Om nom nom LEMON CURD!

I was having a shit day today. Project not playing ball. Standard.

But I had an idea. And it was a good idea.

What do you need for lemon curd? LEMONS!!! So off I skipped to Sainsbury's.

Ingredients: bought!
Recipe: printed out!
Kitchen equipment: ASSEMBLED.

Top tip for happy cooking: get a really good knife. And a knife sharpner. Then you'll have a really good, fucking sharp knife for attacking citrus fruits with :-) 

(I decided on the more exotic lemon and lime curd. For the lulz.)

Ta da! This took FUCKING AGES. (Also, if you do this, don't be a twat like I was and cut the fruit in half before you do it - it makes life much harder).

Next stop: juicing. Or, as it came to be, EXCRUCIATING, NEVER-ENDING PAIN!

How'd you like that you acidic BASTARD???!?!?!?
(N.B. The lime responded by squirting juice in my eye - that hurt quite a lot too.)

 You see, I am very bad at looking after my hands, so they are always pretty dried out. Turns out that effectively pouring acid all over really dry, cracked hands really really fucking hurts.

Like really.

Really really.

So with about 40mins of effort, my net achievement was so far a small bowl of citrus zest, this much juice and a fuck-load of swearing at my hands. Pleasing.

 It's only when you put all the ingredients together into a bowl that you realise this is not a very healthy thing you're making:

Butter and sugar. Sugar and fat and sugar and fat and CALORIES and mmmmmmmmm tasty.

Now: GENTLY SIMMER!!!

Mmmmm melty sugary butter mmmmmmm.

 Annnnnd add the "lightly beaten" eggs. Look how they fell into the bowl! (I didn't set this up at all!)

Smily eggs!

Then stir.

And stir.

And stir.

And stir.

Eventually (very eventually - you have to do it on a really low heat otherwise the eggs scramble. I may have done this before :-/) it turns into awesome right before your very eyes.

And my god, was it awesome.

Here's a little montage one of my housemates took of me licking the saucepan:

OM.

NOM.

NOM.

OM NOM NOM NOM NOM!!!!! :-D

The onion growing in the background, surprisingly, doesnt belong to me. I am apparently cooking in lycra because that is what I do (don't worry, it was un-rowingifed - it was just really cold today).

Result: a pot of awesome. (Which annoyingly doesn't fill the whole pot. Does anyone else find it intensely pleasing when something you make fills a jar/whatever *exactly*? It might just be a slightly OCD mathmo thing...)

I do highly recommend the glass clippy jar things btw.

You should then give the lemon curd to someone that you like. And then they'll worship you as a domestic goddess forever!

In light of the fact it's Valentine's Day soon, which is a day that I save a really special loathing for (mainly because I'm a miserable bastard and I'm a bit like "Stop trying to sell me heart-shaped shit!"), I wonder who would rather receive this very clearly homemade thing:

Would be so much better if it FILLED THE WHOLE JAR.

over this overpriced heart-shaped chocolate monstrosity:

Therefore, readers of "Something about rowing" (which should *really* be renamed "Very little about rowing"), I challenge you to not buy heart-shaped, fluffy crap for 14th Feb - make someone some jam or something instead. You can then impress them with all your scars from the boiling hot sugar you spill on yourself too! Bonus! (Singletons - make some for a friend instead. Or or or ask someone out you like with the line "Oh hai *insert name here*. I made you some raspberry jam! Fancy a drink and a scone sometime?" :-D). Even better is the fact it's Seville orange season soon, which means only one thing - marmalade. And what does marmalade mean? EPIC TOAST.

I'm probably just being an over-opinionated bastard with my jam propaganda, but to be honest that's what the internet is about. And it's my goddam blog, so there. Boo sucks to you, jam haters.

Therefore, in what is probably the weirdest closing statement I shall ever make,

"Go forth and make jam! It'll be awesome!"