Organized Pantry and Easy Lemon Curd

Maybe it is the weather, but my pantry really needed to be cleaned out.  I also wanted to organize more of my baking items.  Though in hindsight, I’m not sure some things worked.  Like the flour container is great when you buy 5 lbs. at a time.  But at Costco, I buy 2 – 10lb. bags of AP flour at once for the same price as 2  – 5lb. bags at the regular megamart.

Here are the steps I took to making an organized pantry:

1.  Took everything out and cleaned the floor.
2.  Through out everything expired or had so little ingredient inside that it would render it useless.  Do we really need TWO chocolate chips?
3.  Bought some translucent trays for spices, boxes, bags and snacks.  Bought some Oxo food storage containers.  I didn’t want to buy the more expensive Oxo, but they sealed well and had good reviews.
4.  Created labels for the storage containers using full-sheet label stickers that we already had.  I printed the words on the printer, cut them out, used my corner punch and slapped them on the container.

Now for the Lemon Curd!  This lemon curd tastes like you were eating the lemon part of a lemon meringue pie.  Sooo delicious.  But I always steered clear away of making it because of the time and attention required at the stove.  Fortunately, this version uses the good old microwave.  Just be patient while waiting for it to sit in the fridge and thicken and your patience will be rewarded!  Next stop in the blog will be using this to make a Lemon Braid Bread.

Easy Lemon Curd
yield 2 cups

1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (took me about 8 medium lemons)
1 cup sugar
8 Tbs. butter, melted
2 eggs

1.  Dump that all into a large microwave safe bowl.  I used my Pampered Chef 8-cup batter bowl.
2.  Nuke it for 1 minute on high in the microwave and stir the mixture.  Do this for 4-8 minutes while stirring after each 1 minute interval.  The lemon curd is done when it reaches 187 degrees on a thermometer, or when it starts to mound in the middle.  Mine hit a temperature of 196 degrees.  It took about 4-5 minutes for me, but my microwave is pretty fast.  The lemon curd should coat the back of your spoon.
3.  Put the lemon curd in the fridge to completely cool.  It will get thicker.  Use on scones, breads, strawberries, blueberries, yogurt, cream cheese or eat it straight out of the bowl!

Recipe from King Arthur Flour