Morning, everyone. It’s early, and quiet here in the house.

The boy is still in bed, and I’m wide awake, sipping on my avocado milk smoothie – thinking about this blog post.

I was busier this weekend than I thought I was going to be, but since it’s a long weekend for us, technically I still have one more day to make the last two items on my Weekend 5 list. 🙂 So far I have managed to make the chai, the kimchi and the lemon curd. All very tasty, all very easy. I highly recommend the lemon curd. It was especially tasty.

The chai was great, but as usual, I found myself without one ingredient that I thought I had but couldn’t find or didn’t remember using up already. In the case of the chai, it was the black tea. The key ingredient. {forehead smack} So, being resourceful, I used Earl Grey tea bags instead. The recipe calls for 4-5 black tea bags, but since I didn’t want the bergamot from the Early Grey dominating my chai super pack of flavour, I only steeped three tea bags.

And then I couldn’t find my star of anise pods (are they pods or just dried flower rings?) and the bag of cardamom pods went AWOL on me, so I cheated and used a bit of anise extract and dry cardamom. Into the pot they went, to swirl around with the water and cinnamon stick. Both swap outs worked nicely, and not much was lost from the tea when I strained it over the cup into my mug, so I win.

I started the kimchi last Thursday night after dinner since the brining of the cabbage was to take 4 hours. I left it go for 6 hours to really soften the leaves. But, by the time I was done straining and draining the water out of the leaves, chopping it into bite sizes and mixing it up with the hot chili pepper paste, it was after midnight when the jar was placed into the fridge, so I’m going to say it was made Friday on schedule with the rest of the Weekend 5 tries. 😉 I can cheat like that, right? Right.

The lemon curd was very easy to make. More so than I remember with store bought lemon curd pre-done packets from my childhood. Huh. And the recipe called for using up the last three of my slightly aging lemons, so this was good timing.

The tartness of this curd won’t make your mouth pucker, but it is strong enough for you to taste it in, say, a blintz or a crepe with fresh whipped cream and some sweet ripe fruit. The flavour stands out, but it doesn’t overwhelm – and that’s exactly what you’re looking for. That’s the kind of curd that’s far more versatile than the overly tart, overly sugary, and overly processed kind I remember from my childhood used in pies. Blech.

The pickles will be done this morning, and after a quick trip to the grocery store across the street for items I could have sworn I already had on hand but can’t find in my pantry (isn’t that the most frustrating?), there will also be fig jam being made in my kitchen.

{happy clap}

Okay, time to get dressed and head out. Those pickles are going to make themselves!