing me here.  I do not have the room on my shelf for another cookbook!  (I know Kindle is an option but when it comes to cooking, I want the real thing.)  I still have one more ball of dough in the freezer and a can of pumpkin in the pantry, so I might have to be the only person who bakes pumpkin pie in February.  And hopefully the lard gets here soon because I really want to try the Chicken Pot Pie.