This recipe is from Cook's Illustrated... and it truly is the best! And, it allows for either a whipped cream or meringue topping. KEY LIME PIE Serves 8 Cooks Illustrated LIME FILLING 4 teaspoons grated zest plus 1/2 cup strained juice from 3 to 4 limes 4 large egg yolks 1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk GRAHAM CRACKER CRUST 11 full graham crackers, processed to fine crumbs (1 1/4 cups) 3 tablespoons granulated sugar 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted WHIPPED CREAM TOPPING 3/4 cup heavy cream 1/4 cup confectioners sugar 1/2 lime, sliced paper thin and dipped in sugar (optional) 1. For the filling: Whisk zest and yolks in medium bowl until tinted light green, about 2 minutes. Beat in milk, then juice; set aside at room temperature to thicken. 2. For the crust: Adjust oven rack to center position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Mix crumbs and sugar in medium bowl. Add butter; stir with fork until well blended. Pour mixture into 9-inch pie pan; press crumbs over bottom and up sides of pan to form even crust. Bake until lightly browned and fragrant, about 15 minutes. Transfer pan to wire rack; cool to room temperature, about 20 minutes. 3. Pour lime filling into crust; bake until center is set, yet wiggly when jiggled, 15 to 17 minutes. Return pie to wire rack; cool to room temperature. Refrigerate until well chilled, at least 3 hours. (Can be covered with lightly oiled or oil-sprayed plastic wrap laid directly on filling and refrigerated up to 1 day.) 4. For the whipped cream: Up to 2 hours before serving, whip cream in medium bowl to very soft peaks. Adding confectioners sugar 1 tablespoon at a time, continue whipping to just-stiff peaks. Decoratively pipe whipped cream over filling or spread evenly with rubber spatula. Garnish with optional sugared lime slices and serve. If you prefer a meringue topping, follow the instructions in "No-Weep Lemon Meringue Pie" in the November/December 1994 issue. Bake pie only 7 minutes, then apply meringue gently, first spreading a ring around the outer edge, then filling in the center. Return to oven and bake 20 minutes more. Meringue Topping 1 tablespoon cornstarch 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar 1/2 cup sugar 4 large egg whites 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 8. For the meringue, mix cornstarch with 1/3 cup water in small saucepan; bring to simmer, whisking occasionally at beginning and more frequently as mixture thickens. When mixture starts to simmer and turn translucent, remove from heat. Let cool while beating egg whites. 9. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Mix cream of tartar and sugar together. Beat egg whites and vanilla until frothy. Beat in sugar mixture, 1 tablespoon at a time; until sugar is incorporated and mixture forms soft peaks. Add cornstarch mixture, 1 tablespoon at a time; continue to beat meringue to stiff peaks. Remove plastic from filling and return to very low heat during last minute or so of beating meringue (to ensure filling is hot). 10. Pour filling into pie shell. Using a rubber spatula, immediately distribute meringue evenly around edge then center of pie to keep it from sinking into filling. Make sure meringue attaches to pie crust to prevent shrinking. Use spoon to create peaks all over meringue. Bake pie until meringue is golden brown, about 20 minutes. Transfer to wire rack and cool to room temperature. Serve.

Here's my recipe for lime pie. I've made it many times because I get so many limes from my tree. It's a family favorite, but possibly because the limes are so fresh. I use regular limes, but Key limes are fine also. Lars' Lime Pie Crust 6 tbsp unsalted butter 2-1/2 tbsp sugar 1-1/4 cups Graham cracker crumbs Filling 2 tbsp cream cheese or Neufchatel cheese 2 tsp sugar 2 eggs, slightly beaten 3-4 fresh limes (enough for 1/2 cup juice) 2 tbsp cornstarch 1 smidgeon salt (1/32 tsp) 1  14 oz can sweetened condensed milk Topping 1-1/4 cups heavy whipping cream 2 tbsp sugar 1 tsp cornstarch Directions Melt butter and add sugar. This can be done in a 9" or 8" Pyrex pie pan, or a bowl, as you prefer. Add the Graham cracker crumbs and mix with a fork to combine. Press into a 8" or 9" pie pan and bake 7 minutes at 350° and allow to cool. Soften the cream cheese in a bowl with 2 tsp sugar and add the eggs. Beat to combine thoroughly. Zest the limes, preferably with a Microplane grater, to obtain 1 tbsp lime zest, to be used later. Squeeze limes to obtain at least half a cup of lime juice, and add the cornstarch . Mix this with the cream cheese/egg mixture and add the salt and condensed milk, and combine. A hand-held mixer can be used at this point, especially if you have used it to beat the cream cheese and eggs. Stir in the lime zest by hand and pour the mixture into the slightly cooled pie shell. Bake at 375° for 18 minutes. Allow the pie to cool, and then chill in the refrigerator for at least two hours. Chill the egg beaters and bowl for the whipping cream in the freezer while the pie is chilling, and then whip the cream until soft peaks form. Add the sugar and cornstarch and beat until fairly stiff. Cover the top of the chilled pie with whipped cream and serve. Yield: 8 servings. *Note: You can use powdered sugar in the topping instead of regular sugar + cornstarch. Lars

all lemon juices freeze beautifully, and so does the zest. Make sure you grate the zest before you juice the fruit! I buy tons of Meyer lemons when they are in season, and do exactly that. (of course, hopefully next year I won't have to buy any, lol). I zest them with a microplane grater, then squeeze them and freeze the juice in silicone ice cube containers by 2 Tablespoons. Once frozen, I pop them in big ziploc bags. Same with the zest. You might also want to slice a few of them and freeze them flat on a baking sheet with a sheet of parchment paper under them. This way, you can even do candied lemon slices later, or add a few to your lemonade or on decoration on top of your pies. This way, no matter what you'll be in the mood for, you can do it. You want lemon curd? Key lime pie? lemonade? You name it, any recipe you want that involves lemon, just pop a few cubes and a few tsp of zest out of your freezer and you'll be good to go. Hope that helps! . Atheen

joshinya '...coming true to seed means they polinate themselves and produce a clone, but that does not mean they cannot be polinated by another citrus flower....' Actually, coming true-to-type in citrus means that they are nearly to 100% nucellar (polyembryonic with the bulk of the embryos being nucellar or clonal). These nucellar embryos are not the result of pollinating themselves. Yes, a key lime can be pollinated by another flower (by a bee), but that doesn't mean the pollination is successful or results in a zygote. In most citrus varieties, a successfully pollinated zygotic embryo is crowded out by the clonal embryos and it dies within the seed. So that out of maybe 300 embryos, you may get one hybrid, if it lives. While most citrus are polyembryonic, a few citrus are highly zygotic and receptive to pollen from other citrus -- 'Temple' orange, Persian lime, for example. Key limes are true-to-type from seed. Otherwise you'd probably see many man-made hybrids of them (keyquats, key-elos, key-oranges, etc. etc). This is all according to my notes that I kept from Dr. Malcolm Manners, Florida citrus expert. Laura, have you tried rooting some key lime cuttings? It would probably result in fruit sooner than a seedling, which according to my notes can take 3 - 6 years from seed, depending on culture.