When Life Gives You Lemons Make Infused Lemon Curd

Marge (00:00:01) - Introducing the Bite Me Cannabis Club. The Bite Me Cannabis Club aims to be an inclusive online space for cannabis lovers. Whether you're simply curious about how cannabis can improve your life or you're fully seasoned, there's always more to learn. When you join the Bite Me Cannabis Club, you'll have access to like minded people interested in cannabis, monthly workshops, live Q&A recipes and recipe swaps, digital cookbooks, a fully functional chat feature, and a whole lot more for a limited time. It's only $5 a month with a 30 day free trial, so you can try it out and see if it's right for you. This isn't just another Facebook group or confusing discord channel. I carefully chose a platform that offers a clear, uncluttered, and seamless community experience. See for yourself. Join today! Say hello! I can't wait to connect with you there. Join the Bite Me Cannabis Club today link in your podcast app. Friends this week. Lemon curd. Let's get into it. Welcome to Bite Me, the show about edibles where I help you take control of your high life.

Marge (00:01:16) - I'm your host and Certified Ganjier. Marge and I love helping cooks make safe and effective edibles at home. I'm so glad you're here. And thank you for joining me today. Welcome back, my friends. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening and for my American followers. This episode will come out on us Thanksgiving, I believe it does on Thursday. And I want to wish you all a lovely Thanksgiving Day with your family. And if you're spending a little bit of that time with me, I feel really honored about that. If you're new to the show, enjoy this episode, something lemony and bright to help lift your spirits. And of course, because it's infused, you're also lifting your spirits that way. If you're if you're a long time listener. Thanks again for being here. I'm really glad that you decided to join me for this special episode. And if you're spending time with family and you find this challenging as it can be for so many people, I do invite you to check out the recipes page on my website or do a search, because there are times where I have forgotten to put the recipes onto the main page.

Marge (00:02:20) - But you can always search for something and it might give you some inspiration. If you need a discreet way to medicate while you're dealing with the stresses of the holiday. Because as much as we love to see all those hallmark style ads, sometimes spending time with a lot of family can be a challenge. Uh, has been like that for myself. In fact, today's recipe is an homage to life's lemons. As the saying goes, when life brings you lemons, make lemonade. Well, today it's when life brings you lemons. You make lemon curd. And there's no way you can be sad when you're enjoying a bright, lemon infused treat. And this one is no exception. You know what won't bring you lemons? The products and services that you find on the Market Recommends page. And I know there's going to be a ton of Black Friday deals going on, but you can still use my links and get the deals going on on the website. And we both win because when you use my links, I get a small commission at no extra charge to you.

Marge (00:03:20) - And that helps keep the show running, because running a podcast can be can get pretty expensive sometimes. I mean, there's monthly recurring costs to hosting and and running the website and all that fun stuff. So do check out the Marge Recommends page. And now back to our regularly scheduled program. I'm. So this recipe was recommended to me a while ago by Terri, a long time listener. And if you're listening to this, Terry, thank you so much for the suggestion. I believe she first shared it via email, but then she also shared it over at the Bite Me Cannabis Club. And of course, if you haven't signed up for that, please do, because I'm doing it for free for the first bunch of members to get it going. But as someone who loves anything lemon, this is right up my alley. And she said it was so easy. So I was like, okay, this is for me. And as I mentioned earlier, when life brings you lemons, you can brighten up your day with something lemony.

Marge (00:04:17) - And as I mentioned earlier in the episode or earlier in another episode, I think I mentioned it for the first time in last week's episode. I'm selling my house, and by the time this episode comes out, it'll have been on the market for a few days now. That's a lot of changes happening in my life and what I didn't mention before, maybe because it's a little bit hard to talk about, but Chris and I are separating and going our separate ways. The split is amicable for the most part, but it's a really big change. We've been living in this house for 14 years, and that kind of change requires a lot of processing. And frankly, weed and edibles have been very helpful in that regard and a lot of meditation as well. This lemon curd is a great reminder that even on the darkest day, food from scratch, especially infused food, can nourish the soul when things are difficult. And so if you're in a place where things are hard for you, just know I'm with you, I see you and shoot me.

Marge (00:05:12) - Message. You can always connect with me on Instagram, DMs or by email if you are going through something yourself. And let me know if any of the recipes you've found on Bite Me, the show about edibles have been helpful for you when you've been struggling with something in your life. Because we've all been there, and I just want this to be a place where we can connect together. It is a little scary, all this stuff, but I'm looking forward to this new chapter in my life and growing the podcast and the website to new heights and to connect with more edibles. Lovers like yourselves, and I hope you'll join me on that ride. So I'm staying positive and upbeat. I'm really grateful for this platform that I have to talk with you all, even about some of the the more difficult stuff. Let's get into this week's recipe, shall we? This will probably be a shorter one, I imagine, because there's been so much going on with getting the house ready for sale and dealing with all kinds of things.

Marge (00:06:11) - I wasn't anticipating having to deal with that. I have to admit, my focus has been a little scattered lately, as you can imagine. But that doesn't mean that I didn't make this delicious lemon curd recipe, and I thought I had never made a curd before, but it turns out that I did a pumpkin curd recipe for this site a while back. But I guess once you have over 200 episodes, you start to forget and what you have and haven't done. Maybe pumpkin is more timely for Thanksgiving or this time of year, but you don't want. In honor of my mother and her non-traditional holiday meals, I encourage you to try this lemon curd recipe instead of the pumpkin. And you may be saying, Marge, what kind of a non-traditional holiday meals did your mom make? Well, she didn't do it all the time. And we did do a lot of the, you know, traditional turkey at Christmas or ham at Easter and that kind of thing. But I do recall year we had mussels and spaghetti and sushi and stuff like that.

Marge (00:07:09) - And she was just always just like, tradition be damned, let's do what we want to do. Or in her case, let's do what I want to do. And some of those meals I remember really fondly, just because it was so unusual to be having spaghetti on Christmas or Christmas Eve, and sometimes some of the family members would raise an eyebrow at it. But I loved it, and it's some of my favorite memories of my mom, who was just issuing tradition in favor of what she wanted to do, which is kind of unusual in some ways, too, because I did grow up in a pretty religious household, but I digress. For this curd, you need only five ingredients. Lemons, the juice and the zest. Caster sugar. Butter, which is what you're going to be using infused eggs and egg yolks. If you don't have caster sugar or superfine sugar, as it's otherwise known as, you can make your own, so don't worry. And the reason they use superfine sugar? It's a very fine sugar that will dissolve and incorporate faster than regular granulated sugar, but you don't need to go out and buy something.

Marge (00:08:13) - Specialty for the third of a copper. Whatever it uses in this recipe or no, I think it was three quarters of a cup, but it doesn't call for a lot. And sometimes you like, do I really need to go out and buy a whole bag of specialty sugar if I'm not going to be making curd every single weekend? Although perhaps after you try this once, you may decide that you want to make this every single weekend because it was also not only delicious, but that easy to make. But no, you don't need to go out and buy it, even if you do find you really like it. Because if you don't have it on hand, I'll tell you how to make it. You put it in a blender, you turn the blender on, you blend it. Done. It's pretty simple. I never actually used superfine sugar until I tried the Turkish Delight a little while back. And while the Turkish delight did not turn out, I actually had some of the sugar superfine sugar that I made leftover from that in a covered dish or jar.

Marge (00:09:01) - And so I was able to use that, and I did need to make a little bit more, but you just take your regular granulated sugar and put it in your blender and or some other grinder or something that you can use to that effect to just make it finer. And I use my blender all the time for things like making turning oats into oat flour, almonds into almond flour. Like you can use your blender for a lot of that type of stuff, and this is no exception. Works beautifully. And of course, if you want to increase the potency of this particular dish because you have a higher tolerance or that family dinner you're just dreading and you really want to be blitzed, well, you can always use infused sugar and infused butter for this recipe. I did not, but it is an option. You want to make sure that your butter is chilled beforehand for this particular one. So if you're not already storing your butter in the fridge and then pop it in there, I do suggest storing your butter in the fridge after you've infused it, because I find sometimes that in bringing, incorporating, or introducing the plant material into your butter can make it more, can make it more susceptible to mold and that kind of thing.

Marge (00:10:07) - So I would suggest that you, if you're not doing it, that you do that because I have had butter go moldy before when I haven't stored it properly. And I really do think because I obviously I've had lots of butter in my house before and that's never been an issue. But as soon as you introduce that plant material to it, it makes it reduces the shelf life. So have your butter chilled. And the coolest trick that I learned for this particular recipe was for juicing the lemons. Now you could use lemon juice too, but you want the zest as well, because that's really going to help bring out that lemony brightness. And so you might as well grab a couple of lemons the next time you're at the store, because it does call for two lemons instead of cutting up the lemon to juice it, or to cut it in half and try and squeeze the shit out of it. I saw this on TikTok and I tried it and it works. And I'm going to link to a little video that I made in the show notes over on the on the, on the website, but also I included it in the Bite Me Cannabis Club, uh, spot for this recipe as well.

Marge (00:11:06) - If you happen to be over there and you should be, but you take a skewer and you pierce the end of the lemon, and I happen to have, like, metal skewers in my drawer. I think the person in the TikTok video that I saw this in, she just use like a wooden skewer. It doesn't really matter. You just need just sharp objects. You can pierce the end of the lemon, and then you can squeeze all the juice out of the lemon from that little hole that you made with the skewer. I had to try it in a work so well, it actually made it kind of fun. And when you do it this way, you don't get any of the seeds in the liquid that you have to pick out afterwards. It's pretty genius, actually. I'll probably never juice a lemon the same way again. So as I was preparing for this dish, I zested the lemon into a dish, and in the same dish I pierced the end of the lemon and then squeeze the lemon juice into that dish, because it all goes into a saucepan after anyway.

Marge (00:11:57) - And essentially what you do for this recipe is you take your whole eggs and the egg yolks and the sugar, and you put it in a saucepan and you start whisking it until it's smooth. Then you place the pan on low heat. You're going to add your infused butter juice and lemon juice and lemon zest, and you whisk it continuously until thickened. That's it. Now you strain it through a sieve into a sterilised jar and it says lemon. And the lemon curd will keep covered in the fridge for up to two weeks. Two weeks. And if you listen to hi on homegrown, you might know that reference, but. I thought, why do you need to strain it? I don't really know. I did it anyway. It did seem to keep a little things out, but it turns out nice and thick and lemony, and it made this delicious curd and probably ten minutes, give or take, and especially with the ease of juicing the lemons even faster probably than I could have anticipated. And it is worth the effort.

Marge (00:12:58) - And if you try it out, let me know how it goes. And even better, you can share your version over at the Bite Me Cannabis Club, because there is a lemon curd spot where you can share your own versions of the lemon curd, and that's pretty much it. It's so easy, it's so lemony. And when I was feeling kind of blue, this lemon curd was a delightful treat. And I will be making it again 100% now. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone that you care about. I know it's Thanksgiving. Maybe they need a boost as well. And you know, even if it's not Thanksgiving, by the time you're listening to this, something bright and lemon in your life is always worth sharing with someone that you care about. You can talk to me, email, podcast hotline, Instagram DMs because that's pretty much on the the social platform that I'm most active on. You can also probably message me on TikTok as well. I am on there too, but I don't really post.

Marge (00:14:01) - I haven't yet because it feels like just another thing that I have to figure out. And quite frankly, I haven't had the time lately and social media platforms sometimes feel overwhelming. But you can also hit me up or find me over at the Bite Me Cannabis Club too. You can always stay up to date with news, events, uh, questions for guests, giveaways with the email newsletter as well. Finally, once again, consider using the products and services on the Marj Recommends page. I do have deals and discounts codes on my page. Depending on the time of year, those discount codes may not be as valuable as the ones that the the that are being offered right now, seeing as this episode is airing around Thanksgiving, therefore, Black Friday and Cyber Monday and all this consumerist madness. But I think if you still use the link, I still get credit for that sale. And that helps me and it helps you because it's also a no additional charge to you. And there are some pretty great deals going on right now.

Marge (00:14:53) - I have picked up a couple of things myself, I have to admit. And you know, one of those things are and this is not something that I'm an affiliate for or any kind of have any kind of. Affiliation with, I guess, but. Swedish sponge cloths, and I bought one of these a while ago. I'll try and make this quick before I wrap up the episode, because I'm sure you're ready to get out to your fridge and grab your lemons and try this recipe out. I bought one a while ago at a at a local shop that was selling these like cloths that they said was a replacement for paper towel, and I bought it and I ended up never using it. I thought about using it a bunch of times. I was like, ah, I don't know, and I never did and I stuck it in a drawer. Well, obviously, because I'm in the midst of selling a house, I've been cleaning a lot more than usual. Like my house is usually pretty tidy.

Marge (00:15:42) - I don't have a lot of clutter. I consider myself kind of minimalist. I try to be anyway, but it's a whole new level right now. And I found this cloth in a drawer. I was like, you know what? I'm going to try it out. And holy shit blew my mind. This little cloth made of wood pulp. It's this Swedish sponge which my German friend says is very common over in Europe, has been a game changer. I can't believe how much they absorb, how easily they rinse out. You can throw it in the washing machine, you can throw it in the dishwasher. It apparently saves up to 40 rolls of paper towels because it is so durable. I've been using it to scrub and clean all kinds of things around my house, and it has held up. It doesn't seem to be falling apart at all, and it doesn't seem to like hold any smell like, you know, like jay cloths or sponges or something. After a while it can really start to like stink a little bit.

Marge (00:16:32) - This does not seem to do that. I've been so impressed. So I'm ordering more for myself. And I don't know, maybe some lucky people could make a great stocking stuffer? I don't know, but I've been super impressed. I'll link to the one that I'm using. Uh, I think it was by a company called Tenon Codes, a Canadian company, but I think you can find those a lot of companies doing these types of things out there, and I've just been so impressed. And of course, if you're concerned at all about the environment, want to reduce your paper towel usage? These things are fucking brilliant. So that's my PSA of the day. I have no affiliation with this company or this product or whatever, but if you're going to be finding yourself doing a lot of cleaning between now and the holidays or the new year or whatever, then maybe consider save yourself a few bucks by yourself, eh? I think they have them on sale, uh, a regular price for like 6 or $7 on the website for one.

Marge (00:17:17) - And I mean, this thing really holds up. So, I mean, I could replace a whole bunch of rolls of paper towel, saving you money. You're welcome. You will not regret it if you find one of these and pick it up. But no, it's not on my recommended page. I should throw one up there anyway just because I think they're so great. Maybe I'll get around to that when I think about it. I have not been sitting down at my computer as much as usual. Try this recipe, let me know what you think. Or perhaps if you are into pumpkin and you have a lot that around, try the pumpkin curd recipe. I'll link to that in the show notes as well and I hope you have a wonderful week! I'm your host, Marge. And until next time, my friends, stay high. Are you tired of trying edibles that are inconsistent and strength and flavor? Attempting to figure out your tolerance? Do you want to take control of your edibles experience and find the optimum combination of factors that results in the best outcome? If so, this edibles journal is perfect for you.

Marge (00:18:11) - The Bite Me Edibles Journal provides a convenient and organized way for you to track and record your edibles experience, whether it's homemade edibles or store bought. It includes 48 fillable pages. It sized eight and a half by 11 for plenty of writing. Space includes information on calculating the potency of homemade edibles, and it was created by an edibles expert. Whether you're a seasoned edibles enthusiast or just starting out on your cannabis journey, the Bite Me Edibles Journal is an essential tool for anyone interested in enjoying their edibles to the fullest. Take control of your life with this convenient and helpful resource. Add it to your Amazon cart today! Tap the link in the show notes.