  A number of posts ago, I put up my own, special scones recipe and intended to post my favorite lemon curd recipe shortly thereafter. As good intentions usually go, mine disappeared into the oblivion of a ‘To Do List’. Does anyone ever really do what’s on their ‘To Do List”? I mean, my list grows to at least three pages and then I see something on page three that should have gone onto page one and the next thing I know, the list is in the trash and I’m digging around for something to eat. I know. You’re supposed to just list the most pressing items in the manner of “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” However, I’ve never even thought about eating an elephant and I’m not all that good at determining which is pressing, which is nagging and which is “get it done now or the IRS is coming to put you under a bright light for interrogation!!” And so my list grows exponentially and I get sidetracked. I’m easily diverted. Take for example, today, while working in the garden. I had a mental “To Do List” that was at least five pages long and I decided to tackle #2 on page four – weed the onions. We’ve had some good rain and a really strange grass has grown up for the first time ever in my onion rows. My onions have been coughing and gasping for help and so I felt that this might be a “pressing” matter. I began weeding and had that wonderful sensation of accomplishing something as foot after foot of dark, rich dirt became exposed and completely clean around my Texas 1015’s. I had finished row two when a bright red color caught my eye. Two beds over, more raspberries were ripe! Oh! And blueberries too. I had to go get a bag to pick them and left my other rows of onions helplessly begging me to please continue the weeding. Ignoring them, I picked berries, sneaking a lucious bite on occassion, and finally headed in to wash them and get them laid out onto cookie sheets for freezing. As I patted the raspberries and blueberries dry, they made me think of making jam, which made me think of things on which to put jam, which made me think of scones, which made me think of lemon curd which reminded me that I had not posted my favorite recipe. Add to that, a gentle reminder from one of my readers to post it or else (actually, it was my sister-in-law but she’s a reader), and lemon curd went to the top of my ‘To Do List’ that really doesn’t exist. And so, the onions have been left for another day. Hopefully, you are more disciplined than I, but I have to say, it’s not so bad. Mr. Fix-It says that I wake up each day to a whole new world. That’s good, right? VARIATIONS: Substitute Lime juice and lime zest or raspberry juice and 1 tbsp crushed raspberries or concentrated orange juice and orange zest  I have a double-boiler and you can use one if you like, but I like to use a shallow stainless steel bowl over a pan of boiling water in which to make my curd. It makes it easier to whisk the entire area of curd without having to deal with the side crevices of a pan. This gives me a much smoother curd that does not have to be strained for lumps.  Place three large eggs into the bowl or double boiler  Add 3/4 cup of sugar  And 1/3 cup of lemon juice  Just as a hint, I buy my lemons in bulk when on sale and juice them all, freezing the juice in ice cube trays. I pop them out and store them in the freezer in bags. I freeze the leftover rinds for easier zesting. This is one recipe where my dehydrated lemon zest is just not as good. I melt the frozen juice in the microwave  Place bowl over boiling water and immediately begin whisking  Continually stir with the whisk and do not let the curd stand idle at all in order to keep from getting lumpy  The curd will begin to thicken to the consistency of thin pudding. This takes about 7 -10 minutes. If your curd gets lumpy, you can strain it through a strainer.  Remove from heat and immediately add butter  Stir until melted  Add lemon zest and stir in  Pour into a container and allow to cool. Place in frig. If you do not plan on eating all of the curd right away, you can pour it into ice cube trays or small refrigerator dishes to be frozen. Remove from freezer and allow to thaw about 20 minutes before serving.  There is just nothing like lemon curd on scones. Here, I am serving our Victorian House Scones made with 1/2 cup white chocolate chips and 1/2 cup Craisins added. The Victorian House scones are wonderful to keep on hand when you don’t have time to make them from scratch. One package makes 16 large scones. Check them out at the shopping page. |
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