A Little Bite Of Sunshine: Lemon Pie With Toasted Pecan Graham Crust

If you listen closely enough, you can hear the earth give off a collective sigh of relief.  "YES!  We made it though another winter!"  And that's how I feel too.....Snow is almost completely melted...There are signs of glimmering green life in my flower beds...Temperatures are rising and so are moods.  I've had a little bounce to my step this week, and I know I'm not the only one.  Then of course there are the ubiquitous boys in shorts and ball caps, even though it's not past ten degrees Celsius.  Um, yeah.  Lookin' good.

Saskatoon is incredibly sunny.  There is some sort of statistic out there on how much sunlight we get per year...and of course I don't know it off the top of my head...but it's a lot.  Lots and lots of sun.  It can be cold and a trifle windy....but it's BRIGHT!  There is so much sun in my office/dining room/ spare room right now I can barely see the computer screen.  It streams in and lights up my entire little house.  I love days like this.

Feeling all happy and light, I wanted something that tastes how I feel, if that makes sense...and of course it had to be lemon.  I know there are some of you out there that will choose Lemon over Chocolate when it comes to desserts.  I've witnessed many a heated battle about this.  I'm a permanent member of Team Chocolate,  but every once in awhile, I shake things up and go see how things are on the other side of the debate.  Not so bad!!!

I do love lemon desserts...lemon tart, lemon curd, lemon squares, lemon cream cheese muffins (that I wrote about previously!) But I'm NOTa fan of lemon meringue pie.  And the meringue is to blame.  All that soggy egg white, that just weeps and makes a sad pie.  When I make lemon pie, I only put cream on top, none of that awful meringue.  This crust is nice too, because you don't have to make pastry (Yay!), and it's a super quick, press in , bake 10 minutes, bring out, pour the filling in, bake 15 more minutes, and you are done kind of pie.  The filling just has 3 ingredients, is the perfect balance of tart and sweet...so really...if you love lemon, (and even if you are on Team Chocolate), go ahead and give this pie a whirl.  If you pay attention, you can taste the sunshine.

Lemon Pie in Pecan Graham Crust

Crust:
3/4 cup toasted pecans
1 1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
3 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp melted butter

Filling:
2 egg yolks
1 can sweetened condensed milk
grated zest of one lemon
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

Whipping cream for garnish

For the crust:  Preheat oven to 350*F.  Combine all of the crust ingredients in a bowl and stir well.  Press into a 9 inch glass pie plate.  Bake for about 10 minutes. 
For the filling:  Mix together filling ingredients.  Pour into baked pie shell.  Bake for 15 minutes until set.  Let cool completely.  Chill one hour.  Spread whipped cream on top.  Serves 6.