I'm sure I'm not the only one

 who has a had a tried and true recipe FLOP.

Am I?

Okaaaaaay...

 I made a lemon pie for Christmas - 

and I'm just not really sure what I did wrong...

But, hmmm - no thanks.

It just wasn't right.

It even had the meringue on it and everything... 

[Side Note: I wasn't feeling my best around Christmas... 

so it could've just been me...]

 

And I dreamed of making another one that tasted just like the ones I used to make with my mama when she would juice fresh lemons with some gadget that attached to the top of her sears mixer....

A pre-curser to the kitchen ade, perhaps?

But things got busy... then we had our Florida camping trip... 

but still - I WANTED THAT LEMON PIE. 

ha

 Enter a new camping buddy who gave many of us fresh lemons

OFF A TREE IN HIS YARD.

Yes, please. 

So here we go -

 Gather up a graham cracker crust, a couple of cans of sweetened condensed milk, and some lemons and let's do this!

It's easy peasy [no gadgets needed -]

RELAX - you've got this -

Just juice your lemons and stir 3/4 cups juice 

into two cans of sweetened condensed milk.

Add 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla and 

a little lemon zest [yum!]

Then pour into the crust

and refrigerate until firm.

You can see that I couldn't wait...

DELISH.

You could add a meringue on top and stick in the oven to brown for a bit before refrigerating... or I've added cool whip on top before [not a favorite.] 

[Here's a hard-to-see photo of one I made LAST YEAR 

with the preferred meringue topping.]

Honestly, I'd been craving this so much since Christmas that 

I really didn't even need the crust. 

Ha. 

And the fresh lemons made it WONDERFUL!

Enjoy!