When life hands you lemons

It's 11:30pm, and I'm still up.  J headed up to bed, but I didn't feel wound down enough to sleep yet.  Then I realized that I hadn't had my nightly mug of tea yet.  I'm drinking Christmas Morning, which may not seem appropriate for a late night in July, but it's one of my favorites.  Normally I'd be stressing about getting enough sleep, since I tend to get up early for work, but I'm on vacation for a couple more days.  It's amazing how much better I feel, after getting a decent amount of sleep and some naps in over the past few days.  I needed this break.  A lot.

There has been so much going on.  When I saw my mother-in-law a few weeks ago, she commented that she could tell I'd been busy with work because I hadn't been posting here much.  (The fact that we were having the conversation in person is an indication of how crazy things have been, since that wasn't really planned.)  She's right.  When I'm just stressed about work, or stressed about my personal life, I can usually manage.  But both have been kind of out of control, which tends to make me shut down.  I do what I have to in order to survive on a daily basis, but that's about it.  Fortunately, I think I'm finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I'm starting to feel creative again, which I haven't in quite a while.  One nice thing about having some vacation time is that I've had a change to play around in the kitchen, and I actually feel like writing about some of it.  (So hopefully you'll see some more posts after this one!)

Right at the beginning of this month, one of the work stresses sort of resolved itself.  I'm taking on a new position, which will mean more stress in the short term, but it's a better sort of stress that what I've been dealing with for several months.  It's a pretty big change for me, since I realized that I'd been in my previous role for 7 years.  New location, new people, lots to adjust to.  (plus I'm still helping out my old team for most of this month)  But I'm excited about the change, and I realized that having new (to me) employees has an advantage--more taste testers!  My new team is over twice the size of my old one, so even if some are on diets, there will be others willing to eat baked goods. =)

We had a staff meeting last Monday, and I figured that bringing dessert would be a great way to get off to a good start with everyone.  I wanted to bring a couple of things--something chocolate and something not.  Fortunately, I already had an idea for the non-chocolate one, from one of my favorite sources, King Arthur Flour.  They featured a recipe for Molasses-Raisin Cookies on their blog recently.  I love raisins and spice cookies, and was looking for a good excuse to try the recipe. 

The recipe is pretty straightforward to make, using the creaming method.  The one unusual step is that you put the dry ingredients and raisins in the food processor and pulse to chop up the raisins.  I generally avoid using my food processor because I hate to wash it, but I was intrigued by the idea of the small pieces of raisins blending into the cookies better.  So I pretty much followed the recipe as written.  I did make my cookies bigger than the recipe said to--I used my #40 disher, and got two dozen.  Because they were bigger, I baked them for 13 minutes.  I also skipped the coating of sparkling sugar.  Since the blog post suggested lemonade to go with the cookies, I whisked together some lemon juice and powdered sugar and drizzled the glaze over the cookies.

The verdict?  These cookies are awesome. I took them to the meeting along with a batch of brownies, and the cookies were the clear favorite.  The lemon glaze was nice with the spices in the cookies, although I kind of wish I'd applied it with a heavier hand. =)  I can definitely see how these would pair nicely with lemonade.  I like raisins, but since they're chopped up, they're not very noticeable, and might sneak past the raisin haters if you don't tell them they're there.  The cookies definitely wouldn't be the same without them.  I'm seriously considered making another batch of these cookies just so I can crumble them into a batch of lemon ice cream.

If you'd like make these cookies for yourself, you can find the recipe here at King Arthur Flour.

Definitely my cup of tea

I don't like the taste of coffee.  I like the smell, and I don't mind adding espresso powder to chocolate recipes, but I don't like the flavor of coffee or most coffee-flavored things.  But that's okay, because I'm a tea drinker instead.  If I'm in the right mood, I'll drink fruity or herbal teas, but I mostly drink black teas, with milk and a bit of sugar.  My current favorites are from Stash--I order a lot of loose tea, but get some of my favorites in teabags, too, for the convenience.  I don't have to do that as much anymore, though, since they also make these handy filter bags so I can just make my own.  If I had to pick one favorite, it would be Christmas Morning, which I drink year-round.  I love the combination of flavors, especially the bit of jasmine.  

I make a lot of tea at home, and most mornings I'll fill my travel mug as well, but occasionally I run out of time.  So sometimes I'll get my tea fix at Starbucks.  I originally only went there for hot chocolate, then sometimes I'd get hot tea.  I really like their iced tea, too.  Then one day I discovered tea lattes (though I don't get one often, since they're more expensive).  Not the chai ones, since I don't like the chai they use, but black teas lattes.  The only problem is that the newer cashiers always seem so confused when I order one.  It took three or four visits for the latest guy to get it right--first he put it in as a coffee latte and I had to get it re-made.  Then he put regular black tea, which I caught, but in the process I didn't get the non-fat milk I requested.  Then the most recent time, he tried to do that again, but someone looked over his shoulder and showed him where the right button was.  We'll see what happens next time...

I admit, I sometimes succumb to the siren call of the pastry case at Starbucks as well.  The only problem is that the baked goods usually look better than they taste.  I do like the Maple Oat Pecan scones, but I tried a piece of lemon cake recently and was very disappointed.  Except for the tart icing, it tasted like it was made with lemon extract and it was too sweet.  It reminded me of why I need to make sure that I have homemade baked goods available for breakfast.  We're set for the beginning of this week, at least.  One of the first things I read in my Google reader is any new blog post from King Arthur Flour's blog.  A couple weeks ago they had one about a delicious-looking lemon streusel cake.  It immediately went on my list of things to make, but somehow I got sidetracked during my vacation and didn't get to it.  I thought about it again yesterday when I was trying to figure out a plan for Sunday breakfast.  I decided that I wanted to change things up a bit, though, and make it into muffins instead.  

I took an educated guess and figured that two-thirds of the batter would be about right for a dozen muffins.  I was hoping that would work out, since it was reasonably easy to reduce the ingredients by a third (the original batter called for three eggs, for instance).  I always have pecans on hand, so that was my choice for the nuts.  I didn't have the lemon juice powder, but the recipe says you can use extra lemon zest.  Since I wanted a bit of tartness that the zest alone wouldn't provide, I added a little citric acid to the topping and batter.  I also used the optional lemon oil in the batter.  The only change I made to the mixing method was an accident--I melted the butter for the streusel.  I've made plenty of other crumb toppings with melted butter, so I just went with it.  After I mixed up the topping ingredients, I put the mixture in the fridge so the crumbs would firm back up.  I divided the batter and topping evenly among the 12 muffin cups, using a scant quarter cup of batter for each (I used my #16 disher to fill the cups).  I stuck with the 350º baking temperature and my muffins took about 20 minutes to bake.  Once they had cooled for a few minutes, I drizzled lemon glaze on top of them.

The verdict?  I wasn't sure if I'd like the combination of lemon with cinnamon, but it ended up being quite tasty.  We all liked the muffins a lot, although Gillian wasn't thrilled that I had pecans in the topping.  She picked them all out.  If I'd chopped them fine instead of leaving them in bigger pieces, she might not have noticed them.  In any case, I'm sure this will be a repeat recipe around here.  The amount of batter ended up being just right for a dozen muffins, too--no messy overflow.  

If you'd like to try the original cake, you can find the recipe here at King Arthur Flour.  I love that their recipes give you the option for volume or weight, including both ounces and grams.  I'm including my ingredient list here as well.

Lemon Streusel Muffins - ingredients

For the streusel:

60 grams all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

zest of one lemon

1/4 teaspoon salt

pinch of citric acid

60 grams unsalted butter

60 grams coarsely chopped pecans

70 grams light brown sugar

For the batter:

160 grams all-purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

scant 1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon citric acid

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

75 grams unsalted butter, softened

140 grams sugar

zest of 2 lemons

1/4 teaspoon lemon oil

2 eggs

150 grams sour cream

For the method, refer to the original recipe.  

What I did during my spring vacation

I was on vacation last week--we didn't go anywhere, since I was the only one off (spring break for Brianna was a month ago), but it was a nice break from work.  I realized this weekend that I actually accomplished quite a few things on my to-do list.  I got some annual doctor appointments out of the way, including my first mammogram.  Gotta love getting older... =)  (It was kind of a weird experience, but not that bad. I've certainly endured more uncomfortable things--after all, I gave birth to two children.)  I bought some new sandals and gave myself a pedicure so I'm ready for all the warm weather around here.  Of course, then I had to paint two smaller sets of toenails as well.  I even got to have both lunch and dinner out with my husband.  I took him to lunch on Wednesday for his birthday (and made him cupcakes, too), and then the daycare did parents night out on Saturday.  Two nice meals sans kiddos in one week--unprecedented!

Surprisingly, I didn't do as much baking as I originally expected to.  But for a change, I did get a jump on making the latest TWD selection--I baked it over a week ago, in fact.  This week our recipe is Lemon Loaf Cake, and our hosts are Truc of Treats and Michelle of The Beauty of Life.  As I was reading over the recipe (contributed by Norman Love), I realized that I was already familiar with the mixing method for the cake batter.  Both Dorie's Rum-Drenched Vanilla Cakes and the French Pound Cake from Flour are mixed up in a similar fashion.  Instead of creaming butter and sugar together, you start off by mixing the eggs and sugar together.  Then you fold in the dry ingredients, and finally the liquids (cream and melted butter).

I like loaf cakes, but was in the mood for something different this time.  Gillian asked me recently why I hadn't made anything in the "bug pan" in a long time.  Since I previously used it for the Flour pound cake, I figured it would also work well for this recipe.  I was lucky enough to find the pan (pictured above) at Costco last spring, which made it much more affordable for a Nordic Ware pan.  It only has a 3 cup volume, though, so I knew I'd need to put the rest of the batter in something else.  I have some small loaf pans, but ended up going with my 6-cup bundt pan.  

Besides my pan choices, I did tweak the recipe in a few other small ways.  I borrowed Dorie's tip from recipes in Baking and rubbed the lemon zest into the sugar before combining it with the eggs.  I also used a bit more salt--1/4 teaspoon--and for the cake flour, I used King Arthur's Unbleached Cake Flour Blend.  After baking, I left the bugs unadorned, but couldn't resist dressing up the bundt cake.  After I removed it from its pan, I brushed it with a lemon syrup while the cake was still hot.  Then once it cooled, I drizzled it with a lemon glaze as well.

The verdict?  We liked both versions.  This is my favorite type of pound cake--I love the texture of it, and it never seems dry to me like others do sometimes.  I like the extra punch of lemon added by the syrup and glaze on the cake, and enjoy how the tart topping makes a nice contrast to the sweeter flavor of the cake itself.  The lemon flavor was milder in the bugs, but definitely still there.  We all ate those shortcake-style with macerated strawberries and whipped cream, and they were delicious.  I need to use that pan more often--the girls really love the fun shapes.

If you'd like to give this recipe a try, you can find it on Truc's blog or Michelle's blog.  Be sure to check out the other lemony Links, too!

Citrus Sunday - Triple Citrus Bars

I've mentioned before that I love cooking magazines.  It was such a revelation the first time I ever read one (thanks to my wonderful husband who thought it would give me something to do while I was wiped out by the flu 13 years ago).  There are so many enticing new recipes in every issue!  Lots are seasonally appropriate, so sometimes I'm inspired to drop what I'm doing and make a new recipe right away.  That happened with the July/August 2006 issue of Cook's Illustrated.  Amazing that I remember that almost 6 years ago, isn't it?  The recipe that grabbed my attention was for Key Lime Bars.  I immediately made a double batch to take to a 4th of July potluck.  They were a huge hit and several people asked for the recipe.  I made the bars several times shortly after that, but as often happens, I got sidetracked by new recipes after that and have only made them maybe once or twice since then.

When I was trying to come up with a good citrus recipe for my blog event, I considered several ideas.  I even made an orange & vanilla bundt cake that turned out pretty good, but just wasn't quite what I was looking for.  I'm always short on time and frequently indecisive as well, so it really isn't surprising that I was sitting here yesterday (yay for a Saturday off!) still trying to decide what to make.  I turned to Eat Your Books to see what I could find on my bookshelves.  I bought some limes when we were shopping Friday night (to add to the lemons, tangerines & tangelos already in the fridge), so I started off searching that.  Nothing jumped out and grabbed me, so I thought to try searching for "citrus" instead.  Bingo!

Triple Citrus Bars came up a couple times in the list--they're a variation on the Key Lime Bars, and can be found in the magazine (online) as well as in the new Cook's Illustrated Cookbook.  Instead of just lime juice and zest (you can use either key limes or regular Persian limes), you use lemon and orange juice and zest as well.  The zests are used in equal amounts (1 1/2 teaspoons of each), but most of the juice is lime, with just a tablespoon each of lemon and orange.  I actually used tangelo zest and juice instead of orange, since that's what I had.

Rather than graham crackers, the crust is made with animal crackers.  They are pulsed in the food processor along with some brown sugar and a bit of salt and then melted butter is added to bind everything together.  This recipe gave me a change to use a new baking pan that I bought myself for my birthday--a Fat Daddio's 8" square baking pan.  (I love my Pyrex baking pans, but they don't work well for everything.)  The crust is baked for 18-20 minutes, which allows enough time to mix up the filling.  The filling consists of cream cheese, the zests, a bit of salt, sweetened condensed milk, an egg yolk, and the citrus juices.  Once the crust is baked and cooled for a few minutes, the filling is added and the bars are baked for another 15-20 minutes.  The bars are allowed to cool to room temperature, then are refrigerated for at least a couple hours.

The verdict?  These aren't quite as tart as the straight lime ones, but I like the flavor that the mix of fruits brings to the bars.  As the test kitchen cooks determined, the addition of the cream cheese and egg yolk helps firm up the filling so that it can be cut into neat bars.  I'm definitely not going to let so much time pass before I make these bars again.

If you'd like to try the recipe, you can find it here on the Cook's Illustrated website, or in the Cook's Illustrated Cookbook.  And be sure to check out all the other yummy citrus recipes that my blogging friends have made!  If you'd like to join us in the future, leave a comment or email me at diskitchennotebook at gmail dot com, and I'll add you to my email list.

LiveSTRONG with lots of cookies

I've been having a really hard time deciding what to write in this post.  For the past several years, I've participated in LiveSTRONG Day by posting a yellow dessert and telling you all about how cancer has touched my life.  I don't really want to go back over the same ground, but I still appreciate the chance to share something with you.  First is these cookies.  I generally associate yellow with lemon, so it's really not a surprise that I've got another lemon recipe for you this year.  These simple cookies are flavored with lemon zest.  Since the cookies themselves aren't that yellow, I also made some lemon curd to go with them.  The other thing that I want to share is something that I posted on Facebook earlier this year, in remembrance of my first husband Nate, who lost his battle with cancer in 1996:

"People speak of you less often now. The things you did are being done by others. I no longer notice your lingering presence in every room. Then an old friend calls and we tell forgotten tales, or I find a place not yet emptied by my grieving. And I am touched by the reality of you once more, and quietly I celebrate your continuance." 

The verdict on the cookies?  I was pleasantly surprised to see how much the girls loved these cookies.  I'm partial to pretty much anything lemon, but they often think things are too tart.  That's the nice thing about these lemon wafers--they have more of a hint of lemon, rather than hitting you over the head with it.  If you want a big lemon punch, add the lemon curd.  This recipe of Alice Medrich's is one of the tartest I've made, I think.  You can find the recipe for the lemon curd in her book Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies.  The Lemon Goldies are in there, too, but you can also find that recipe online here.  (A bit of advice--just put the lemon curd on top of a cookie & eat it, don't try to make sandwiches.  The lemon curd all comes out the sides when you try to bite the sandwich...)

There isn't an official LiveSTRONG with a Taste of Yellow event this year, but Barbara has a post up with links to the events from past years.  You can read more about LiveSTRONG Day 2011 here.  And the quotation is from Safe Passage: Words to Help the Grieving by Molly Fumia, a book of meditations on grief.

Sourpuss

I had a conversation the other day with a friend who is thinking of starting a family.  He asked me, "Kids--they're worth it, right?"  My response?  "Most of the time."  I love my girls, and I can't imagine life without them.  But sometimes, like tonight, they just push all my buttons.  Awhile back I decided that Thursday is invariably the worst day of the week--prime time for some sort of meltdown.  Everyone is tired.  We're tired on Friday, too, but by that point, the end of the week is definitely in sight.  On Thursday, we're almost as cranky, and still have to find a way to get through another day.  

Fortunately there wasn't a homework meltdown from B this evening.  (That was last night.)  And at least G didn't wait until right before bed to have her every-other-day marathon bathroom session.  (Sorry, I know it's mostly a food blog, but anyone have any great solutions for 4yo constipation?)  But by now, I really just wish they'd finish up with the fooling around in the bathroom (they're supposed to be brushing their teeth) and go to bed already...  Though on the plus side, I did manage to feed them something for dinner that they both ate without complaint.  And it wasn't macaroni and cheese--there were actual vegetables involved. =)

Oddly enough, although I'm feeling tired and decidedly cranky, I have no interest in one of my usual stress remedies, chocolate.  (I know, crazy, right?)  I do, however, wish I had some of this frozen yogurt left.  It would really hit the spot right now.  It's lemon frozen yogurt with raspberry sauce, from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home.  

I've made about a dozen recipes from the book so far--some that I've posted, and some that I haven't.  (There's some Milkiest Chocolate with Marshmallows and Fudge Swirl in the freezer right now, for instance.)  But it really hadn't occurred to me to try any of the frozen yogurt recipes.  Then I went to a class that Jeni did here at Central Market last month.  She mentioned that the lemon frozen yogurt was her favorite, and we got to sample it at the class.  So I put it at the top of my list to try next.  

More than with Jeni's ice cream recipes, you have to plan ahead a little for the frozen yogurt.  The recipe calls for draining the yogurt for at least 6-8 hours to remove excess liquid.  I didn't have cheesecloth, so I improvised.  I lined my medium strainer with coffee filters, put it over a bowl, and added my quart of lowfat yogurt.  I covered the top with plastic wrap, and stuck the whole contraption in the fridge overnight.  By the way, can I just say that it's harder than I expected to find lowfat plain yogurt?  I saw plenty of nonfat, and several brands of whole milk, but not a lot of choices for lowfat.  I used Wallaby for the lemon.  I think I'm going to try Stonyfield for the next batch, and see which I prefer.  Another thing to note--you won't need all of the yogurt for this recipe, but the extra can be used for other things, like in place of sour cream in dips.

Besides draining the yogurt, you make a lemon syrup with lemon juice and sugar.  The zest from the lemons gets added to the milk/cream mixture, which is similar to the ice cream, but with smaller amounts to account for the volume that will be added by the yogurt.  Once the milk mixture is boiled and thickened with cornstarch and whisked into the cream cheese, the strained yogurt and lemon syrup are whisked in.  I did add a pinch of salt that wasn't called for in the recipe.  I also chilled my finished mixture in a regular ice bath rather than in a ziploc bag.  Once the mixture was thoroughly chilled, I churned it and then layered it with Jeni's raspberry sauce as I packed it into a freezer container.

The verdict? I think I have a new favorite flavor.  Much as I love chocolate, and the salty caramel (when I don't overcaramelize it), the lemon frozen yogurt is to die for.  I do want to try the Lemon Cream ice cream as well, for comparison.  What's actually up next is lime frozen yogurt with blackberry sauce.  I'll keep you all posted on how that goes.  Molly of Orangette says that she likes to eat this frozen yogurt from a teacup.  I'd have to say my favorite way to eat this flavor is in a cone.  You have the tart, refreshing tastes of lemon and raspberry with the crisp texture and browned butter-vanilla flavor of the cone.  Mmm.  I admit, I polished off most of the quart all by myself.

If you'd like to try this one for yourself, you can find the recipe here at The Splendid Table.  But I strongly encourage you to get your hands on a copy of the book, so you can try lots of other fantastic recipes as well.

A real zinger

January is a tough month sometimes.  The holidays are over.  The weather isn't the greatest.  (Although I've been happy to see some gray skies here--we really need the rain.)  For me, personally, January brings up some difficult memories, though those are tempered by the fact that Brianna's birthday is at the end of the month (she's going to be 8--how did that happen?!).  A number of years ago, my family decided that since January isn't always much fun, we'd rename it and make it our own.  So now we celebrate McMahonuary.  (My maiden name is McMahon--you know, like Ed McMahon; the h and o are silent.)  We don't have any specific traditions, we just do little things for each other to make the month easier to get through.  I got several texts at midnight on 1/1--not wishing me a happy new year, but a Happy McMahonuary! =)  One of my sisters often sends me chocolates from home.  Last year another sister got custom m&m's made for all of us.  (Yes, they fit McMahonuary on an m&m.)  Just little stuff.

One thing that always brightens my mood any time of year is yellow flowers, but it's a bit early for my favorites.  Luckily, January is a great time for another yellow favorite of mine, lemons.  This is prime time for all sorts of citrus.  My favorite grocery store, Central Market, is even celebrating with Citrus Fest.  I went to a class over the weekend and got to sample lots of desserts made with different types of citrus, demonstrated for us by the wonderful cookbook author and blogger David Lebovitz.  (more to come on that later this week)  That really put me in the mood for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, Lemon Poppyseed Muffins, picked by Betsy of A Cup of Sweetness.

I love making muffins for breakfast, since they're easy enough for the girls to do a lot of the work.  We had our usual division of labor--Gillian did dry ingredients, while Brianna handled the wet stuff.  We started off with B rubbing the lemon zest into the sugar.  I put it in a bowl with the flour, salt and leavenings and handed it over to G to whisk together.  B is getting much better at cracking eggs--she did the whole thing by herself this time, with out breaking yolks or adding eggshell to the bowl.  She whisked as I added the sour cream, melted butter, lemon juice and vanilla to the eggs.  Then I took over for combining the wet and dry ingredients, which were quickly folded together with a rubber spatula.  I scooped the batter into my muffin pan (prepped with baking spray with flour) and baked the muffins for 18 minutes.  Once they were out of the oven, I whisked together lemon juice and powdered sugar and let the girls drizzle the glaze on top of the warm muffins.  (B got to do most of them.)

The verdict?  We all really enjoyed these.  You may have noticed that we left out the poppy seeds--the girls made some interesting faces when they tasted them plain, and requested that we skip them.  The lemon glaze really makes these muffins wonderful--nice and tangy.  The muffins by themselves taste rather plain; they need the shot of fresh lemon in the glaze.  They lasted all of two days around here.  I definitely think we'll be making them again, and I want to try them with Dorie's suggestion of jam in the middle.

If you'd like to give these a try for yourself, head over to Betsy's blog for the recipe.  And to see what everyone else thought, check out this week's Links.  

LiveSTRONG with a little heart

Today is LiveSTRONG Day 2010.  October 2, 1996 was the day that Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with cancer, at the age of 25.  I can empathize a bit.  For me, 1996 was the worst year of my life.  On January 22nd, my husband Nate died of cancer.  On February 21st, I turned 25 years old.  It sometimes seems like, in a heartbeat, my life was turned upside down.  I think that's the case for most people whose lives are touched by cancer.  Whether you're the one with the disease or the one on the sidelines, life will never be the same, even if you manage to beat it.  So the question is, how do you deal with it?

I was lucky enough to have a couple of very good friends living nearby in Seattle (where Nate and I lived at the time).  But even so, I'm not the sort of person who usually shares a lot of my feelings with people.  It was hard talk to my friends, to deal with the grief.  So I pretty much didn't.  I had myself convinced that I was fine.  Up until the point where I had no choice but to accept that I was anything but fine.  It pretty much took getting physically ill myself before I realized that I couldn't deal with everything on my own.  

During the eight or nine months when I thought I was doing okay, a grief counselor from the hospice contacted me periodically.  I told her that I was fine, more than once.  But she kept calling every so often.  And ultimately, I'm really glad she didn't give up on me.  Because when I really needed someone to talk to, I remembered her calls.  And the fact that one of the things she'd told me about was a support group for young widowed people (now part of The Healing Center).  It was incredibly hard to get myself to go the first time.  But it was so worth it.  It was so difficult to talk to my friends and family about how I was feeling that I didn't realize it might be easier to talk to strangers.  Because they might have been strangers at first, but they had all been through similar losses.  They got it.  And they helped me get through it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that whether you're a family member or the one with cancer, it's okay to admit that you might need some help.  And that the support doesn't have to come from the ones closest to you.  When Nate was going through treatment, he didn't talk to me about a lot of his feelings.  But I knew that he was talking to other people.  I was hurt by that.  I didn't understand until much later that it was probably too hard for him to talk to me about everything, that it was easier for him to talk to people with a little more distance from the situation.  

Help can come from a lot of places.  One of them is the Lance Armstrong Foundation.  

This post is my contribution to the LiveSTRONG with a Taste of Yellow event organized by Barbara of winos and foodies.  This is the fourth year she's hosted this event, and the third time I've participated.  You can find my previous entries here (Nate's story) and here.  Each year, one of the requirements is to include a yellow food in your post.  This year, Barbara also requested that we include a heart.  So I made  heart-shaped lemon shortbread cookies, decorated with yellow sugar.  I definitely recommend that you read Barbara's post for today.  She'll also have a round-up of Taste of Yellow posts sometime in the next week or two.  

Lemon Shortbread

(adapted from The Fannie Farmer Baking Book)

16 tablespoons (2 sticks; about 225g) unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup (85g) powdered sugar

zest of 1 lemon

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups (250g) unbleached all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, beat the butter until smooth, then beat in the sugar, lemon zest, vanilla and salt.  Stir in the flour.  The dough will come together in to a ball.  Flatten the dough into a disc, then wrap in plastic and chill for about an hour.

On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out until it is about 1/2 an inch thick.  Cut the dough into shapes with a small (about 2-inch) cutter.  Gather the scraps together and reroll the dough to cut additional cookies.  Place the cookies about 1 inch apart on the prepared baking sheet.  Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the cookies are just beginning to brown.  Transfer them to a rack to cool.  

To glaze the cookies, whisk together a cup of powdered sugar (about 115g) and a tablespoon or two of lemon juice to make a thick glaze.  Spread the glaze on the cooled cookies using the back of a spoon.  Decorate with sprinkles or colored sugar if desired.  Allow the glaze to harden completely before storing the cookies, or they'll stick together.

Yields about 2 dozen cookies.

Tasty cake

Quick post this time (as quick as mine ever are), since I'm already posting this incredibly late.  I was very excited that one of my favorite food bloggers and Twitter friends got to pick our Tuesdays with Dorie recipe last week.  Nancy has two wonderful blogs, one devoted to yeasted creations and the other a wonderful collection of sweet and savory dishes.  She's a woman after my own heart, posting her recipe notes and often figuring out the math to fit a recipe to the pan(s) she wants to use. =)  And I've been fortunate enough to bake along with her on quite a few occasions, with recipes from all sorts of different sources.

For this week's TWD pick, she selected a wonderfully easy and tasty cake for  us to make, Swedish Visiting Cake.  As Dorie indicates in the recipe notes, this one is quick to mix up and bake.  That's good, because I decided to tackle it before work one morning last week.  I'm happy to say that it was indeed quick and easy.  Part of the reason I was baking early in the morning was because I wanted to take some of the cake to someone who was nice enough to do a favor for me.  So I decided to make the full recipe, but split the batter between my two 6" round pans.  That way I would have one to give away and the other for us to taste.  I greased my pans with baking spray, and thought about lining them with parchment, but decided to go with out it.

Mixing the batter reminded me a bit of the French Yogurt Cake (before I played around with it).  First you rub lemon zest into sugar, which smells wonderful. =)  Then you whisk in the eggs, flavorings and salt.  (I stuck with just the vanilla extract, since I don't like almond extract very much.)  Then you stir in the flour, and at the end you fold in melted butter.  Once in the pan, the batter gets topped with sliced almonds and a sprinkling of sugar (I used coarse decorating sugar).  My cakes only needed 20 minutes to bake.  After letting the cakes cool in the pans for about 10 minutes, I was able to carefully turn them out onto a couple of plates to cool.  (I really need to get some more disposable plates for when I'm giving stuff away--the only ones I have are pink or Princess.)  When I got home from work that night, I decided to dress up the cake that I kept with a bit more lemon.  I made a glaze with some juice from the lemon I zested, plus some powdered sugar.

The verdict?  This cake was very tasty.  Great for sharing, whether with people coming over or if you're the one doing the visiting.  For the cake that I gave away, I don't know what the recipient thought of it.  I ate the other one over the course of several days.  No one else actually got to sample it.  Oops.  =)  It's excellent with tea.  I'll definitely be making this one again.  I think it would be fun to try different types of zest for flavoring, or add some sort of fruit.  

If you'd like to try this one for yourself, head on over to Nancy's blog.  She has the recipe as well as some great process pictures.  And be sure to see what the other TWD bakers thought of this one!

LiveSTRONG with a taste of lemon

I was very happy to see that Barbara is hosting the LiveSTRONG with a Taste of Yellow event again this year.  I participated last year, and very much enjoyed reading all the posts from everyone else who joined in to support the fight against cancer.

As I tried to decide what to write for this post, one thing in particular was on my mind.  Regular readers of my blog (and my baking friends on Twitter) will remember that my husband Jamie had his tonsils out back in June.  What I didn't talk about much at the time was the unexpected effect that his surgery had on me.  We've been together for 12 years, and that was the first time he ever had anything medical come up (aside from the usual colds, allergies etc).  I wasn't at all ready for the near-panic attack that hit me.

My first husband, Nate, died of cancer on January 22, 1996.  Over thirteen years ago.  And as I sat in the hospital, waiting for Jamie's surgery to be done, it felt like it was yesterday.  This was a totally different situation, and part of me understood that.  But another part of me remembered what it was like to sit in a hospital and feel totally helpless in the face of a terrible disease that was destroying someone I loved.  Cancer is so hard on the people who have it.  But it's also incredibly hard on the caregivers who know that there is only so much they can do to help.  The ones who go to the doctor appointments and wait through the tests and treatments.  The ones who help their loved ones do all the daily things that they can't do for themselves.  The ones who get annoyed sometimes and just want everything to be normal again and then feel guilty for feeling that way.  The ones who are strong because they have to be, but who cry in the shower because sometimes they can only let their feelings out when they are alone.  This post is dedicated to all those people...

For this year's event, I decided to make lemon bars.  This recipe is special to me because it's based on one that Nate got from his mom.  Luscious, very tart filling on top of a shortbread crust.  This time I decided to play around with the crust.  For something just a little different, I went with Dorie Greenspan's Sweet Tart Crust.  The filling I left alone, since it's fabulous as is.

Lemon Bars
(adapted from Laverne Morrison and Dorie Greenspan)

1 recipe Sweet Tart Dough

3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 oz) granulated sugar
1/4 cup (1 1/8 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (4 oz) freshly squeezed lemon juice

powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Press the tart dough evenly into an 8" square pan (I use a Pyrex pan).  Prick the dough all over with a fork.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the dough is just starting to color around the edges.

Meanwhile, prepare the filling.  In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar together.  Whisk in the flour, then whisk in the lemon juice.  When the crust is ready, remove the pan from the oven.  Pour the filling over the hot crust and return the pan to the oven.  Bake for an additional 20-25 minutes, until most of the filling is set.  There may be a small section in the middle that is still slightly jiggly.  That's okay, since the bars continue to cook for a bit after being removed from the oven.  Remove the pan from the oven and place on a rack.  Let cool completely.  Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.

Be sure to check out the round-up on Barbara's blog.  She'll have it up on LiveSTRONG Day, October 2nd.  And to learn more about how you can join the fight against cancer, visit the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Sweet treats

It's been a while since I've participated in Magazine Mondays.  This is probably my least favorite time of year for cooking magazines.  I don't grill much, and my passion is baking (though I do cook as well).  As a result, a lot of the recipes that are out there in magazines during the summer don't hold that much appeal for me.  Oh, there are some I like, but it's not like the baking bonanza you see during the fall and winter. =)  But I still read the magazines, and one or two things will really jump off the page at me.

This particular recipe is one of them.  As I was paging through the June/July issue of Fine Cooking, I ran across a picnic article.  The dessert was Ginger-Spice Sandwich Cookies with Lemon Cream.  I love ginger in cookies.  And the idea of lemon cream was intriguing.  All I needed was a good reason to make them.  I finally came up with one a couple weeks ago.

With the end of school looming, I had a bunch of baking to do.  I made dozens of mini cupcakes for Brianna's end of year class party, for instance.  But I also wanted to make a small gift for her kindergarten teacher as well as something for the after-school care staff.  These cookies seemed perfect.  The dough was easy to mix up, and included ginger, cinnamon and cardamom.  In my haste to get them made, I didn't actually chill the dough before shaping it into balls, but it seemed to work out okay.  I only made the one sheet of cookies I needed right away, and chilled the rest of the dough for later.  I portioned the dough with my handy #70 disher.  Rather than rolling the dough balls in regular sugar, I used turbinado sugar.  I baked the cookies for about 12 minutes, then let them rest on the pan for a few minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool.  While the cookies cooled, I mixed up the filling.  It was pretty simple--powdered sugar, cream cheese and lemon zest.  I matched cookies together as well as I could by size and sandwiched them together.  My #100 disher was perfect for the filling.

The verdict?  I don't actually know how the teachers liked them, since it was the last day of school.  When I finally had a chance to try one, I was a bit surprised at how soft the cookie part was.  But I liked the lemon and ginger together.  Jamie's reaction was pretty much the same as mine.  A few days later, I finally had the chance to bake the rest of the dough, so I took some cookies to work, too.  They seemed to be well received.  I can seem myself making these again, maybe playing around with the filling a bit.

If you're a subscriber to the Fine Cooking website, you can find the recipe here.  Or pick up a copy of the magazine, since it should still be available.  Extra incentive--there's a great ice cream article by David Lebovitz as well.  And be sure to check out the other Magazine Monday contributions on Ivonne's blog.

Pucker up

Most readers of my blog have figured out by now that I'm a chocoholic.  So the Tuesdays with Dorie recipes of the past month were great, especially since my children love chocolate as much as I do.  But sometimes you can have too much of a good thing, so I was happy to see more variety in the recipes for May.  When the selections were announced, I knew immediately which one was likely to be my favorite.   Besides chocolate, my other favorite flavor is lemon, the more the better.  

When I cook with lemon, I invariably add more lemon juice than the recipe calls for, since a lot of the time the lemon flavor doesn't seem that strong.  I don't play around as much when baking, since that can cause problems, so I try to start off with a recipe that seems like it will be very lemony.  I'm sure we've all had that experience of seeing lemon bars on a plate at a potluck or bake sale and been bitterly disappointed to find that they taste more like sugar than lemon.  I actually have a lemon bar recipe that I love--I've played around with the crust over time, but the filling is great.  I'll have to share it soon.  

When I make chocolate desserts, I don't usually have too much trouble getting people to help me eat them.  But when I bring certain non-chocolate desserts, like oatmeal cookies and lemon bars, they seem to fly off the plate.  When I was trying to come up with ideas for this post, I remembered something amusing from a time that I did take my favorite lemon bars to a potluck.  It was very close to Halloween, so to be festive, I colored the filling orange.  I lost track of how many people absolutely swore that the bars were orange flavored, not lemon, because of the color.  I had a really hard time convincing them that they were in fact lemon.  It's funny how our perceptions can color our reactions.

Now with this week's TWD recipe, there's no doubt that the flavor is lemon.   Babette of Babette Feasts picked the Tartest Lemon Tart for us to make this week.  It starts off with one of Dorie's shortbread tart crusts.  The recipe calls for the one with nuts, but I chose to use the plain sweet tart dough.  It was easy to mix together in the food processor, as always.  For the filling, you puree together lemons, sugar, eggs, melted butter, cream, and a bit of cornstarch.  Yes, the whole lemons, not just the juice or zest.  

I had a bit of a hard time getting the lemons and sugar to puree together in my blender.  It's rather old, and not the most powerful appliance to begin with.  But eventually it started to come together.  I added the rest of the ingredients, making one small change.  I was lazy and didn't want to separate eggs (or figure out what to do with leftover egg white--my freezer is already full of them).  So I just used 2 whole eggs instead of the 1 egg and 2 yolks called for in the recipe.  Once everything was blended together, I decided to strain the mixture as I put it in the tart crust.  I couldn't get it all the way smooth, and I'm one of those people who hates pulp in my lemonade or orange juice. =)

After my oven got fixed last week, I found that it seemed to be running hot.  I bought an inexpensive oven thermometer, and according to that, my oven was running about 25 degrees high.  Armed with that knowledge, I was able to adjust the dial accordingly so I didn't overbake the tart.  I baked it at 325 degrees F for 20 minutes, and then for another 23 minutes at 350, at which point it seemed to be set but just a little jiggly in the center.  It puffed up and developed the sugar crust that Dorie mentions, but did not bubble over at all.  And as it cooled, the filling settled back down in the crust.  I let it cool to room temperature overnight (I finished it about 10:30 Sunday night) and then put it in the fridge the next morning.

The verdict?  Wow.  I loved it.  It's definitely a grown-up dessert.  The texture is lovely, with a nice contrast between the sandy crust and smooth filling.  Incredibly puckery, and a bit bitter.   But I'm okay with that.  I was trying to figure out what the flavor reminded me of, and finally figured it out.  One of my favorite lemonade recipes is from Cooks Illustrated.  You slice lemons, put them in a pitcher with some sugar, and muddle them together.  Then you add lots of cold water and ice.  It's fabulous, and since you use the whole lemon slices, it has that same slightly bitter edge.  (For CI members, you can find the recipe here.)  Jamie really liked the tart as well--he said the full impact of it sort of snuck up on him. =)  I didn't give any to the girls, since I know Brianna doesn't like really tart things.  Hmm, maybe I should let Gillian try it.  

For the recipe, head on over to Babette's blog.  And be sure to check out the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll for lots of other tart tarts. 

p.s.  I haven't forgotten about the giveaway winner.  I hope to get that post done tonight, with pictures of my lovely assistants.