When life gives you lemons

  It's that time of year again.  The wonderful time when the meyer lemons are dripping off of the tree and you hate to see a single one go to waste.  At least, I can't stand to see a good thing go bad.

Last night we went to town juicing and zesting.

  In total, we have had 7 quarts of meyer lemon juice.  And that picture of the tree was after we picked all of the lemons to make the 7 quarts, so we have a lot more lemons left!!  Slowly, we are freezing the juice into cubes to be used for later.  We did this last year too. 

This year, I also made lemon curd and canned it to pass out as a favor for a baby shower tea party.

I love lemon.  I feel like it is virtually impossible to be lemoned out too.

I used this lemon curd recipe, but of course had a few tweaks.  I didn't want the dense lemon curd that is so perfect for fruit tarts and on cookies.  I was looking for a lighter recipe so that I could dip and not have to spread and so used whole eggs plus yolks in this recipe.  I also canned it, which made me tweak it a bit.

Meyer Lemon Curd

(adapted from Martha Stewart)

2 eggs plus 2 egg yolks, beaten                                                                         

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice, strained

1/2 cup unsalted butter (COLD and cut into small pieces to melt faster )

1 tablespoon lemon rind, grated

1. Beat the egg yolks until well blended and lemon yellow in color. Strain the egg yolks through a sieve into a medium-size heavy saucepan. (Sieving removes any shells or albumen; heavy saucepan prevents curdling.).
2. Add the sugar and lemon juice, stir to combine, and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for about 10-15 minutes. DO NOT HURRY THE PROCESS OR THE EGGS WILL CURDLE!
3. Cook until the mixture coats the back of a wooden spoon. Remove from heat and immediately pour through another sieve to catch any "scrambled egg bits". Pour into a heat proof 4 cup measuring cup and stir in the cold butter pieces, which cools down the mixture quickly.
4. Add the rind, continue stirring until well-blended.
5. Transfer to whatever storage container you want: either a large one or several samll ones.
6. Shelf Life: MUST BE REFRIGERATED! Keeps 2 weeks.

Since I canned mine, I just strained out the zest at the end so that it didn't get bitter while I canned it.

I've also mentioned other uses for lemons in the past:
preserved lemons
lemon-basil parmesan noodles (aka fancy butter noodles)