Luscious sugar-free lemon bars

This past weekend I decided to make eggs benedict for dinner.  Knowing I needed a tblsp of freshly squeezed lemon juice, I naturally bought a 5 lb bag of lemons from Costco.  Because what if the 35th infantry showed up to my house and wanted hollandaise sauce!?

In a panic over having an abundance of lemons to squeeze, I started humming The Lemon Song from Led Zeppelin, and got to googling.

I found plenty of recipes for lemon squares using 2 cups of butter and 3 cups of powdered sugar.  That sounded good, but since I don't have time to develop Type II diabetes, I kept searching.  The Nourishing Gourmet to the rescue (again)!

Lemon Curd Bars from The Nourishing Gourmet (my edits are posted below.  Visit the original link to see her recipe)

Curd
3 large eggs
the zest of 1 lemon
1/3 cup of honey
1/3 cup of freshly squeeze lemon juice + ~ 1/4 cup of freshly squeezed lime juice
6 tblsp of coconut oil

Crust
1 cup of almonds
1/2 cup of walnuts
1/3 cup of honey
1 tsp of sea salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup of melted coconut oil

For the curd:
I kind of accidentlly ignored the directions on which order to put things in the pan.  It all turned out, so whatever!  Put the eggs, zest, honey, and lemon/lime juice in to a pan and allow it to heat up a bit.

Stirring well with a whisk, add the coconut oil and continue to cook until it's bubbling just a little.  Side note: popping lemon curd is both delicious AND painful.

Place the mixture in a metal sieve over a bowl, and using a spatula, push the mixture through the sieve.

The curd will be the stuff in the bowl, and discard the "extras" in sieve in to the garbage.

Store and allow the curd to cool in the fridge.

For the crust:
Mix the nuts in your food processor until it's kind of a chunky flourly/powder.  Chunks of nuts will remain.  Side note: that last sentence made me giggle like a 12 year old boy.

Add the honey, salt, eggs, and coconut oil to the nuts in the food processor (yes Anne, you'd need to learn how to use yours to make this recipe...).

Process until soupy.

Pour in a very dirty 8x8 pan and bake for 15 minutes at 400 degrees.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely in the fridge.

Pour the cooled curd over the cooled crust and refrigerate for another 2 hours.

I served mine with a dollop of last year's homemade blackberry syrup.

Troy and Jack have a tart sensitivity and while pucker faces are hilarious, I actually wanted them to enjoy this.  Both boys liked it with and without the syrup, so I guess it wasn't too tart after all.

I've shared this with the peeps over at Healthy2day Wednesdays, Real Food Wednesdays, and Food Renegade.