my, your meyer lemons are tasty

Everyone knows the old adage, "When life hands you a bowl of lemons, make lemonade."  Well, it just so happened that last week my sister gave me a large bowl of Meyer lemons from her tree* and so I decided to make lemon bars.  And because apparently a little lemon goes a long way, also lemon risotto, preserved lemons, and the proverbial lemonade.

I've never made lemon bars before.  As it turns out they are really easy to make as well as really, really tasty.  I'm talking about the type of tasty that effectively lobotomizes your frontal lobe, leaving you with the inability to understand the future consequences of eating too many of said lemon bars or at least the inability for caring about those consequences.  But, I can claim no responsibility for the way these turned out.  The kudos goes to the -essentially- idiot-proof recipe I followed.

I highly suggest that if you happen to find yourself the unexpected recipient of a booty of lemons you should try to make these bars.  You won't be sorry.  Well, after the fifth bar in a row you may be sorry but before that you will temporarily forget your troubles.  That ability, even if only temporary, is a welcome friend.

And since I can't do anything -accept for, ahem, certain things- without taking photos, I present to you,  "When life hands you a bowl full of lemons, make lemon bars and then eat them until you aren't sad anymore," in photos.

Making the crust with a lot of butter.  Delicious, delicious, butter.

Raining powdered sugar.

My lemon bars had bald spots.  

Being enjoyed by my husband.  

*There are really only two things you can count on living in southern California.  One is that at nearly any time of the day you will be subjected to an excruciatingly slow drive in freeway traffic.  The other is that someone you know has a citrus fruit tree of some sort whose fruit is going unused and rotting on the tree.  This is the case with my next door neighbor (but not my sister) and her beautiful lemon tree.  I would ask her for lemons but I don't speak a word of Korean (aside from Hello) and she doesn't speak a word of English.  Oh well.

.cake in your face.

Well done Martha Stewart (rather Martha's minion who really does all the work), well done.

By the way, we polished off this cake in two days.  I gave two pieces away but Leif and I ate everything else.  Go us.

.strawberries are fruit.

The last couple of days I've had strawberries on the brain.  Mostly this is because I've been studying all about infectious disease recently. 

Strawberry tongue?  You may have Scarlet Fever! 
Strawberry cervix?  You may have picked yourself up a nasty case of Trichomonas. 

Cervix meet Trichomonas.  Trichomonas meet Cervix.

Trichomonas looks strikingly like this guy, no?  Distant relations perhaps?

You can thank me later for not also including here what a strawberry cervix looks like.  Somethings are better left to the imagination.  Like perineal tears and what those things taste like that the Doozers from Fraggle Rock make.

So...strawberries.  They're in season now.

This weekend I am making something delicious with them.

It will either be...

This.

Strawberry Galette

From Martha Stewart

Or....

This.

Strawberry Cream Cake

Also from Martha Stewart

And no, it is not for the 4th of July.  I don't need a reason to make something sweet and mightily unhealthy.  I need a reason not to.

.yogurty yogurt.

Today I made yogurt.  If you have never tasted homemade yogurt you are seriously missing out.  It is so easy to make and tastes worlds better than any type of yogurt you can buy.

Basically the recipe goes like this.

1. Get a gallon of milk, any kind you want except for nonfat because we've found that it doesn't work as well.
2. Heat it up until it reaches a near boil or about 180 degrees.
3. Take the milk off the heat and let it cool until it reaches 120 degrees.
4. Add about two tablespoons of store-bought yogurt.  It doesn't really matter what kind you use as long as it has live cultures.
5. Let is sit for at least four hours.  It is important to keep it warm so either wrap it in a couple of towels to retain the heat or leave it in an oven that is turned off (this is what we do)
6. At this point the yogurt is done.  You can leave it like this if you like a thinner type of yogurt or you can filter out the whey using cheese cloth to make a thicker greek-like consistency

For a more detailed recipe you can go to this blog.  

From here.

.of sea salt and chocolate chips.

There is a smell of chocolate cookies wafting through our apartment right now.  On Sunday, after our successful trip to the Rose Bowl Flea Market (more on that later), my friend Melissa came over and we made cookie dough from the New York Times famous chocolate chip cookie recipe.  You are supposed to let it sit for at least 48 hours before you make the cookies, which requires an enormous amount of will power. But the real kicker with this recipe is the sprinkle of sea salt that goes on just before baking.

I am making the cookies for Leif's co-workers.  They have all been so amazing to him/us during the last seven weeks.  After George died they took up a collection and bought us a week of healthy gourmet meals delivered to our house.  More importantly they also made a donation to the American Heart Association in George's name.  I can't think of a more thoughtful thing to do for someone after something like this happens.  I know cookies can't capture our gratitude but, hey, they are really good cookies.