Katie's Frozen Lime Pie

My son and daughter-in-law, Andy and Katie, and their sweet baby Claire were here for a few days. Andy and Katie enjoy being in the kitchen and appreciate good food. It seems nine-month-old Claire will soon be joining in on kitchen fun. There's no doubt she is turning into a little foodie. She sits in the Tripp Trapp chair (we've had it since our boys were little) at the table with us, gumming small chunks of cooked potatoes, avocadoes, sweet potatoes and peaches. Before long, she'll be wanting garlic mashed potatoes, fresh guacamole, sweet potato pie and peach salsa. And probably some of her mom's Frozen Lime Pie.

I've never been a big fan of frozen desserts that do not include ice cream or gelato. I call Katie the queen of homemade ice cream. She makes the best and often stirs it up and treats us to her homemade frozen cream when she is here. So, when Katie said she would make the Frozen Key Lime Pie from Ina Garten's "Barefoot Contessa Family Style" cookbook, I was only mildly excited. I love lime and I know anything that comes from one of Ina's cookbooks has got to be delicious. I figured there was a chance I might like the frozen pie.

My son and daughter-in-law, Andy and Katie, and their sweet baby Claire were here for a few days. Andy and Katie enjoy being in the kitchen and appreciate good food. It seems nine-month-old Claire will soon be joining in on kitchen fun. There's no doubt she is turning into a little foodie. She sits in the Tripp Trapp chair (we've had it since our boys were little) at the table with us, gumming small chunks of cooked potatoes, avocadoes, sweet potatoes and peaches. Before long, she'll be wanting garlic mashed potatoes, fresh guacamole, sweet potato pie and peach salsa. And probably some of her mom's Frozen Lime Pie.

I've never been a big fan of frozen desserts that do not include ice cream or gelato. I call Katie the queen of homemade ice cream. She makes the best and often stirs it up and treats us to her homemade frozen cream when she is here. So, when Katie said she would make the Frozen Key Lime Pie from Ina Garten's "Barefoot Contessa Family Style" cookbook, I was only mildly excited. I love lime and I know anything that comes from one of Ina's cookbooks has got to be delicious. I figured there was a chance I might like the frozen pie.

Katie made the graham cracker crust, packing it into a glass pie plate with the side of a metal measuring cup. She learned that tip from Barefoot Contessa on one of her Food Network segments. The crust baked for about 10 minutes. Once it had cooled, Katie made the filling with lots of lime juice and freshly grated lime zest. Ina Garten, always being concerned about keeping good food easy to prepare, calls her pie a Key Lime Pie, but she doesn't call for key limes in the recipe. Those tiny little limes take forever to juice. The pie doesn't take long to make, either, since the filling requires no cooking. Just mix and freeze.

I notice, too, that Ina Garten often uses extra-large eggs in her recipes. Her Frozen Key Lime Pie calls for the yolks of 6 extra-large eggs. Katie saved the egg whites and Andy made an omelet with them the next morning for breakfast.

Sweet whipped cream covers the lime filling before the pie goes into the freezer.

The recipe is from Barefoot Contessa, but I give the credit for this particular pie to Katie. She made it. Perfectly. Complete with cute corkscrews of lime zest decorating the top of the pie.

The four of us ate half of the pie one evening and the other half the next afternoon. I wanted more. Crunchy crust, light, tangy frozen filling and sweet, rich whipped cream topping. So good. And now Katie is not only the queen of homemade ice cream. She's the queen of frozen lime pie. Lucky Andy. Lucky Claire. Lucky me!

Sue Doeden is a popular cooking instructor, food writer and integrative nutrition health coach. She is the host of Good Food, Good Life 365 on Lakeland Public Television. Her own hives full of hardworking bees and her love of honey led to the creation of her recently published cookbook, Homemade with Honey.