No-Bake Lemon Curd Desserts

Are you freaking out about Easter right around the corner? Have you been so obsessed with ham and Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies, you haven't given dessert a thought?

Guess what. These two words are going to give you incredible peace of mind: LEMON CURD.

Oh... here's two more words you're going to love: NO BAKE.

Here's the formulas. You can't mess this up. Pinkie swear. In fact, print this out, give it to your kids, and put them to work!

Pssst... Lemon curd is one of those things you can't find everywhere. Save yourself a headache and find it in the baking aisle at Pete's County Market.  :)

Heavenly Lemon Ice Cream

Whip a pint of heavy whipping cream. Gently beat in half a can of sweetened condensed milk and two jars of lemon curd. Freeze. That's it. No ice cream machine. I used an ugly old cottage cheese container and put it the back of the freezer behind a big bag of peas. The family will never find it. Throw a few berries on top or a few thin crispy ginger cookies on the side and you can't go wrong!

Luscious Lemon Trifle

Find a great big pretty clear glass bowl. Got it? That was the hard part. Mix a jar of lemon curd with a container of Cool-Whip. Cut up an angel food cake from the bakery. Wash some berries. Layer to your hearts content.  Nifty, huh?

Darling Lemon Fruit Pizzas

Mix a jar of lemon curd with a block of cream cheese. Spread that lemony goodness on sugar cookies from the bakery. Top with your favorite fruit. Pat yourself on the back.

Fancy-Schmacy Lemon Cheesecake Tarts

Beat a jar of lemon curd with a block of softened cream cheese. Spoon into mini fillo shells (found in the frozen desserts section at Petes) and top with berries or fruit. They're definitely fancy, but also earned that extra "schmancy", don't you think?

Happy Easter!

Enjoy!

-Megan

Red Curry Soup

	RED CURRY SOUP

I love any and all Indian food, especially curry. Since there is a dearth of Indian restaurants in west central Minnesota, I keep my freezer stocked up on these amazing Amy’s vegetarian Indian meals. They’re SO good and addictive! (Find these in the Natural Foods section at Pete’s.)

But sometimes I just feel adventurous, so I tried my hand at improvising a great curry soup I had a few months ago.

Here’s what you need:

·         1 carton chicken stock

·         1 jar red curry sauce

Fun stuff to go in it. This is a GREAT time to use up leftovers if you got ‘em! I used:

·         A bag of prewashed spinach

·         A bunch of cilantro

·         A container of sliced mushrooms

·         A bag of julienned carrots

·         A bunch of scallions

·         A bag of bean sprouts

·         A box of rice noodles

·         A couple of limes

All I did was start the chicken stock boiling, added a handful of carrots and mushrooms, and once they were done I added a handful of rice noodles. Once the noodles were al dente, I poured in the curry. This alone was awesome! It had the lovely vibrant flavor of a great curry, but not very hot- so I knew the kiddos would eat it.

Here I’m going to segue into a blurb about tofu. I don’t eat it that often because, frankly, I don’t love it. But I know it’s really good for me and I feel pretty virtuous when I can sneak it into a dish like this.  The trick is to drain it. I got extra-firm tofu, and I drained off the water, layered it between some paper towels, and sandwiched it between a couple of plates with a can of soup on top.  After about half an hour, it had drained quite a bit so I chopped it up and sautéed it in some olive oil spray.  Here’s the evidence:

Once you have this broth ready, the fun part is deciding what you want in your bowl.

A little bit of everything, of course!

Then I just threw the hot broth and noodles on top to warm everything up!

When I make this again, I’ll use less noodles and veggies and more broth. If you don’t eat this whole batch right away, the rice noodles will keep absorbing the broth until you’re left with Indian hotdish.  Delicious, but not really what we’re after. You could skip the noodles altogether and this would be just as good. This would be a great way to use up leftovers like chicken, pork, shrimp, stir-fry veggies, or just about anything!  If you want your soup to have more kick, a sprinkle of crushed red pepper makes it divine!

Enjoy!

-Megan