Lemons ~ Luby's ~ Lemon Pie

Lemons by Nancy Standlee
$60.00
Acrylic Collage on Canvas Board 6" x 8"
Something NEW...The Artist Food Network... a new blog for artists to share their recipes and their food paintings. You'll see I included a recipe with this painting and that will be the theme of our blog launched over the weekend. If you're an artist with a great recipe and a great painting of an ingredient of the recipe, or recipe related please check out our blog or send it to Artistrecipes@gmail.com and share it with us. You can read more about it on the blog site and you can subscribe to it by email. We hope you like the new blog and hope to see you there. This is a copy of my post that appeared on the site today.

Several of us painted today and when lunch came Cindy Yandell, Barbara Hackney, and I took off to Luby's. Luby's is a Texas tradition and their motto is "Tastes Like Texas, Feels Like Home." Texas families have been going to Luby's since 1947 and their headquarters are in Houston. There are always requests in the recipe section of the Fort Worth Star Telegram for a Luby speciality. That's where this yellowed copy of Luby's Lemon Icebox Pie came from. I thought it would complement my lemon collage painting. I love collage and attaching bits and pieces to my paintings.
I noticed that in this old 1995 copy the recipe called for raw eggs before it was recommended to be cautious in using them for people with a weakened defense system. When growing up the only way to make homemade ice cream was to use raw eggs and nothing beat a bowl of fresh peach or banana ice cream. There are many recipes to be found for a lemon ice box pie and they all will probably follow this one pretty close but now we see a short baking time. Make it if your hips can stand it.
LEMON ICEBOX PIE
1 can (14 oz. sweetened condensed Milk (Eagle Brand)
3 large eggs, separated
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (3 or 4 lemons) No bottled lemon juice!
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1/4 cup sugar
One 9" graham cracker crust
1. Heat oven to 350 F.
2. Combine milk, egg yolks, lemon juice and lemon peel. Mix until blended. Pour crust and bake for 5 minutes.
3. Beat egg whites until almost stiff and add sugar, a tablespoon at a time, while beating until the whites hold a peak. Spread over the filling to edge of the crust.
4. Bake 12 to 15 minutes at 350 until the meringue is lightly browned. Refrigerate until served.

PS: Interesting find. I have the Luby's 50th Anniversary Recipe Collection cookbook and since I'm an Amazon affiliate I thought I'd check if they had this title in used books. They do. Click on my Amazon link "No image available" and you will soon be looking for the nearest garage sales for this loved cookbook. No I won't sell you mine. I couldn't live without the recipe for Date Nut Muffins.