Lemon Brownies

Normally you should beware the Ides of March, but I guarantee that if you like lemon, you'll love this recipe.

Today's recipe needs a better name.  I got the recipe here, which is adapted from someone who adapted it from someone else, etc.  Regardless, everyone is calling them Lemon Brownies, or Lemon Cake Bars, and they deserve a good name!  I mean, there's nothing brown or chocolatey about them, so we can't call them brownies.  And Lemon Blondies isn't really a great name either.  And Lemonies sounds weird.   These have the taste of Lemon Bars (except better) with the texture and consistency of brownies.  So I need your help - make these, and then help me name this recipe!

Whatever they're called (my mom suggested Lemon Heaven Bars), these are amazing.  Chloe and I weren't so sure when we finally had all the ingredients in the mixer and it looked pretty lumpy.  Just keep beating, and it will eventually turn out creamy like this:

Once baked, it looked like this:

Yes.  We ran out of toothpicks and had to use a fork.  Whatever.  It's still delicious.  The glaze was an amazing and inspired addition.

Although it kind of makes it look like a pan full of raw eggs.  :)  I promise you, this recipe is amazing.  These bars are so lemony and so delicious.

I hope you enjoyed Lemon Week as much as we did.  I know my stove sure did:

Love and Washcloths,

Leah Joy

Raspberry Ice Cubes

Chloe and I got today's recipe from Too Stinkin' Cute.  It's also Number 95 on my 101 Things in 2013 list.

I must say that this is the recipe we followed the least.  First of all, we didn't even use their lemonade recipe; we used the Anne of Green Gables Lemonade Syrup recipe.  I'm sure their recipe was fine, but we know we like this one.  We actually made the lemonade part last, so that we could use all the leftover lemon juice.  We had just the perfect amount for a double batch.  It filled five 12-ounce jars, plus made a very large glass of lemonade leftover. I froze two of the jars and sent one home with Chloe.  

But I digress.  

We only made the ice cubes, and even those we only sort of followed the recipe.  We halved it because it says it makes 30 to 36 ice cubes, and I only have ice cube trays for 28.  (That's not actually true, because I have several shaped silicone ones, but I didn't want to use them for this.)  Then, we thoroughly mashed the mixture, and then instead of pouring the cooled mixture straight into the ice cube trays, we strained it first to get all the seeds out.  We basically made a raspberry syrup and froze it into ice cube trays.

It looks so cute in the glass (as it melts, it becomes a homogeneous pinkish-red) and tastes amazing!

It might be the best raspberry lemonade I've ever had!

Also, you may notice that there is zest back in my lemonade.  Last time I made it, I skipped the zest, because I don't like floaties.  But they add so much flavor, so I'll be leaving them in from now on.

Love and Paisley,

Leah Joy

P.S. I caught Chloe making a very arrogant face as she strained the lemon juice, and I asked her what she was doing.  She said, "Well, I'm stirring lemons.  Only pompous people stir lemons."  

Lemon Ice Cups

I am so excited about today's installment of Lemon Week!  Do you know those Luigi's Lemon Ice things that you get at the baseball games in the summer?  You know the ones where it's awesome, but then you have to sit through a whole baseball game in return for eating this wonderful treat?  (Turns out you can also just get them at the grocery store... Hm, who knew?)  WE MADE THEM.  AT HOME.  IN LEMONS.  How cool is that?  (Obviously, I think it's very cool.  How often do I use all capital letters?)

I found the recipe here.  These are also Number 46 on my 101 Things in 2013 list.

Chloe and I first juiced lots of lemons:

Then she got mad at me for taking pictures instead of working.

Just kidding, we're still friends!

We took the lemon halves, and used knives to get the pith out.  (The original recipe suggest grapefruit spoons, but Caleb and I have only been married a year and a half, and our parents haven't run out of gift ideas yet for Christmas and birthdays, so we don't have any grapefruit spoons.)  When you do this, don't be afraid to dig into the side of the lemon a bit to get the pith out.  There's more there than I thought there'd be.  Also, we'd recommend cutting the bottom to get it flat before you go through the effort of cutting the pith out, just in case you cut too much off the bottom and ruin the entire idea of a cup (you know, the basics, like 'no holes in the bottom').

While I was working on this step, Chloe was still juicing, but at one point she stopped and asked, "Do you need help shaving your lemons?"  Yes, it kind of feels like you're shaving the inside of a lemon.

The lemon ice mixture was the simplest thing to mix up.  Then, I just poured it in the cups and put them in the freezer.  So delicious.  And cute.

Another idea: if you didn't want to put them in lemon halves, you could save and wash some yogurt containers.  That would be quick, easy, and easier to put in the freezer.

Love and Frozen Hands,

Leah Joy

P.S.  If you're as crazy about lemon as I am, you might want to leave a little bit of the water out.  I mean, it's fantastic, but with a little less water it'd have even more of a kick.

Raspberry Peach Lemonade

Lemon Week continues!  We made 5 recipes, involving 10 pounds of lemons.  We also made a mess.

But it smelled good.  Even the trash smelled awesome for a while.  :)  Until it looked, as Chloe said, "like someone puked lemons."

But really, most of the recipes turned out great.  I'd say 4 out of 5 is pretty good.  I wasn't sure when to share the one that wasn't good, so I'll just get it over with today.  I was really bummed that this wasn't fantastic.  It sounds like it should be.  Raspberry Peach Lemonade!  I got the recipe here.  Now, I did substitute honey for the agave nectar, simply because I have no agave nectar, and honey works the same way.  Here's all the fruit in the pot.  It's at least really pretty!

Maybe it's that my raspberries were frozen (but they've been fine before in other things).  Maybe it's that my peaches weren't fully ripe (but they're fine in other things).  I really don't know where we went wrong.  Everything actually went fine until I got to the straining part.  That took forever.  I ended up mixing the puree with the water and lemon juice before straining it so it would go faster.  Once this was finally done, we tasted it and it still needed something, so we added 1/4 cup of sugar.  This helped, but it really did not make it worth all the effort.  We eventually discovered that adding some Lemonade Syrup to it made it pretty good, but not amazing, and certainly not worth all the time and work we put into it.  Which is a bummer.  It's pretty, though!

Love and Grapefruit,

Leah Joy

Lemon Loaf

Last Tuesday, I kidnapped my sister Chloe and held her hostage all day.  We (okay, mostly she) juiced 10 pounds of lemons.  But not before we took some pictures.

We took this first shot of the bags, but that didn't look impressive enough, so we put them on a cute tray (Goodwill!), and then photographed Tim the Dinosaur conquering the mountain of lemons.  We hadn't even begun and we were already punchy.

Today's recipe is from Sweet Pea's Kitchen and it is also Number 41 on my 101 Things in 2013 list.  Christina from Sweet Pea's Kitchen has a similar recipe for a lemon-blueberry loaf, which I've made before and adored, so I was excited to try this one.  If possible, this was even better.  We halved the recipe, only because I only have one loaf pan (now accepting donations).  I have never purchased cake flour in my life (and probably never will) so we only used all-purpose flour.  I also substituted yogurt for the sour cream because I don't like to cook with sour cream (it makes me sick).  I'm sure these small changes did not damage the integrity of the recipe, as it was delicious.

Here's the bread out of the oven, before the syrup or glaze had been applied, but after I'd poked multiple holes in it (that was fun):

And with the glaze:

This was gone within 3 days, and that's only because there are only two of us in this house.

As you can see, our counter got quite messy with the syrup and the glaze.  I'm not sure how to avoid that, other than putting down some plastic wrap first or something.  But I don't mind wiping the counter multiple times.  :)

Caleb came in while we were glazing this, and partway through the following sentence, I realized how strange it sounded, so I decided to make it as strange as I possibly could: "Here, run your finger in this sticky, yellow liquid on the counter and then lick it."  :)

But seriously, this bread is fabulous.  Go make it.

Love and Sugar,

Leah Joy

P.S. These are the cooling racks we have.  I love that they can be tall or short, and that they stack when they're tall or short.  They're really easy to clean, too, even when you thoroughly coat them in lemon syrup. :)