Starting the Holidays Early & Tarte au Citron

After having such a rough fall semester, Zips is feeling even more festive than usual. We've got our Christmas tree all set up. I've got orders to climb up on the roof to string lights before the week is out. Mixes of contemporary and classic holiday songs are blaring from every room. We even splurged on a light-up flamingo with a festive red scarf for the front yard (it suits the Southern New Mexico climate. Her name is Babs Johnson.) Zips found an amazing pinecone garland from West Elm, but it sold out almost immediately.

So I took it upon myself to put something together that might make her happy and approximate how cool this would've looked. There are a few pine trees on campus, so we drove out there and filled two shopping bags with the nicest ones we could find (and only when I dumped them out on my living room floor did I think about the possibility that critters might live in them!). I tied them in slip knots to some jute twine and ended up with about 14 feet of it! (hey the West Elm one is only 6 feet!) Now that I have this down, I should go looking for acorns too!

I put the leftover younger pine cones into a glass bowl for decor too!

Meanwhile, we've been growing several scrawny citrus plants for more than a year now. We've got a kumquat tree, several lime trees, a satsuma tree, and a dwarf Meyer lemon tree that has finally borne some tiny Meyer lemons! They're lovely, very tart, and floral. We had four ripe ones at once, so Zips suggested we do something special with them. In that same Good Housekeeping, there's a recipe for a simple lemon curd. So we decided to half it and make some mini Meyer lemon tarts with our baby lemons! From scratch!

Tarte au Citron:

1/2 c. sugar

1/3 c. fresh lemon juice

1 Tb. fresh lemon zest

3 Tb. butter

2 eggs

**You should prep and bake your tart crust beforehand and let it cool. I use a 1/3 c. shortening +1/3 c. butter + 2 c. flour recipe. Baked 2 mini-tarts crusts for about 15 minutes at 400.**

In a saucepan, melt the butter with the sugar, lemon juice and zest. In a bowl, whisk the eggs. Once the lemon mixture is melted/dissolved/incorporated, spoon a bit out and whisk it into the egg bowl. Spoon a little more in and whisk (in order to warm the eggs up a little). Pour the eggs into the saucepan and heat over low heat, stirring continuously, until the mixture thickens (about 15 minutes).

Then I poured the lemon curd into the tart crusts. I cannot wait to eat these! I'll wait until tomorrow, but it might be the first thing I eat on Thanksgiving morn!

Happy Holidays!

Back to Getting Crafty

I can't believe it's been more than two solid months since I've posted anything. I'll have to compensate with plenty of fun projects and delicious treats. I've spent most of the today working on holiday decor -- driving past the local garden store to see if Christmas trees are in (they are), if I can have one (not yet), and figuring out how to stave off my desire to put replace orange and autumnal decorations with red and green winter ones. Zips spied a fun project in a Good Housekeeping magazine-- a simple reindeer head made from corrugated cardboard.

I'd seen more complicated ones everywhere from Urban Outfitters to instructables.com.

So I decided to come up with my own-- pairing it with Zips' immense love of classic Rankin Bass holiday videos. We have some cardboard boxes and newspapers in the recycling bin, so I made my own template for Rudolph's head, gave him a cross-piece for his ears and muzzle, and his mature antlers (more distinguished!).

I'm thinking of draping a wreath or some evergreen garland around where his neck meets the wall.

I'm happy with the way it turned out, and that I can post it in a rather central location by the front door. Next up? In addition to making Zipper's famously fortified rum balls for the end of the semester party, we're going to try out some spiced rum balls. And maybe something new for Thanksgiving? Mmmmm... Pie? Homegrown Meyer lemon curd? We'll keep you posted.