I have 5 hens, which were an Easter present to  my family last year.  We have one each, and they are different colours so we can tell them apart, and on average they lay 4 eggs a day. My hen lays the most beautiful blue eggs, and the others lay a variety of brown shelled eggs,  and I have to say, although possibly biased, that once you produce your own eggs from home, free range eggs from the shop have never tasted or looked as amazing as my ones!  My hens graze on about an acre of grass, and it is the grass that makes the egg yolks the most stunning saffron yellow colour.  When I have some extra eggs that need using, and rather than give them away to my friends and neighbours, which I do from time to time, there are several recipes I like to make, and this one for lemon meringue tart has a feeling of Spring about it I think.

LEMON MERINGUE TART

Filling:

1 x 95g  large all-butter sweet pastry case from Marks and Spencer

4 egg yolks

1 x 397g tin condensed milk

freshly squeezed juice and zest from 4 unwaxed lemons

Topping:

4 egg whites

220g caster sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat oven to 150 C (300 F) Gas 2

Separate the eggs, and put the egg yolks, condensed milk and lemon juice and zest in a bowl and mix gently with a hand whisk or balloon whisk until all the ingredients are combined.  The mixture will thicken naturally.

Put the pastry case on a flat baking sheet, and poor the mixture into the pastry case and bake in a pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes, until the filling is firm to the touch, but still soft in the centre (not wobbly!)  Leave to cool completely, and then cover with film, and chill for a minimum of an hour, or overnight if you have time.

Whisk the egg whites in a large bowl with an electric hand whisk, until they form soft peaks.  Carefully whisk in the sugar a little at a time, and add a couple of drops of vanilla extract, and whisk again until stiff peaks form. Spoon the meringue on to the top of the cold tart, covering the lemon filling. Create peaks and swirls in the top of the meringue with the back of a table spoon.

Bake in the pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes or until the meringue is golden brown and crisp to the touch.  leave to cool before serving.

I am just of out to  my potting shed  …  I have potatoes in there chitting but a mouse has started to nibble the new shoots off a couple, so I am going to move them indoors!  I am keen to plant out my lettuce plants but the weather is so unsettled ..  I have my stock of slug and snail deterrent on hand so that when the time is right to plant out, no one will be eating the lettuce but me!  I also have some more parsnips to dig, and I have a lovely recipe for Curried Parsnip Soup to share soon…

Tags: slug and snail deterrent, Slug Killer

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 31st, 2010 at 2:51 pm and is filed under The Good Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.