Late Night Lemon Mousse

After a long day on Tuesday of editing a video for Food2.com, I called Craig and told him to order a pizza. When I came home, he was editing a video with his friend Alena. There's a lot of video editing going on in our lives. And so we all snarfed down that pizza, they returned to their editing, and I--like the sophisticated, highbrow person that I am--watched "The View" on Tivo. At around midnight, after Alena left, I got a hankering for dessert and decided, at 12:15, to make a lemon mousse.

I'd never made a lemon mousse before. I didn't feel like following directions, per se. I just knew that I had two lemons on my counter, eggs in the refrigerator and heavy cream. Basically, that's all you need.

After rifling through a few recipes online, I decided to do the following:

- I put water in a pot (1/4 of the way up) and put it on the stove to simmer.

- In a large bowl, I put in 2 egg yolks and one whole egg, the zest from two lemons, the juice from those same lemons, and a bit of sugar to taste (I used about 1/3 of a cup).

- I put the mixture over the simmering water and I whisked like crazy--it took a few minutes--until I had a thick, creamy curd.

- I took a bunch of ice and put it in a large bowl with cold water.

- I put the hot curd bowl into the ice bowl and whisked until it cooled down.

- Then, in another bowl, I poured in about 3/4 cup of heavy cream. I added a pinch of sugar and, again by hand, I whisked like crazy until it thickened up.

- I took a big spoonful of the whipped cream and added it to the lemon curd, whisking it in to lighten it. Then I took the rest of the whipped cream and folded it in.

That was all I had to do: I had lemon mousse. I scraped the mousse into little ramekins and smiled a happy lemon mousse smile.

It's not the prettiest picture or the most inspiring recipe, but anyone who can whip up dessert with two lemons and some eggs after midnight is a hero in my book. Maybe your book too.