Author Archives: Lisa

Getting My Crafty On

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I don’t do much crafting, but once in a while the need arises. A couple of days in early January found me hunched over my sewing machine busily creating.

We all received Kindles for Christmas. They should help cut down on the number of books we have to move overseas, so we’re really happy to have them. To help guard against catastrophic accidents, I wanted some way to protect the girls’ when they weren’t in use. I did a lot of looking but couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for: a padded storage case or sleeve at a reasonable price. Since that doesn’t seem to exist, I decided to make some.

Let me interject here: a seamstress, I am not. I know how to work a sewing machine and I can follow a pattern, but it’s not something I’ve ever really worked at enough to be good at it. But I was given a bunch of fabric scraps a couple of years ago, so I went through those and pulled out some pieces that I thought might suit the purpose. I dug around some more and found an old mattress pad that we weren’t using and really didn’t need. It took quite a bit of playing around, but I eventually came up with a design and pattern and made three cute padded drawstring bags. The girls love them, and I’m really happy with how they turned out. I wouldn’t want to do any serious gravity testing on the Kindles with them, but I think there’s adequate protection from everyday bumps and knocks. They should also be good protection if they’re in a backpack with other stuff. Best of all, my total cost was exactly zero since I was able to find everything I needed around the house.

I liked the bags I made for the girls so much that today I decided to make one for myself. But since I can never keep things simple, I decided to make mine slightly smaller and out of some difficult-to-work-with material, a silky synthetic that I cut from a shirt I got in China on our first trip there. (The shirt didn’t fit me anymore and was falling apart.) This did make it a bit more difficult. The silky cloth kept slipping and the smaller size made for smaller tolerances on my seams, less room for error. It also frayed LIKE CRAZY. If you decide to try this for yourself, I’d recommend sticking to a non-silky cloth and a longer length unless you’re a more skilled seamstress than I am.

Just in case anyone cares to know how to make one, here you go. These instructions are for how I made the girls’ bags, but the pictures were taken while making mine.

Supplies:

  • fabric for the outside (I recommend cotton blend)
  • fabric for the lining (I used something silky on two, fleece on one, a smooth cotton on another. You could also use the same fabric for outside and inside.)
  • something to use for the padding in between. (I used an old mattress pad but you could also use quilter’s batting, a old blanket, or anything else soft and squishy.)
  • something to use for drawstrings. (I cannibalized the strings from a couple of drawstring backpacks we had lying around. You could use ribbon, shoelaces, whatever.)

I first made two pattern pieces out of paper. When I made the girls, I used one that was 8 1/2″ x 9 1/2″ and another that was 8 1/2″ x 13 1/2″. After making mine today with a too-small pattern, I can say that 8″ x 8 1/2″ and 8″ x 12 1/2″ would probably be just about perfect. If you’re better at cutting than I am you can just cut the fabric without the pattern pieces, but as I said: I am no seamstress.

Lay out your outside fabric, folded in half with right sides in. Pin the bigger pattern piece on top and cut so you end up with two identical pieces for the outside. Do the same with the lining fabric and the smaller pattern piece, then use the smaller pattern piece again to cut out two pieces of padding.

Stack the outside pieces right sides together. Put one of the padding pieces on top of the fabric sandwich and line up the bottom edges. Put a piece of the lining on top of that, right side up, and pin it together with just a few pins. Turn it all over and repeat the process on the other side: padding then lining, right side up. Pin all six layers together securely, removing the extra pins as you go along. You might have to fiddle around a bit to keep everything lined up. Big quilter’s pins are helpful.

Once you’ve got everything pinned, sew the long sides and the bottom. Begin at the top where it’s just the two outside pieces. Carefully help the needle along where it transitions to all the thick layers. Oh, and you should probably have a heavy-duty needle in your sewing machine.

Sew the long side, then the bottom, then back up the other long side. Trim your seams with pinking shears and cut away the corners so you won’t have big lumps when you turn it right side out. (Don’t turn it right side out yet, though.)

Then you just need to make a channel for the drawstring. Turn over about 5/8″ around the opening and press.Then, turn it down again until it overlaps the padding and lining.

(This is where it got rough on the one pictured–I made the outside pieces too short so getting those two folds was a real pain.) Press and pin, then sew all the way around so that the drawstring channel/hem covers and closes the lining and padding across the top.

(With the one pictured, I ended up adding a zigzag stitch over the edges because I was afraid they would come apart.) Press again if necessary, then sew a seam maybe 1/2″ down from the top of the bag so that the drawstring isn’t right up against the top. Just be sure you leave a big enough channel for the string. Turn the bag right side out. Use a seam ripper to carefully open up both side seams between the hem you just made and where you sealed off the lining and padding. Thread one drawstring through from one side and back out the same hole, then do the same with another drawstring and the other hole. Trim and finish off the ends of the drawstrings if needed (mine were nylon so I melted them with a match), tie them together at each side and you’re done!

Pictured are my bag (the red one), Ellie’s (striped) and Micah’s (flowered). Bethany’s isn’t pictured because I used a completely different method making hers. It turned out fine but the way I did these ones was simpler. As an added bonus, the girls can fit their iPods in the bags with their Kindles and I can fit my reading glasses in with with mine.

School Stuff

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About this time every year I kind of evaluate how school is going. And it seems like about this time every year, I change something with our Language Arts studies. This year is no exception.

I’ve been using Sonlight’s Language Arts D with all three girls. I chose this with some fear and trepidation, knowing that I was going to have to do a lot of adapting to make it work for everyone. For the first 6-8 weeks it was fine. Then things got more demanding, and I eventually realized that it was just too much for my 3rd graders. I started reflecting on what I did with Bethany when she was in 3rd grade and decided to go back to the writing portion of that. So as of this week, I’m using Writing With Ease 3 with Ellie and Micah and dropping Sonlight. For grammar for them, I found a free online program called English Grammar 101. So far (three days in), it’s perfect. I have them each do one exercise each day. I’ve made a schedule so that they’ll go back and review concepts as they go along. When each girl finishes the day’s work, I print it to a PDF and put it in a folder on my desktop.  I think once we get through a solid review of the basics with this, I’ll go on to First Language Lessons Level 4, which I already have.

For right now, Bethany’s still using Sonlight LA D. But I’ve downloaded a 10-week sample of  Writing With Skill to check out. I’ll see what she thinks of it and who knows, I may end up returning all of the Sonlight LA materials and going with that.

Our American history studies have been going really well so far. We’ve read some great books and have just started another, Johnny Tremain. Two days in and everyone’s hooked.

…and now for some REALLY BIG NEWS:

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We are moving to Chiang Mai, Thailand!

What? Seriously? When?

Yes, seriously. We’re planning to move around June, 2012.

 

Why Chiang Mai, Thailand?

The JESUS Film Project has had a studio there for the past ten years. Chiang Mai is strategically located in southeast Asia. This means that:

    • It is much cheaper to send recording teams from there to record new languages throughout east and southeast Asia.
    • Missionaries from many agencies come through Chiang Mai for conferences—giving us the opportunity to fulfill DVD orders on the spot.
    • All those missionaries coming through also give us the opportunity to network with them to identify new language translations that need to be started, and then to get that work underway.

 

What exactly will you be doing?

I (Tim) will be taking over the operation of the Chiang Mai studio. I will continue to do many of the same things that I’ve been doing here in Florida: language editing and mixing for existing JESUS film products, and music editing and scoring for new films. But I will be also be taking on responsibilities related to the three functions listed above. Right now the studio is set up to accommodate DVD duplication rather than audio mixing, so I will be overseeing an upgrade to the studio equipment and the room itself.

 

How long will you be there?

We’ve made a two-year commitment, with the option to stay long-term if it would be beneficial.

Buddhist temple in Chiang Mai

 

How does this fit with the 845 languages remaining for the original “JESUS” film?

A good percentage of them are in that region. It is mountainous with many isolated people groups and languages. Many of them are considered least-reached and unengaged. The Chiang Mai studio makes it economically feasible to make “JESUS” film recordings for these smaller languages. It is about one-third the cost of doing all the work from Florida!

 

What does this mean for me?

This is a great opportunity to have a major impact on the region with the gospel. In light of that, we ask for two things:

  • Pray for us! We have a lot of logistical things to work out in moving the family overseas. We need to learn to speak Thai! It will be hard for all of us to leave friends, family and our church.
  • As you think about year end giving please consider including us to help with our moving expenses. Through generous friends we have already raised a good portion, but we don’t know the full cost at this point and we know that we will need to raise more (we’re guessing about $4000 more).

 

Over the next few months we will tell you more about the wonderful country of Thailand that we are just now beginning to explore and discover.

 

Festival of Yi Peng in Chiang Mai

 

Back to blog, back to school

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I can’t believe it’s been so long since my last post. Well, actually I can. It was kind of a crazy summer. We spent 10 weeks away from home. Most of that was in Michigan, but for a week and a half we were in Colorado at Campus Crusade’s U.S. Staff Conference. All summer I thought about writing a post, but I could never quite get my thoughts focused enough. Suffice it to say, the last few months have been really good and really busy.

We continued schooling through the summer, albeit at a more relaxed pace. We’d taken quite a bit of time off over the winter and spring so felt like we really needed to keep going. We finished up last year’s language arts and math programs about mid-July, but kept plugging away at our Core until after we got home in late August. We took a couple of weeks off as we chose and ordered our next curriculum and finally got everything started back up over the last two weeks. Tim has now done two weeks of math with the girls using the same program as last year (Christian Light Publications, grades 3 and 5) and it’s been going really well. We decided to go back to Sonlight for science and language arts, and continue with Sonlight’s Core. Our first week went amazingly well. If our whole school year can continue anything like this, it’s going to be fantastic!

First day of school

 

I was really unsure about using Sonlight’s LA. Since we’ve been homeschooling I’ve gone from Sonlight to Well-Trained Mind to Christian Light, and now back to SL. We quit using SL LA in the first place because it was too much writing for my kids when they weren’t ready for it, and I felt it was lacking in grammar. WTM doesn’t require any composition for the first couple of years, focusing instead on grammar, copywork, dictation, and narration. That was great for a year, but when we started our second year with it we all realized that we were getting tired of listening to my voice (since it’s all scripted and presented orally). So partway through last year I switched to CLP. That was also great for a while, as we all loved how independently the girls could work. But while the spiral method is working great for math, it got pretty boring for LA. And the materials were showing their age (last edited in 1997)–did my girls really need to learn how to write their name and the date on a library book card to check it out? Or how to use a phone book? I think not. I had supplemented CLP with a Zaner-Bloser writing curriculum that had worked pretty well, so I knew the girls had gotten to the point where they could handle writing. Thus the switch back to Sonlight.

The complicating factor is that at the Core we’re on now (Core D, formerly Core 3) the LA and readers coordinate with the Core. So the question was, could I use the same LA program and level with all three girls? Sonlight’s website and catalog say that their D materials are suitable for most kids between 8 and 11 years old or so. After looking at the sample schedules I decided to give it a go, adapting things as I go along to make it a little harder for Bethany and a little easier for Ellie and Micah. So far it’s worked perfectly. The first week’s assignments have been easy to adapt–for example, on a writing assignment having Bethany do 8-10 sentences and Ellie and Micah do 4-6. Bethany’s already done the Sequential Spelling level that SL recommends with this core, so I put CLP’s 5th grade spelling lists into SpellingCity (I already had the CLP grade 5 teacher’s book with the lists) and had her work on that while I did spelling with Ellie and Micah.

I’ve had to schedule our mornings kind of carefully, not so much in how long to spend on each thing but in who is doing what. Ellie and Micah are doing the Regular readers that go with Core D, while Bethany’s doing the Advanced readers. That means that every day Ellie and Micah will need to read the same pages of the same book. Sometimes all three of them will be reading the same book (the Advanced readers including all the Regular ones plus extras). They’re also all doing Rosetta Stone Spanish on the computer. So I’ve figured out a schedule where, for example, Bethany is doing Rosetta Stone while Micah is reading and I’m working with Ellie on handwriting. When everyone’s finished, they switch. This week it worked beautifully. The house is so quiet while they’re each focused on their own work! I’ve even been able to do things like pop in a load of laundry while they work. It’s been amazing.

Tim loved the science he used with the girls last year (Real Science 4 Kids), but he’d reached a point where things had gotten too complicated for Ellie and Micah. Sonlight’s Science D uses RS4K but not exclusively. So far that’s also worked well. Core D has also started very positively. This is the first Core where the girls have had any written work to do, and they’ve been handling it well. We do some of it together, and they do some independently.

So, in a more concise form, here’s exactly what we’re using:
Math: Christian Light Publications, grades 3 and 5
Science: Sonlight Science D (Biology, Taxonomy, and Human Anatomy)
Language Arts: Sonlight LA D
Spelling: Sequential Spelling 1 / CLP grade 5 spelling words done in SpellingCity
Core: Sonlight Core D with Regular and Advanced Readers
Spanish: Rosetta Stone, each working at her own pace

The one thing we haven’t figured out yet is bible. For right now, Tim’s reading Hero Tales Vol. IV to the girls a few times a week.

We’re still actively involved in our homeschool co-op, HIGH Day. We’re three weeks into our 11-week fall semester and loving it. The girls get to do fun classes like art (“Meet the Masters“), P.E., Odyssey of the Mind (creative problem solving), and hands-on science.

So that’s life on the homefront for right now. I’ll try to get Tim to write a post about what he’s been working on in the studio sometime soon.

The Tangled Tower Cake

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We celebrated Bethany’s 10th birthday a few days ago. She wanted a “Tangled” theme for her party. I went a little crazy on the cake.

Oh, the insanity.

They say you should never see how sausage is made. If you feel that way about architectural cakes, stop reading now. If you want to know how I did it, read on. (Please forgive the slightly fuzzy pictures–the battery in my camera was low and I didn’t realize it.)

First, credit where it’s due. The beginning of the idea came from here: http://bit.ly/ilJhm3.  I liked the basic idea, but I didn’t want to have a styrofoam base; I wanted cake. After I pondered how to make that work, a friend put together a dowel in a piece of plywood with another thin round piece of wood with a hole in it that could be threaded onto the dowel (thanks, Bob!). I then drilled a hole in the center of a large plastic platter I had so it could also go over the dowel, and added some extra supports for the plate. I used a little hot glue to hold the plate, plywood and supports together.

I made up two cake mixes. I baked one round layer, one small bundt-shaped pan, and 18 cupcakes. I bought a package of eight pecan pinwheel rolls and one huge cinnamon streusel-topped muffin, plus a pack of large waffle ice cream cones. (I got the muffin after I took these pics–it was from the Target bakery).

I started by cutting the layer in half and putting it around the dowel. I put a little icing (http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Buttercream-Icing) over the layer then threaded the bundt cake over the dowel onto the layer.

This is where I made a big mistake. I took the paper off a cupcake and threaded it onto the dowel, upside down, so it rested on top of the bundt cake. As I built the tower, it slowly sank. I should have either (a) used a bowl cake, (b) stuffed the center of the bundt cake with more than one cupcake, or (c) used a non-edible support of some kind there. Lesson learned: gravity always wins.

Once that cupcake was in place, I started building with the pecan spinners. I used a Pampered Chef “corn cob knob” to pre-drill holes in each one, then threaded them onto the dowel. I used a bit of icing as mortar, and reversed the direction of each one as I built.

 

I topped it off with another cupcake, then the jumbo muffin (with its paper still on). I tested it by putting the ice cream cone on top–the height was perfect!

Except I had just made my second big mistake. That muffin was HEAVY. Within a few minutes the whole tower had sunk close to an inch. I put another cupcake under the muffin, but it kept sinking. The tower just couldn’t bear the weight of the muffin. So I took the muffin off and threaded the little round platform on. By this time, the dowel was so sticky that the platform barely went onto it–there was no chance it was going to sink. Unfortunately, the tower continued to sink under it so I ended up with a gap between the top cupcake and the muffin platform.

At that point, it was just frosting. I did the assembly and a crumb coat the night before the party, then decorated the day of. I had to thin the icing for the tower–it was pulling the pinwheels apart. I only had 4 tips–three rosette sizes and a piping tip–so everything was done with those. I just colored my buttercream with food coloring and worked my way from the bottom up. To do the “roof,” I first globbed purple frosting onto the muffin then put the ice cream cone into it and frosted them both. I made the “shingles” with a table knife.

To do the architectural trim, I set out a few graham crackers the day before so they’d get stale and a little soft. They were much easier to cut that way. Using a small serrated knife I cut the shapes for the supports, doorway and window and placed them with icing.

I probably could have done this with just one cake mix, but I wasn’t sure exactly how it was all going to come together or what I was going to need. So I frosted the extra cupcakes and put them around the cake.

By party time, gravity was beginning to take its toll, but I didn’t really care. :)

We Have Not Known Thee

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Our church does a modern setting of this old hymn text. I’ve sung it many times without really noticing the words. This week at rehearsal I finally paid attention and have been thinking about them since.

We have not known Thee as we ought, nor learned Thy wisdom, grace and power.
The things of earth have filled our thought, and trifles of the passing hour.
Lord, give us light Thy truth to see, and make us wise in knowing Thee.

We have not feared Thee as we ought, nor bowed beneath Thine awesome eye,
Nor guarded deed and word and thought, remembering that God was nigh.
Lord, give us faith to know Thee near, and grant the grace of holy fear.

We have not loved Thee as we ought, nor cared that we are loved by Thee.
Thy presence we have coldly sought, and feebly longed Thy face to see.
Lord, give a pure and loving heart to feel and know the love Thou art.

We have not served Thee as we ought, alas, the duties left undone,
The work with little fervor wrought, the battles lost or scarcely won.
Lord, give the zeal and give the might for Thee to toil, for Thee to fight.

When shall we know Thee as we ought, and fear and love and serve aright?
When shall we, out of trial brought, be perfect in the land of light?
Lord, maybe we day by day prepare to see Thy face and serve Thee there.

–Thomas B. Pollock (1889)

The third verse especially speaks to me. I certainly have been guilty of seeking after God coldly and feebly. Lord, give a pure and loving heart to feel and know the love Thou art.

 

You have redeemed my soul

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Mardi Gras. Fat Tuesday. Paczki day. Shrove Tuesday. No matter what you call it, it means Lent is nearly here.

As a child, I attended a liturgical church. This meant that every year as Ash Wednesday approached, I was told to think about what to give up for Lent. I usually gave up chocolate or something along those lines, at least for a few days. We left that church when I was around 13, and I didn’t give Lent a whole lot of thought for the next 25 years or so.

We now attend a church that encourages us to observe Lent. I’ve been thinking over the last few days about why to make a sacrifice for Lent, what it means, and what God is asking me to do. I have some ideas mulling around in my head which I’m not going to articulate here… at least, not yet. But I’m hoping that with God’s help I’ll be able to make a small personal sacrifice that will let me spend more time focused on him and his sacrifice for me.

In the meantime, here’s a song that’s been going through my head since I woke up this morning. You can listen to it on the player below–it’s track 6. Originally by Waterdeep, this recording is my Page CXVI, my favorite band at the moment.

You have redeemed my soul
From the pit of emptiness
You have redeemed my soul
From death

I was a hungry child
A dried up river
I was a burned out forest
And no one could do anything for me
But You put food in my body
Water in my dry bed
And to my blackened branches,
You brought the springtime
Green of a new life

And nothing is impossible
For You

Now, You have redeemed my soul
From the pit of emptiness
You have redeemed my soul
From death

Kumquat Meringue Pie

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I said I’d post if my pie turned out well. I’d say it’s pretty good, especially since it was my first time ever making a meringue pie. I took a couple of shortcuts that made the end result a little less awesome than it might have been, but it’s still good.

Here’s the recipe I used. After the recipe I’ll comment on what I did differently.

Kumquat Meringue Pie (filling recipe from Kumquat Growers, Inc., meringue recipe from The Complete Cook by Pat Jester)

Filling:

  • 1 baked 9″ pie shell
  • 1 1/2 cups water
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 3 tbsp cornstarch
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 3 egg yolks, beaten
  • 1/3 cup pureed kumquats
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 3 tbsp. margarine

Preheat oven to 350.

In a heavy saucepan combine water, sugar, cornstarch and salt. Place over medium heat and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Once it’s boiling, remove from heat.

Stir in beaten egg yolks. Note: I tempered the egg yolks a bit, then poured them into the pan of hot sugar syrup very slowly, in a very thin stream while stirring constantly to avoid curdling the eggs. Once eggs are mixed in, return the pan to medium heat and boil for 2 minutes or until thick, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat and add the lemon juice, pureed kumquats and margarine (I added the margarine a pat at a time, letting each one melt before adding the next). Cool and pour into prepared pie shell. Top with meringue.

Meringue:

  • 4 egg whites
  • 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
  • 1/2 cup sugar

In a 1.5 quart mixer bowl, combine egg whites and cream of tartar. With an electric mixer at medium speed, beat 15 to 30 seconds or until foamy. Gradually add sugar, beating at medium speed of mixer 1-1/2 to 2 minutes. Turn mixer to high speed and beat for another 1-1/2 to 2 minutes or until stiff peaks form. Spread evenly over warm pie, sealing meringue to edge of pastry. Bake in preheated oven 15 minutes or until meringue is golden brown. Turn off oven. Cool pie in oven with door ajar 2 hours. Cool on a rack at room temperature away from drafts for 3 hours before serving.

Now for my changes. I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to mess with making a pie shell, so I decided to do a graham cracker crust instead. That was okay, but I think it would have been better with a pastry crust. After making the kumquat curd I had a full 2/3 cup of kumquat puree left, so I decided to use it all for pie. I debated between making two 9-inch pies or one 10-inch deep-dish pie. I went with the one big pie. I probably would have been better off with two smaller ones. But doubling the filling recipe worked fine.

Since I’m still out of lemon juice I used lemonade (again) in its place.

I had a bowl of three egg whites left after making the curd. So I ended up with a bowl of three egg whites plus a bowl of six egg whites (from the yolks used to make the pie filling). I needed four egg whites for the meringue. I eyeballed it, dividing the egg whites in half. I think I ended up with too much egg white, because I had a ton of meringue.

When I filled the pie shell, I put too much filling in. I also had let it cool a bit (as the recipe told me to). It was later that I learned that it’s best to put the meringue on a hot pie filling so the underside cooks better and the meringue “bonds” to the filling. Oops.

I had to make dinner once the pie was baked, so there was no way I could leave the pie in the oven with the door ajar for two hours. I let it cool in the oven for a while (half an hour, maybe?) then put it on a cooling rack. I let it cool at room temperature for about 4 hours, then put it in the refrigerator before I went to bed.

If I hadn’t had the extremely awesome kumquat curd yesterday, I probably would have thought this pie was great. It’s good, just not as good as the curd was. But I’ll definitely make it again next kumquat season, only without the shortcuts.

Kumquat Curd

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I love lemon curd. It wasn’t something I ever had growing up. In fact, it was one of the foods that Tim’s family introduced me to when we were dating. We used to show up at their place when the food in our college dorm was inedible, and Tim’s wonderful parents always wanted to make sure we were well-fed. There was a usual litany of foods that we’d be offered (beans on toast? sardines? tinned fruit? Little Debbies?), and I actually don’t remember lemon curd being among them. But at some point it was offered to me, probably on toast, and I was hooked. My favorite is to have it on a toasted English muffin… mmmmmmm.

I’ve recently gotten totally hooked on kumquats. I have an itty-bitty kumquat tree growing in a pot in my backyard. It’s only about three feet tall, including the pot (!).

Itty-bitty tree

 

But it put out a surprising number of kumquats. And they were HUGE:

Giant kumquat

I’ve eaten a few out-of-hand and pureed and froze some a few weeks ago. The last of the “crop” has been sitting on my counter for over a week now, and time was running out on them. It was time to try making them into something. A kumquat curd had been suggested to me at some point, so I decided to give it a go today.

Google found me plenty of references to kumquat curd, but no actual recipes. Most people mentioned using a lemon curd recipe, so that’s what I did. The results were AMAZING. I can’t wait for my tree to produce more kumquats so I can make more of it. I want to get some canning equipment so I can make it by the gallon and preserve it.

A note about the ingredients: of course, lemon curd is made from lemon juice. Kumquat puree is a lot thicker than juice. When I added it to the curd, it seemed too thick so I wanted to add something to thin it. I would have used lemon juice, but Bethany used the last of it to make lemonade this morning. So I used a little splash of lemonade, and it seems to have worked well. If you don’t have lemonade, use a little lemon juice, orange juice or water. Oh, and don’t use lemonade that’s made from a powder or mix. That just wouldn’t be right.

Kumquat Curd (adapted from Alton Brown’s Lemon Curd recipe)

  • 5 egg yolks
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup kumquat puree**
  • about 1 T lemonade
  • 1 stick butter (1/4 lb), cut into pats and chilled

Put about 1 inch of water in a medium saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Meanwhile, combine egg yolks and sugar in a medium-sized metal (or heat-proof glass, like Pyrex) bowl and whisk until smooth, about 1 minute. Add the kumquat puree and just enough lemonade so that everything comes together into a smooth mixture. Once the water reaches a simmer, reduce heat to low and place the bowl on top of the saucepan like a double-boiler (the bowl should be large enough to fit on top of the saucepan without touching the water). Whisk until thickened and smooth, about 8 minutes, or until mixture is a light creamy orange and coats the back of a spoon. Remove immediately from heat and stir in the butter one pat at a time, allowing each piece to melt before adding the next. Transfer to a clean container. Alton’s recipe says to lay plastic wrap directly on the surface of the curd, I assume so that it doesn’t form a skin. I just covered the container and it’s been fine. Refrigerate for up to 2 weeks (as if it will last that long!).

**To make kumquat puree, wash kumquats well and remove any stems. Do not peel. Cut in half and remove the seeds, then puree in a blender or food processor until it’s as smooth as you can get it (which won’t be completely smooth). Puree can be frozen in zip-top baggies.

 

I also made a kumquat meringue pie, but we haven’t tried it yet (it’s still cooling). I’ll let you know how it turns out. If it’s any good, I’ll post that recipe too.