Sour Orange Pie = Oh-So-Sweet

I'm willing to experiment once I'm comfortable with the basic formula; that's as true in cooking or exercising or TV show watching as it is in my writing or teaching. Today I'm thinking about what fun group project I can subject my comp students to: possibly the creation of happiness surveys, then the design of ads for happiness, nothing product-based. Hmmm. (It's our critical media literacy unit). Anyway, in the same creative spirit, here's a new twist on a classic. I love key lime and so I thought: why not use the same outline, but with orange juice? After some internet digging I found recipes for "sour orange pie," using - you guessed it - sour oranges, which I couldn't find. So, I mixed about 3/4 fresh o.j. with a 1/4 lime juice, and voila: sweeter than key lime but more acidic. This pie is zippy and bright and has some flair. I recommend it for surprising your dinner party pals. With a generous layer of chopped strawberries on top, it looks more gourmet than it is - and who doesn't love that thick custardy filling? The berries add feisty color and their simple sweetness goes a long way to balance the zinging citrus. (By the way - a pie that requires two 'z' adjectives? YES).


Sour Orange Pie

One graham cracker crust
3/4 cup fresh orange juice
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
Seven egg yolks
Two cans sweetened condensed milk (I used the light kind, and it tasted just fine)

Whisk the juice, yolks, and milk in a bowl. Bake the crust for ten minutes at 350, then pour in the filling and bake for another fifteen to twenty minutes. Refrigerate and serve cold, with whipped cream. Delicious. Sorry for the blurred photo, but you get the idea.

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