Lemon Bars

Nothing reminds me more of summer than lemon bars. Tangy and sweet with a shortbread crust and powdered sugar sprinkled (or dumped if you live in my family) on top. It's been kind of cold and typically Oregon outside, so I needed to make something that would cheer me up. Lemon bars were the perfect thing. This recipe is from Smitten Kitchen, unchanged and ready to go. I used the full sized lemon layer, on her site it has a recipe for a thinner lemon filling. No pictures, they were gone too fast!

For the crust:
1/2 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 cups flour
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

For the lemon layer:
6 extra-large eggs at room temperature
2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 tablespoons grated lemon zest (4 to 6 lemons)
1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 cup flour

Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and grease a 9 by 13 by 2-inch baking sheet.

For the crust, cream the butter and sugar until light in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Combine the flour and salt and, with the mixer on low, add to the butter until just mixed. Dump the dough onto a well-floured board and gather into a ball. Flatten the dough with floured hands and press it into the greased baking sheet, building up a 1/2-inch edge on all sides. Chill.

Bake the crust for 15 to 20 minutes, until very lightly browned. Let cool on a wire rack. Leave the oven on.

For the lemon layer, whisk together the eggs, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and flour. Pour over the crust and bake for 30 to 35 minutes (less if you are using the thinner topping), or about five minutes beyond the point where the filling is set. Let cool to room temperature.

Cut into triangles and dust with confectioners’ sugar.

Mango Lassi

Mangoes have a wonderful flavor, whenever I get a smoothie, it will always have mango in it. The problem with them is I don't particularly like the texture. They get slimy and are hard to peel, usually more trouble than they are worth. Solving this problem is easy. I take a ripe mango, peel it, slice it into chunks then stick it in the freezer. That takes care of the slimy problem, and makes them perfect for putting in smoothies like mango lassi. A mango lassi is an Indian yogurt smoothie with mango, and is delicious, you can make it with either fresh mango or mango puree, but the puree is usually only found in specialty stores. It is creamy, tangy and refreshing!

1 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup milk
1 cup chopped mango (peeled and stone removed, or 1 cup mango puree)
4 teaspoons sugar, to taste
A dash of ground cardamom (optional)

Put into a blender and blend throughly. If using frozen mango, blend that with the milk first.

Food I Love~Cookie Dough Ice Cream

I love ice cream, all ice cream in every flavor you could dream of. It just so happens that it is my favorite food in the universe, hands down.

The best flavor ever is Cookie Dough Ice Cream. I'm not even going to say that is my opinion, because it is the best thing in the world.

It is especially when it is a pint that you can eat while watching a movie in pajamas on the couch. Ben and Jerry were the makers of the first doughy chocolatey frozen goodness, and lets face it, who wants to buy the fake stuff? You just end up eating it all anyway. When I want ice cream, I want the full fat, 270 calorie per serving, creamy deliciousness.

Lemon Poppy Seed Scones

Today I had an urge to bake; an ignore-homework and look-through-cookbooks desire to bake. So I pulled out the trusty The New Best Recipe from the makers of Cooks Illustrated and started flipping through it. I wanted to make blueberry muffins, but with no fresh blueberries, I nixed the idea. I decided on scones, but didn't want to make the flavor variations they listed, and had no heavy cream, so I changed the recipe a bit. Some of the quantities may not be exact because I tend to add a bit of this and that if I think the batter needs it, but I tried to account for that in the amounts. Surprisingly, this recipe was really easy and quick to put together; something that recipes from Cooks Illustrated are not known for.

Lemon Poppy Seed Scones
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 1/2 tablespoons sugar (the recipe called for 3, but I like mine a bit sweeter, you could even add more if you wanted)
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small chunks
1/4 cup poppy seeds (more or less depending on personal taste, I like lots)
1/2 teaspoon pure lemon extract (you could use a tablespoon of lemon zest if you don't have any extract.)
1 cup half and half (the recipe called for heavy cream, but I didn't have any. We also had about 1/4 cup of buttermilk leftover, so I replaced 1/4 of the half and half with that. Any of these variation would work well.)

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Mix together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar together in a bowl large enough for all ingredients.
3. Cut in butter into the flour mixture until it becomes a coarse meal.
4. Add poppy seeds.
5. Stir in heavy cream and lemon extract until a dough forms, it will be very sticky.
6. Turn dough out to a floured surface and knead 5 seconds or so until it forms a ball. Shape dough into a circle about the size of a cake pan and cut into eight wedges.
7. Place the wedges onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake 12-15 minutes until golden.


This dough isn't rocket science, and as I said some things may not be completely accurate, but the scones were delicious. They aren't overly sweet (which I like), and they go wonderfully with jams or a little glaze on top.