A little bit later

Well, I've made some orange curd and it tastes, as always, scrummy.  I halved the amount but it's still made rather a lot, so I guess I have to make a Victoria sponge now, to use some of it up.  Oh, the hardship!!  Fortunately, I have a grandson who will happily shovel any amount of home cooking down his throat so there will be no waste.

Having Googled around, I have found a recipe for making cottage cheese using ordinary ingredients and equipment, no special stuff needed, so I think I will have a go at that and see how it works out.  Cottage cheese is not my favourite, but it's OK and I want to have a go.  As with yogurt, I'm hoping it will taste a whole lot better than the shop bought version.  Fingers crossed!
The process results in unwanted whey but it says whey can be used in any recipe requiring buttermilk so I guess I can feel some soda bread coming on too.  Soda bread and lemon curd.  Soda bread and cottage cheese.  Yup, sounds nice, doesn't it?

A message has just pinged through from Lathcoats, saying there's strawberries for picking.  Now what was I saying about an easy weekend?  I think I will schedule that for tomorrow morning and hope that there's still plenty of fruit - or perhaps later on today, seeing as I want to go to the farm shop anyway.  After all the curding, I'm short on eggs.

Anyway, here is the recipe for the orange curd.  I used half quantities, sort of.  Two oranges but they weren't huge.

Ingredients:
3 oranges
1 lemon
1 lb (450 g) caster sugar
6 eggs
4 oz (112 g) butter

Method:
Finely zest one orange and the lemon
Squeeze the juice from the fruit and sieve to remove pips and bits.
Beat the eggs.
Place all the ingredients in a microwaveable bowl.
Give it one minute on high and stir well (I use a balloon whisk).  The butter should be just about melted.
Then cook for about 40 seconds at a time, stirring well after each 'cook', until the mixture has thickened.  You can tell when it's starting to thicken - the texture and the feel of the mixture changes.  You might want to have a shorter interval of cooking towards the end.  I reduce it down to about 20 seconds once the thickening has begun.
If you don't stir after each burst of cooking you will end up with rather expensive citrus flavoured scrambled eggs!

When thickened, pour into sterilised jars, cover and store in a cool, dark place.  It keeps for about four to six weeks in the fridge, but only for one week once opened.  I've actually put mine in plastic pots.