If you’ve been reading my blog then you know by now that I love lemons or anything sour.  As I’ve been looking at food porn on foodgawker I noticed that many folks use Meyer Lemons.  I began to wonder what the heck was so special about them since I hadn’t ever seen them at our local grocery store.  I scoured the internet and found out that they are actually a special kind of lemon, less acidic than the regular lemons and a little less tart, seemingly crossed with oranges.  I was intrigued.  Since I couldn’t find the lemons, and I wasn’t sure if and when I ever would I decided I would try to find the bush or tree since they are apparently quiet easily grown indoors. Given the weather we have in Manitoba the only way I would grow these babies would be if I could bring them in the house for the winter.  Even the “improved” and heartier Meyer Lemons wouldn’t be able to withstand a harsh Manitoba winter outside.

Luckily for me Shelmerdine’s carried the “improved Meyer Lemon Bush” and I was able to get one.  Loaded with blooms and even small lemon buds I had great hopes for this summer and so I was content to wait patiently for a bounty of Meyer Lemons.

Alas, this past weekend I was fortunate enough to get a phone call from my partner’s sister-in-law and having heard of my search for Meyer Lemons, when she came upon them at a small specialty fruit store she was quick to buy me a bag.  (Thank You Linda!)  So I have been blessed with these strange little lemons and was not at a loss at all with what I was going to do with them.

There was a recipe I discovered and salivated over for a while that, though it could have been made with regular lemons, was truly more well suited to the Meyer kind.  And so we have the Meyer Lemon Pie… yummy goodness.  The Shaker Meyer Lemon Pie.

The only cautions I would have for you is that you should not use a deep-dish pie plate like I did; it really would have been better with just a regular sized pie.  And some of my dinner guests weren’t huge fans of the macerated lemon bits in the pie.  Though I didn’t really find them too bitter they did, so it might serve you better to either ensure that you soak the lemons in A LOT of sugar for 24 hours or just strain out the peel before pouring the filling into the pie.  I cut down on the amount of sugar to get more tart from the pie and that may have affected the bitterness of the peel… I still have some lemons left so I think I’ll try this again… very soon!