One of my kitchen mottos is ‘no ingredient left behind!’ If you have it, use it. If you’ve cooked it, enjoy it and its leftovers. It makes it fun, too if you have an ingredient on hand to design menus around.  This week my choice ingredient to design dishes around was the bulk of a half gallon of low-fat buttermilk. Bought to make a creamy dressing for an iceberg wedge salad earlier in the week, the rest was divided between this luscious pie, and a marinade for grilled chicken breasts later in the week.

Similar to a traditional chess pie but with a bit more tang, a buttermilk pie simply mixes the thick buttermilk with eggs, sugar, and most often ground nutmeg. This version of the classic also adds in fragrant vanilla extract, lemon juice and lemon zest. Baked in a flaky pie crust until set, I like to serve a buttermilk pie like this one with blueberries in the summertime and in cooler months, studded with golden raisins and pecans.

(To view this recipe, click on the following link: http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/buttermilk-lemon-pie)

Tagged: buttermilk, buttermilk lemon pie, buttermilk pie, dessert, lemon, lemon juice, lemon zest, nutmeg, pie, pie crust, Taste of Home, TasteofHome.com, vanille