If you have lemons...

make a lemon tart!

Or you can do what I did and just steal the lemons and then fret about them going bad before you can come up with uses for said stolen lemons. I know, I don't have enough to worry about.

Except I do!

I have plenty of stuff to worry about! Evidenced by my inability to sleep soundly for any length of time. I sleep in spurts between nightmares (mine and Famous Baby C's), anxiety attacks about various things I want to do and forgot to do, and on and on and on.

So during the night, my Mr. Smith sleeps and snores softly next to me while my mind whirls like a hamster on a wheel. Going and going and going, making lists, worrying and fretting.

It has always been this way.

When I was 9 years old, I would have so much trouble falling asleep, I would stay awake, ear pressed to my clock radio and listening to a theater program hosted by E.G. Marshall. Not a big thing except the show STARTED at midnight, meaning that I would be awake until at least 1 am. Not exactly the best idea when you have school in the morning.

It did, however, get me interested in Edgar Allen Poe. I can tell you from personal experience, your 4th grade teacher will find it disturbing when she learns that you have been reading the collected short stories of Mr. Poe. It does give one a bit of a Wednesday Addams reputation. Not the rep one wants to cultivate at the ripe old age of 9.

Today, as quickly as it arrived, the rains have stopped. The beautiful part of Southern California rainy season: the day after the rains stop. The sky is spectacular, you can see for miles, it is sparkling and stunning.

I have been reading The Kitchen Sink blog for some time now.  I like her writing and her recipes are not too fussy, but elegant at the same time.

The Lemon Tart recipe that she posted last week had been kicking around in my "Recipes to Try" (yes, I am finally getting organized enough to have one of those!) folder ever since.

As you may or not remember, Vertigo B is a thief. More specifically, a lemon thief. Before the holidays I staged a caper involving lawn furniture, a rickety ladder and climbing onto a wall that was not meant to be scaled in order to acquire fresh lemons from my neighbor's loaded lemon tree.

Look, I am not proud of what I did. They guy has said we could have as many lemons as we want, but he wasn't around so I could not exactly ask and it was kind of emergency. He is a kind of crabby guy and I just needed one lemon. One thing led to another and I ended up pilfering about 30 lemons.

Now I have 30 lemons, what the hell am I going to do with all these lemons?! A really nice problem to have, quite frankly!

Cute little Sassycakes, until they started sweating profusely

I made some little lemon cupcakes. But they were a little too healthy for the likes of me, too heavy (more like a muffin) and the frosting just never got fluffy. No offense Tongue-N-Cheeky, but that recipe was not working for the Smith clan. Also, they started sweating. Today I had to throw away the last ones because they were sweating like Nixon, I mean crazy, put-a-paper-towl-in-the-container-to-sop-up-the-insane-amount-of-liquid sweating. It was really gross. It smelled GREAT, but man what a mess!

Also, I still had a TON of lemons left!

Zesting and juicing operation

One whole morning I zested and squeezed until my hands ached and stung. If you need any lemon juice ice cubes or lemon zest, give me a holler.

Glorious lemon zest

I, as usual, did not follow the recipe exactly. So what else is new, right?

I used pecans in the crust instead of almonds. I am just not crazy about almonds. They are so dry and the flavor just doesn't do it for me. If you feel differently, and you like them, go for it. Also, I didn't have any almonds. Obviously, I don't like them so I don't keep them around.

Otherwise, the recipe is fairly simple and easy to assemble. And, as you can see, the results are just gorgeous.

So go be brave and make some lemon curd even though you could just as easily go and buy a jar of it. You won't regret it. Just don't over cook it and you and your lemon curd (which, by the way, needs to change names. Lemon curd just sounds gross...perhaps too much like turd?...sorry Mr. Smith, but it is the truth).

Either way, this is a simple, beautiful, cheerful way to chase away the real or imagined clouds.