Would You Like Pickles In That?

I often make fun of others on my blog and it would only be fair of me to poke fun of myself as well. I've done some dumb stuff in my life but this takes the pie ... the key lime pie.


My mother is an amazing cook but I never took much of an interest in cooking while I was living at home. Needless to say when I moved away for college I was lucky that I knew how to boil water. I was notorious for burning everything or turning on the wrong burners and cooking nothing. Me and the stove were not friends. Overtime I learned how to cook, with much trial and error. I started with my Mom's Pisgetti Sauce and was eventually mastering my Grandma's handmade pierogies. It seemed that the more elaborate of a recipe, the easier I found it. The few things I haven't mastered are pancakes and desserts baked in the oven like pies.

Let me start off by saying, and in my defense, this recipe sucked and had horrible directions. I pull down my a cookbook my Mom gave me, and found a Key Lime Pie recipe on a fabric sheet stuffed in the book. I thought it was special and probably super yummy so I wrote down all the ingredients and off to the store I went. Graham cracker crust ... check, limes ... check, cream of tartar ... check?

My first mistake was getting key limes. The recipe called for lime juice. I thought to stay true to a key lime pie, you need key limes. I used the same amount of key lime juice the recipe called for as it did for lime juice so it was a little tart. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

This was a recipe for Key Lime Pie with Meringue. So with the pie part out of the way I'm off start to work on the meringue.

Mix 1/4 teaspoon of Cream of Tartar with Egg Whites and beat until it peaks.

I had a difficult time finding this cream of tartar by the way. It wasn't with the milk, or cheese but I found something with tartar on it in the condiment section so at least I found it, right? Problem was is that everytime I tried to scoop a stinking quarter teaspoon I got pickles in it. I was pretty sure meringue didn't have pickles in in. I even asked Chad, "do they make a tartar sauce without pickles?" (Did you catch that?) He said no. I then asked what the crap was in tartar sauce and found out it was mayonnaise. Why the heck don't they just ask for mayonnaise then?

So I plopped a quarter teaspoon of my tartar in the egg whites, picked the pickles out and beat it with a fork until it was ... foamy. I knew that meringue was suppose to turn out poofy. The next step was to ...

Bake Until Brown

I wasn't sure exactly what was suppose to turn brown but my runny egg whites were bubbly so maybe it was suppose to poof up in the oven. On the pie it went and into the oven to bake until brown. I watched it through the oven window. The edges got toasty, and brown, then really brown, but my meringue did no poofing. I was dumbfounded.

After 15 minutes I pulled it out and let it cool in the freezer as directed for 30 minutes. The meringue was still runny and bubbly. Gag. I don't know what I did wrong. I scooped it off and my Husband, the boyfriend at the time, sampled my work. I don't think I've ever seen him so disgusted. Poor guy.

At first I didn't think too much of my attempt but my family, and most of my friends, find it to be the dumbest thing I've ever done and the funniest thing they have ever heard. I concur. I still find myself laughing at myself so hard I have tears streaming down my face. If you didn't catch my huge blunder, it was that I used Tartar Sauce instead of Cream of Tartar. My Dad especially loves the part about me "picking the pickles out." Also, if any of you reading this are unsure why my meringue didn't poof, you are suppose to beat it with a beater not a fork. Whoops.