Food Lush

My Favorite Lemon Bars

Editor's note: For our last week at Food Lush, I've asked the writers to share both a favorite post by another writer, from over the last three years, and a favorite post of their own. You'll see these posts linked to at the top of their new post for the week. Enjoy a stroll down Lush memory lane!

By Julie

I really wanted to do justice to Food Lush in this final post, to leave something at the finish line that not only made me and the lovely editors proud, but something that could make you happy.  I have gotten so much joy from being a part of this site, and I am thankful for every moment, every word, and every one of you out there.

In looking back, the most memorable post for me was Erica's Homemade Childhood Favorites, because, as a mom, I am always on the lookout for foods my kids will want to eat that doesn't come from a box. This one hit me square between the eyes.

And as for my posts, my favorite is probably my recollection of making my daughter's birthday cake, because of the gargantuan effort it took and the enormous number of mistakes I made along the way. But mostly because it was so fun in the end. Just like today!

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Fun fact: I was named after the character Julie on Days of Our Lives. It should come as no surprise then that one of my guilty pleasures is watching the occasional soap opera (OK, maybe more than occasional, ahem, especially in college, but I digress), and perhaps perusing a magazine on the subject now and again. Today, I share my (minor, totally manageable, slightly embarrassing) addiction for your benefit, because, years ago, I found this fabulous recipe in Soap Opera Digest.

I present the most delicious lemon bars (or squares, depending on the shape you cut), courtesy of Suzanne Rogers, Maggie on Days. I've made these many times for my family and friends, and even some of my fellow Lush writers, and they are always a hit. This is my go-to non-chocolate dessert, a little taste of summer any time of the year.

Lemon Squares

Ingredients the First:

1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 pound salted, softened butter

Mix together and press into a 9 X 13-inch dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. (Depending on your oven, check after 20 minutes.)

Ingredients the Second:

4 eggs
4 tablespoons flour
6 tablespoons lemon juice (fresh is good, but regular ol' bottled juice works just as well)
2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Mix these ingredients while the crust bakes. Remove crust from the oven.  While the crust is still hot, pour the new mixture on top and bake for 25 more minutes. (Again, depending on your oven, check after 20 minutes.) Remove from oven and let cool in dish. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. After it has cooled completely, cut into desired portions.

(Photo Credit: en.wikipedia.org)

A Different Spin on Carrot and Raisin Salad

by Jen L.

 

Have you ever had carrot and raisin salad? My mom goes nuts for it when she sees it on a menu. Chick-Fil-A has it as a side, but it's got mayonnaise on it, so I won't go near it.  I've been bringing salads and such for lunch lately, and the other night I made a warm salad that involved brown rice, roasted sweet potatoes and black beans. I thought it would be nice to have something cold to go with it. I dug through the crisper and discovered a huge bag of matchstick carrots I'd forgotten about.  Not wanting them to go bad, I decided to try a new spin on carrot and raisin salad, one I might actually like.  I went to my old standby dressing, Kraft Anything Dressing, Balsamic Vinaigrette. I mixed about 2 cups of the matchstick carrots with 3 big snack boxes of raisins then tossed the salad in a light coating of the dressing.  (I taste-tested first to make sure raisins in balsamic viniagrette wouldn't be nasty.)  It was pretty good. I let it sit overnight, then tried it again before I committed to packing it in my lunchbox.  It was REALLY good.  The cold salad was a perfect accompaniment to my warm main dish.  I ate it as a side twice, then put the rest atop a bed of spinach with some other veggies for a delicious lunchtime salad.

If you'd like a good break from the normal side dishes that won't leave you feeling greasy and guilty, give my alternative carrot and raisin salad a try.

(Bad iphone photo by me.)

 

Granny's Lemon Pound Cake

By Erica H.

The lemon pound cake has been such a ubiquitous presence at family holiday meals since I was a kid that I 1) often forget that it's not a staple in every household and 2) am constantly surprised that other versions of pound cake exist. Did you know they make it in chocolate? And caramel apple? There's even a lovely-looking plain version right here in the Food Lush archives. But oh, lemon. The seasonal bounty of winter may get a bad rap, but bright citrus can turn around a gloomy day like no other. Particularly when that bright citrus is shining through an irresponsibly thick layer of butter and sugar.

This is my Granny's favorite cake, and she is 92, so you know she's not messing around.

Lemon Pound Cake

• 1 1/2 c. butter
• 3 c. sugar
• 5 eggs
• 3 c. flour
• 1 c. warm milk
• 1/2 t. baking powder
• 1 t. vanilla
• 1/2 t. lemon extract
• 1/2 t. orange extract

Bring the butter and eggs to room temperature.

Beat butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. ("Thoroughly" is the original wording, but I would amend it to read "to an extent that feels excessive." Really, really beat them.)

Sift flour and add alternatly with milk.

Mix in baking powder vanilla, and orange and lemon extracts.

Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes at 350 degrees in tube or bundt pan. DO NOT PREHEAT OVEN.

Coat warm cake with Lemon Glaze.

Lemon Glaze

• 3 T. milk
• 3 T. butter
• 2 c. sifted confectioner's sugar
• 3 T. lemon juice
• 1 T. grated lemon zest

Heat milk and butter until butter melts. Pour over sugar and stirt until smooth. Add lemon juice and zest and blend well.

Of course, you don't have to glaze it. (I definitely think you should glaze it.) And by no means do you have to confine the finished product to dessert. There have been many slices of toasted pound cake on our breakfast table throughout the years. You could even use two slices to make a fried ham and cheese sandwich like some demented Monte Cristo, though clearly you'd have to be a madman to attempt it.

(All photo credit mine, all pound cake credit my mother's.)

Cooking with kids

by Elsha

My older kids are four and almost three, and they LOVE to pretend to cook. I imagine that they would also love to help me actually cook, but I don't let them. I used to attribute it to age, four isn't nearly old enough to help with the cooking, right? But my four-year-old nephew helps his mom cook, as does his three-year-old brother. When my dad is cooking he'll let my kids help him. Apparently it's just me keeping them from helping more in the kitchen. 

This has made me curious.Do you let your kids help you cook? What age do you start? What kind of responsibilities do they get? I don't know if I'm ready to deal with their "help," but I don't want my kids to end up in college not knowing how to do anything but boil spaghetti noodles. Tell me how it works at your house!

A Molasses Cake That Does Not Mess Around

By Erica H.

I'm letting you know up front that the contents of this post are not for the faint of heart nor the delicate of digestion. If you showed up here the Monday after Thanksgiving thinking "Erica, I led a gustatory attack on last Thursday worthy of a true patriot and now I would like a recipe for some water with lemon and cucumber slices in it," I want you to turn back now. The few bold adventurers remaining, follow me.

The Dark and Damp Molasses Cake from The Kitchn keeps its promise of unparalleled molassesness and how. If you emerged from the recent holiday ready to hurl yourself face first into the next one, I cannot recommend a richer, more interesting, better-textured way to embrace the deep dark of winter than this bold slab of goodness.

If you like a cake that's dense, fudgy, and incredibly satisfying, say hello to your destiny.

Afghan Pumpkin (Kaddo Bowrani)

by Elissa

So I've been in a cooking rut lately. The thought of getting dinner on the table each night feels like a terrible burden, and I'm struggling to come up with ideas. In an effort to get things moving again, I was thinking about some of my favorite restaurant dishes, and I thought back to a pumpkin appetizer that I love at an Afghan restaurant called The Helmand. There's one in Cambridge, Massachusetts and one in Baltimore, Maryland--I think their ownership is related--and I've been lucky enough to eat at both of them.

This pumpkin dish sounds pretty weird--it features a base of braised, sweetened pumpkin. Then there's a layer of garlic yogurt sauce, followed by a dollop of tomato meat sauce. But the combination of flavors is sublime. I had all the ingredients (I substituted kabocha squash for the pumpkin), found a recipe online, and decided to give it a try.

And the results were pretty good! Next time I might try increasing the tomato in the meat sauce, but this was a fairly good approximation of what I remember from the restaurant. Amazingly, my kids even liked it!

So if you've ever enjoyed this dish, or if you are looking to mix things up in the kitchen, give this recipe a try. And if you're near Cambridge or Baltimore, definitely check out The Helmand--the food is amazing.

Digital Recipe Organization

by Jess M

Now that the digital age is upon us (cue: Conan O’Brien’s “In the year two-thousaaaaaand...” anyone?) I have moved my recipe organization away from a giant binder and little scraps of magazine cut-outs to an almost all-digital collection. I save them in Google Docs, which is now called Google Drive.

When I find an online recipe that I want to save, I click on the “Printer friendly” link, since it usually brings up the recipe in a nice, neat new page without all the extraneous sidebars and stuff that websites have. Then I “Select All,” copy it, and paste it into a new Google Drive document.

One of the things that I like about using Google Drive is that I can search for an ingredient or other key word and it will pull up any recipes that contain that word, not just those with that word in the title. The other thing I like about it is that I can pull the recipe up on my iPad, set it up on my kitchen counter and read it as I cook. It also makes it easy to share recipes with my husband as we both can contribute and search our “recipes” folder. 

Do not put your iPad this close to the stove. I'm not actually cooking anything here. 

Have you switched to digital recipes? How do you organize them?

(You can also look back and see how Natalie and Carrie have talked about the way they organize their online recipes)

Potato Ricer: Worth It?

By A'Dell

With The Season Of Mashed Potatoes coming upon us, I've been wondering if it's time to upgrade my potato mashing tool of choice. I've wanted a Potato Ricer for several years, but I've never really been able to justify all of the space it takes up in a drawer.

It's also a one-job tool, and I try to keep those out of my kitchen as much as possible. These things are not exactly slim and trim and it's not like I'm making mashed potatoes twice a week. This is definitely a specialty kitchen item and I'm not sure my mashed potato skills/desire are at a specialty level.

Oxo Good Grips Potato Ricer, $25

AND YET. I love silky-smooth potatoes that have been run through a ricer. They're just so much FANCIER and honestly, this seems to make a semi-messy job a bit more controlled/contained. I'm thinking I could also run steamed fruits/veggies through it for baby food. If I could just figure out one or two more uses for it, I might be able to award this sucker a spot in a drawer before Thanksgiving is upon me.

If you have a potato ricer, how often do you use it, and what do you use it for? Or, is this the dumbest purchase you've ever made for the kitchen?

(Photo from Amazon.com)

Pizza Under the Broiler: The Best Pizza I Have Ever Made

by Jess M

I have long been making my own pizza at home, making my own crust and occasionally my own sauce. But then I cooked it like I thought everyone did: put it in the oven for about 20 minutes at 400 degrees. And it was fine. It was good and tasty. But it wasn’t anything particularly special. It still wasn’t quite worth going to the trouble to make instead of sending my husband to stop for pizza on his way home.

So I started reading about what makes pizza really good. And after good ingredients, the key to really great pizza is high, high heat. That’s why pizzas cooked in commercial ovens or wood-burning ovens are so good: they have been cooked at extremely high heat. And unfortunately our home ovens usually top out at about 500 degrees. So with this article from Serious Eats as my guide, I started toying around with my pizza cooking method.

Here is what I do:

• Start with a homemade crust, I like this simple one from Smitten Kitchen, but any will do. Roll out your crust and have your sauce and toppings ready, once you get started the pizza will cook very very quickly, in under 5 minutes.
• You’ll need a cast iron pan. I use a cast iron pizza pan (I have this one from Lodge Logic), but you can also use a 12-inch frying pan. Put the pan on the stove and heat it over high heat for 10-20 minutes, until it starts to smoke. Turn off the burner, and turn the broiler in your oven on high. 
• Then, very carefully, lay your rolled-out dough on top of the hot pan and follow with your sauce and toppings. As you put on the sauce and cheese, the bottom of the crust has already started cooking. With the best oven mitts you have, put the pizza into the oven as close to the broiler element as possible and shut the door.
• After 45 seconds to 1 minute, open the oven and rotate your pizza 180 degrees. Cook for another 45 seconds to 1 minute and then check on it. If it’s not quite ready, check on it in 20-30 second increments, it will cook and also burn fast. When it’s crispy and bubbly and starting to brown on the tops of the cheese bubbles, you know it’s done.

Have you tried broiling your pizza? Or tried any other high heat methods?

Guest Post: Revamp Your Food Storage

Editor's note: Warm foodie welcome to Leah, a Style Lush writer who is sharing some food storage solutions with Food Lush today. Thanks, Leah!

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By Leah

We had a bit of a situation in our kitchen cabinet: tons and tons of mismatched food storage containers that, although they were sold as "disposable," we treated as precious family heirlooms to be kept safe within our crowded abode even when they no longer served their original purpose, which was to hold food and keep it covered with a lid that actually fit. I think we've all been here before.

When my son started preschool a few weeks ago, I started having to make him lunches every day, so having a set of functional food storage containers shot way up on my list of priorities because that's just the kind of exciting life I lead. I was all set to go to the grocery store and pick up some new Ziploc or Glad sets, but then I found these:

If you don't have an Ikea nearby, look away, but if you do, shut down your computer and head out to get you some before they go the way of the Läkshmørf. (I made that up.)

The Pruta food storage system is made of BPA-free plastic and comes in a set of seventeen for $4.99. That's as much as you'll spend on just a few containers by the big brands. They're microwave-, dishwasher-, and freezer-safe, and the lids are bright clover green, which is my favorite color for fall, just ask my new Tieks.

My favorite feature is that a lot of the smaller containers fit nicely inside the larger ones, which makes packing lunches easier and cuter than dumping a bunch of random things in plastic baggies. We bought three sets in total, and I'm stealing one of them to store office supplies and craft supplies and bathroom supplies like cotton balls and Q-tips.

Wait...did I just host an online tupperware party?