Mother's Day

With Mother's Day right around the corner I wanted to give the "moms" in my life something special and homemade. The moms deserve a little something to show appreciation for all that they do day after day. They watch our kids so we can have time to ourselves or with our spouses, they help with little league practice, piano lessons, ballet recitals; they come over to help with gardening and cooking too. They know just what to do when you feel sick, had a rough day or when you are so happy you just can't contain it. My gift, small in comparison to what they have given us, needed to be bright and cheerful so instantly I thought of yellow, a fav of mine, and knew right away it would involve lemons.

I've never made Lemon Curd but it looked divine on magazine pages, recipe cards and cookbooks. I had these extra jars from this post and they would work wonderfully for this recipe.

Ingredients:
4 large lemons
6 large egg yolks
1 1/4 C sugar
6 Tbsp butter, cold
*makes about 2 1/2 cups

First take your lemons and roll them around to get the juices flowing.

Then you slice them and juice them to get about 3/4 cups of juice. You can use a juicer or you can do what I did and squeeze it into my hand and use my fingers as strainers. Be careful not to get any seeds into the juice; if you do then just be sure to spoon them out.

In a small mixing bowl, whisk the yolks and sugar until smooth

 Stir in the lemon juice

Pour the mixture into a saucepan and over medium heat bring it to a simmer. Once it is simmering then you reduce the heat to low and continue to cook, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the mixture thickens and coats the back of the spoon. Remove from the heat and pour into a glass bowl. I use my Pampered Chef batter bowl because it has a nice spout, making it easier to pour. Then you add the butter, one tablespoon at a time, and mix it in. I poured the mix into my jars and let them cool at room tempature. Once cooled I then put them into the fridge. They can keep up to a week, sometimes week and a half in the fridge.

I have a little left over because I doubled the recipe in order to make all three jars of curd. I also tasted it when it was still warm and on the back of the spoon. It tastes so bright and fresh; a good mix of tart and sweet. If you like citrus you will love this!!

Now onto preparing the Mother's Day gifts. I found beautiful, decorative mixing bowls at JC Penny's for 60% off regular price. They were fantastic and just what I was looking for.

I filled them with brown paper filler that I got at the Dollar Store. I bought 2 bags, one for each bowl.

Then I arranged a pint of raspberries, the lemon curd and a white mixing spoon into the mixing bowl. I printed up 2 recipes (this one and this one) that you would use lemon curd in (there are many but these were simple and involved the raspberries too). I cut the recipes to size and taped them onto yellow card stock (leftover from the wedding). I then included the recipe cards in with the other items.
Simple, sweet and homemade!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! Enjoy your day!