Lemons for Everyone!

The weather may not be shouting Spring yet (well actually today its supposed to be almost 70! and rainy but until this weekend it was still very much Winter) but my food cravings certainly are.  All I want is lemon.  Last week I threw together a last minute chickpea and lemon stir fry and this weekend I went a bit lemon crazy.  Saturday I spent the afternoon making lemon curd, lemon meringues and lemon poppyseed muffins, so the boy had something to snack on.  Sunday I made a fabulous lemon mustard asparagus and red potato salad to go with our grilled sausages. Everything turned out fabulous. 

Lemon Meringues with Lemon Curd

I'd previously made meringues before, they're really the only thing I know how to make when I have lots of egg whites leftover from some other project.  This was my first time making lemon curd though, and I was surprised that it was soo easy!  I'm still tracking down how long its good for in the fridge, any ideas? but I know this batch will disappear so quickly it won't matter. :)

Lately I've been forgetting to take pictures of my kitchen adventures until I've already dug in and gone several steps.  The lemon curd was no exception, it was right about here when I remembered I wanted to document the process.  I followed this recipe exactly, check out her blog because her pictures will surely make you crave lemon curd too! 

My beautiful yellow curd setting in the fridge. 

While my curd was setting I checked out recipes for the 5 leftover egg whites sitting on my counter.  This is what I found: 

Lemon Meringue Cookies by Joy the Baker

I took half the egg whites I had leftover and decided it was ok to throw out the rest. 

I whipped them, until they were nice and fluffy. 

Then I slowly started adding the 2/3rds cup of sugar and dash of salt, continuously whipping while combining.

Keep mixing until you have stiff peaks.

Then add 1 teaspoon each lemon zest and vanilla. 

Fold in with a spoon.

Joy had a fancy piping bag that's now on my "find for the kitchen" list but I just used a spoon to create small dollops of meringue.  It's not near as pretty but it tastes just as good!

Bake the meringues at 200 degrees for 2 hours. 

Let them cool completely and then eat!  Joy made her's into cute little oreo-like cookies and froze them for about 20 minutes, which I totally want to try but I haven't been quite patient enough yet.  These are definately not J friendly so I've been dipping them straight into the lemon curd and its soo good!

Lemon curd is also great on fresh strawberries, toast and pancakes.  J laughed at me all weekend for my "plowman's breakfast" of strawberries, blackberries, toast and pancakes all with lemon curd. It was worth it.