When Life gives you Lemons...

When life gives you lemons, make lemon desserts. 

If you had told me twenty years ago that I would be making lemon desserts for holiday meals, I would have said 'No Way'.  It was not a flavor I truly cared for.  My, how things have changed.

Growing up, I was the chocoholic in the family.  My younger sister was the lemon lover.  Give her lemon meringue pie and I'd take dark chocolate anything. 

Now, our roles have reversed.  Not that I don't like dark chocolate.  I do.  I even took a chocolate class at Schoolcraft College.  But I love lemony desserts.

Lemon bars on a cookie crust, lemon pound cake, lemon and blueberry muffins, lemon curd on anything, double berry lemon trifle, and lemon mousse.  We are having a lemon mousse cake tomorrow with the extra mousse filling some small cream puffs I had in the freezer. 

A few years ago on a trip to Nova Scotia, I had the best frozen lemon mousse dessert ever.  Hurricane Ophelia was expected to hit Halifax during the night and I wanted to make sure I had a really good meal.  (Actually, the hurricane missed us and hit up at Sydney.)

Unless there is carrot cake (must have walnuts) or a creamy cheesecake around, I will look for lemon anything.  If you were to ask me what I always have in my refrigerator, lemons would be on the list.

Which brings me to the results of my latest experiment.  How to best store lemons.  I have searched the internet and tried different 'proven' ideas for storing them.  (I buy those big bags at Costco.)  After much trial and error, I found that the best way was to leave them in the bag they came in and place them in the vegetable drawer.  Even though the advice online was to place them in a sealed bag, I found the peel to hold up better in the aerated bag. 

That being said, I ran out of lemons this morning and had to make a grocery store run.  Tomorrow's dinner is definitely lemon inspired, starting with poached shrimp in lemon marinade and ending with lemon mousse.

Hope your Easter is a Happy one.