Life-Given Lemons

So as you may have inferred, we spent the New Year with Lara.  Lara is a bit of a bad-ass when it comes to many things, but in this instance the bad-assery which most directly benefits me is her affinity for urban-homesteading.  The day before we drove up, she and I were texting back and forth in anticipation, and she said, "I picked up 10lbs of lemons for us to ferment and make lemon custard." to which I replied:

Because, as I have mentioned before, I friggin' love lemon curd, and lemon custard is a kissing cousin to my beloved dessert.

The primary difference between a curd and a custard is the amount of zest/juice involved.  When I make a small batch of curd for myself, I use about three tablespoons of zest, and a half cup of juice (to three eggs).  Lara and I made a double batch of custard (because she likes to preserve things), and for that entire thing we only used two tablespoons of zest and four cups of juice (to twelve eggs, plus twelve additional yolks).  Now sure, four cups of juice sounds like a lot...

...and it IS, especially when you're the one squeezing it...

 but proportionately speaking, it's not as much as I use for curd.

By the way, this is what the rinds of four cups' worth of lemon juice looks like.

Lara cracking yolks...

In the end we had quite a haul, and I got to take home more than half of it, since she had still more lemons to play with after we'd left.

The glory!

 It wasn't just lemon custard she sent me home with, however: there were also seven giant jars of beef bone broth (good for what ails ya'!), spiced apple sauce, ginger-bourbon pears, berry preserves, a giant pumpkin, and two spaghetti squash.  Basically what I'm saying is that we're spoiled.

As soon as we got home today, I couldn't help myself: I cracked open one of the jars of custard.  And, um, there were no survivors...

Neeps is disgusted by my lack of restraint.

I'm thinking I'd like to bake something with at least some of it, but I'm not sure what... we'll see what the future holds!