Lemon Meringue Ice Cream Pie in Toasted Pecan Crust

Oh man, nothing says summer to me like ice cream and lemon meringue pie. Separately of course, on a normal day, but today we're eating the best of both worlds.  I didn't mean to get here, to ice cream and lemon, this early in the season I promise that, so let me explain.  I had 2/3 of a carton of vanilla ice cream and a package of pecans in the cupboard (very rare around these parts).  I wondered what I could make that would combine the two.  When I stumbled upon this recipe I knew I hit the jackpot, because like, for real?! It was calling to me.  Summer is all up on my fork and dancing on my taste buds!  This pie is redonk. Seriously, it's got a super bright puckery lemon flavour, and the calm soothing vanilla ice cream.  It's got a crunchy, buttery, delicious pecan crust and best of all it's topped with a cloud of meringue, the ideal contrast to all those other textures. Nevermind textural contrast, after you leave the pie out for a few minutes the meringue and lemon curd come to room temp and there is a whole other layer of temperature contrast. Warm and frozen, and cold and warm!   Shane has eaten about half the pie in just two slices, though to be fair, I've done some serious damage to it, because dang is it good!

Baking notes:
-To "finely chop" the pecans I threw them in the food processor for a few seconds until the were uniform in size, then added the other ingredients for a quick blend.
-The pecan crust shrunk down quite a bit, but I didn't worry about it.  The crust doesn't come out of the pan gracefully anyway, so it looks a little sloppy.  Maybe I could have greased the pan for easier removal, but I think the oils and a frozen glass pan would have bound together no matter what, so I'm not sure it would have helped.
-My lemon curd never got to 178 F, or maybe it did but all of my three thermometers reported wrong.  After about twenty minutes of stirring and cooking the curd was nice and thick.  Thick enough to hold it's shape, so I considered it done. (It absolutely was).
-Be sure to fully chill your lemon curd.  I was in a hurry and only let it cool down for about half an hour, so it was still warm when I spread it on top of the ice cream.  As a result the curd warmed the ice cream and the bottom layer then froze with water crystals and was ice-y.
-I had three egg whites in the fridge, so I used those instead of making a spare yolk.  The fourth egg white would have been nice, but obviously it didn't make any difference to the flavour.
-I don't have a torch (I would really like one), so I had to use my broiler.  The directions say to broil for three minutes, but I smelled burning after thirty seconds, watch your pie carefully.

The recipe for Lemon Meringue Ice Cream Pie in Toasted Pecan Crust can be found on the epicurious website.

77/569