Key Lime Pie

I know lots of people have made key lime pie and blogged about it but I've been wanting to make it forever and it's delicious so I want to blog about it too! Talk about an easy to put together recipe, and with a graham cracker crust and condensed milk in the custard/filling - what's not to love? It's also easy to make - as long as you're not like me and you actually pay attention. I ended up adding the whipping cream, intended for the topping, to the egg/lime mixture and had to restart. It is quite a tart dessert, so if you love citrusy and tart things then you'll love this. Oh and for my first attempt at making it (the one I messed up) I had actual key limes, but when I went to the store to get some more limes to remake the filling, they didn't have any more. I don't think it makes too big of a difference, aside from the fact that key lime pie sounds a lot better than just lime pie (which actually doesn't sound appealing at all now that I've written it out).

If you have extra condensed milk because you can't find the right size can, make dulce de leche! And then use that dulce de leche to make these yummy looking dulce de leche macaroons that are on my list of things to make. And/or with the extra egg whites you can make regular macaroons (or macarons!)

If this sounds good, you might also like:
Apple Pie with Brown Sugar Streusel Topping
Raspberry and White Chocolate Pie
Coconut Cream Pie
The Most Extraordinary French Lemon Cream Tart

Key Lime Pie
Adapted from Martha Stewart

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
5 tablespoons sugar
14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
4 large egg yolks
1/2 cup freshly squeezed key-lime juice
1 tbsp grated key-lime zest
1 1/2 cups heavy cream, chilled

1. Heat oven to 375F. Mix together graham cracker crumbs, butter, and 3 tablespoons sugar in a medium bowl. Press into a 9-inch pie plate, and bake until lightly browned, about 12 minutes. Remove from oven, and transfer to a wire rack until completely cooled.

2. Lower oven to 325F. In a medium bowl, gently whisk together condensed milk, egg yolks, key-lime juice, and zest. Pour into the prepared, cooled crust.

3. Return pie to oven, and bake until the center is set but still quivers when the pan is nudged, 15 to 17 minutes. Let cool completely on a wire rack.

4. Shortly before serving, combine cream and remaining 2 tablespoons sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Whisk on medium speed until soft peaks form, 2 to 3 minutes. Spoon over cooled pie. Serve immediately. Garnish with lime slices if you feel fancy.

Lime Sugar Cookies

I first saw these lime sugar cookies through Patricia of Technicolor Kitchen who changed the recipe from Pinch My Salt to lime instead of lemon sugar cookies. And what a delicious recipe it is. These cookies were very soft, with slightly crispy edges. I'm used to hard sugar cookies, but I must say that while hard ones can be delicious, these ones are a welcome addition to my cookie repertoire. I'm not sure what happened to mine around the edges as they looked kind of cracked - and the middles of my cookies look deflated. Maybe I beat too much air into the batter? Anyway, I'd like more lime flavour so next time I'll add more (and maybe white chocolate? mmm). I'm not sure what happened with my photos of these cookies as most of them are kind of pink so unfortunately this is the only photo I've got!

Giant Lime (or Lemon) Sugar Cookies
Adapted from Pinch My Salt

Yield: 24 giant cookies

1/2 cup sugar
Zest from 2 limes (separating out 1 tsp)
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup butter, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 3/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda

Prepare lime sugar: In a mini food processor, blend 1/2 cup sugar with 1 tsp lime zest*. Pulse several times until the lime zest is incorporated into the sugar. Put sugar mixture in a shallow bowl and stir lightly with a fork to break up any clumps. Set aside.

Prepare cookie dough: In a medium bowl, stir together flour, salt, cream of tartar and baking soda. Set aside.

Cream together butter and remaining 1 1/2 cup sugar. Blend in eggs, one at a time then add vanilla, lemon juice, and remaining lemon zest. Add flour mixture, one cup at a time, blending well after each addition, until all flour is incorporated.

Refrigerate dough for one hour.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Using a jumbo cookie scoop or your hands, shape two tablespoonfuls of dough into a ball and roll in lemon sugar. Place ball of dough on cookie sheet and press down lightly with the bottom of a glass until cookie is about 1/2 inch thick. Repeat. Six cookies will fit on one pan.

Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees.

*I ground the sugar too fine so don't be overzealous like me. Or if you can't stop yourself from being overzealous, use coarse sugar.

Sweet Potato Black Bean Salsa

A couple of weeks ago I decided that I really needed to make the effort to incorporate beans into my diet. Not only are they good for you but as a vegetarian, I think they should be included in at least a meal or two every week. Unfortunately up until this point, I have been a very bad bean fearing vegetarian. Because you see, I don't really love beans. The first bean dish that I liked was seven layer dip, but then the beans are covered by other delicious things like guacamole, sour cream, cheese, tomatoes and green onions. Then I discovered that I liked refried beans. But I haven't really explored the world of beans too much aside from that.

I've made a few dishes with chickpeas, though I don't really like chickpeas (aside from in hummus, delicious! - I still remember the time when I was on an airplane and my vegetarian meal was a bun with a few chickpeas in it...) I thought that if I made the beans from scratch (buy dried beans instead of canned), that might make the whole thing more exciting for me so I'd be looking forward to eating beans. I haven't done that yet, but I am becoming more accepting of beans. I think I need to find one or two kinds that I like and then find dishes that use them.

My issue with beans reminds me of Jeffrey Steingarten's book The Man Who Ate Everything. Great book by the way, highly recommend it. Anyway, he talks about how there were foods that he didn't like (I can't remember them now but I think one of them was Greek salad and possibly organ meats?). So what he did was he decided to expose himself to those foods enough, which resulted in him shedding his picky eater ways. Now in my head when I think of something I don't like but I know I should eat (ie. beans), I think of him and it makes it easier to know that one day I will like something I previously didn't.

Once I decided I needed to eat more beans, I started looking through my cookbooks' indexes to find something tasty. One of the first things I saw caught my eye: sweet potato and black bean salsa. Sweet potatoes are one of my favourite veggies (or technically tubers?) and one of my favourite things in general to eat, so how could I go wrong? And then I read the description above the recipe, which said "great for Halloween!" (since black beans = black, sweet potato = orange) and I was totally sold. (Halloween and the month leading up to it, the time of year, all the decorations, the spooky stories, and all of that wonderful stuff are all my favourite things.)

I had read through the entire recipe before going out to buy ingredients, but when I started making it, I completely forgot that I was going to half it (since it makes I think it was 7 cups of salsa!) That is an absolute ton of salsa for one person to eat. Luckily other people liked it so I constantly told them to eat it. I'm actually amazed that we got through the whole thing. Mostly I used the salsa to make quesadillas (just with the salsa and some cheese). So delicious. Other people wished it was spicier, and I would've been okay with that but I didn't have a problem with it the way it was. I was scared that the sweet potato would be too mushy once it was cooked and chopped but it held up just fine. The addition of pumpkin seeds was also festive, and nutritious! I've only made salsa a couple of times before and I haven't yet made a more traditional salsa. I think I'm scared of messing it up since I love salsa so much. I would definitely make this salsa again though, and surprisingly I wished that there were more beans in the salsa!

Sweet Potato Black Bean Salsa
(adapted from Entertaining for A Veggie Planet)

Makes 7 cups

2 pounds sweet potatoes (about 2), peeled & quartered
2 1/4 cups finely chopped tomatoes
1 13-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 green bell pepper, finely chopped
1/2 cup toasted pumpkin seeds
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1/3 cup fresh lime juice*
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
salt & pepper to taste

1. Place the sweet potatoes in a medium saucepan and add cold water to cover. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until just tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. Drain well and allow to cool.

2. While waiting for the sweet potatoes to cool, put together the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl. Once the sweet potatoes are cool, finely chop them and add them to everything else. Mix well.

*For some reason the recipe says this is 6 limes but for me it was 2.