Superfluous Lemon Bar Pictures

I realize that just the other day I said that more lemon bar pictures would be redundant, but I forgot that I took these. And I just couldn't let such luscious pictures go to waste! I do have a handy suggestion though, which justifies the superfluousness (superfluosity?). Follow the lemon bar recipe that I gave before, but substitute lime juice and lime zest for 1/3 of the lemon juice and lemon zest. It looks a little creepy at first with the lime zest, like tons of tiny caterpillars in your lemon curd, but once it bakes you can't see the green bits anymore, and it adds a nice zinginess to the lemon bars that lemon juice and zest alone doesn't add. So enjoy looking at these pictures (careful not to drool on your keyboard)--I hope they inspire you to make some lemon bars of your own!

Unmotivation

I've been feeling rather unmotivated about blogging lately...as you've probably noticed. At some point in the last couple of months it turned from "ooh, fun, I should blog about that" to "it's already been a week since I last blogged, gotta come up with something". I think it's perhaps because I've been in a bit of a culinary rut.

Not that I haven't been making good food...I have...it's just a lot of it is food I've already talked about! Offering pictures of more veggie tacos or more lemon bars or another batch of those addicting crackers just seems redundant.

And I haven't read anything particularly inspiring lately...mostly because I have started watching way too much tv again! But I figure that tv will be over in another month or two, and I'll have all summer to catch up on reading....

So anyway, I apologize for the lack of interesting reading around here lately. I'm going to try to get myself out of this rut...I think I'm going to make biscuits this weekend, and hopefully sometime in the next week or two I'm going to attempt falafel, which I'm pretty excited about! So bear with me...and my overabundant use of ellipses...and hopefully I'll have some new and exciting recipes to try soon!

Favorites: Georgette Heyer

Sometimes in the book-snobbish world in which I work, I try to pretend that I don't love Georgette Heyer as much as I do. I mean, after all, she mostly wrote romances. How stultifying and non-intellectual! And the romance part I can't deny, probably 3/4 of her books are romances, with a few mysteries and a few non-fiction histories of Britain's royal family thrown in for good measure. But the thing is, they're good romances! No heaving bosoms or throbbing manhoods or any of the other cliches of the modern bodice-ripper genre, these are much more Jane Austen-esque.

They are true to their era, so much so that some people have a hard time reading them because Heyer uses so much 18th and 19th century slang. Her historical accuracy means that the characters follow the strict rules of propriety that held sway among the members of the ton in the Georgian era so you don't have to worry about what I term "awkward bits", and that as a bonus after reading several of her books you will know all of the answers on the "Georgian Era" category in Jeopardy! I also like how casually Heyer throws French words around in several of the books, apparently writing under the assumption that of course her readers will understand French.

Heyer's books are characterized by a plethora of minor characters who are hilariously annoying, main characters who are witty and erudite, and a convoluted plot that generally ends with two people getting happily married. There are a couple of exceptions to this: in one book the "True Love" marries someone else, and he settles for next-best, and a few of the mysteries and historical books don't have a love story, but generally speaking the books follow a predictable, but still delightful pattern.

This is a list I wrote a couple of years ago on amazon.com, which attempts to sum up my favorite Heyers. The Grand Sophy and False Colours are probably what I would call my two favorites, but it's really difficult for me to narrow it down. Every year I re-read two or three of her books though, and then once I've read them again they usually temporarily shoot up to the top in my estimation for a few weeks.

Speaking of re-reading old favorite Heyers however, brings me to my exciting Heyer news. There is one, and only one, of her historical novels that I have never read. Heyer tried to suppress The Great Roxhythe in the later years of her career, because she was dissatisfied with it. As a result, this Charles II era novel is veeeery expensive online. Two years ago the cheapest one I could find was $250. But luckily a lot of Heyer's books are being reprinted right now, and a relatively cheap hardback edition can now be found for less than $40, hurrah!

So The Great Roxhythe arrived in the mail yesterday, and I greedily opened the package and read the first chapter. And then I had to put the book down because I want to savor it. After all, it's been 14 years since the last 'new' Heyer for me, and this is the last new one ever! Unless she starts publishing from the grave, but since that seems unlikely I'm going to read this slowly. At least that's what I'm telling myself, but I have this Friday off of work, and somehow I'm suspicious that I may end up devouring it all. But either way, I'll let you know how it was.

Lemon Bars: Citrusy Fabulousness

I adore lemon bars. Lemon desserts are among my favorites: lemon meringue, lemon sorbet, lemon icebox pie, I love them all. But there's something special about lemon bars. Maybe it's because I lived in Texas for so long, I think lemon bars are more of a southern thing, but I really love them. They're sweet and tangy and flaky on the bottom, with just enough powdered sugar on the top to drift all over your lap if you happen to laugh while eating one. They're good warm and sticky, but I love them cold. When they're cold something magical happens: the lemon curd part is still sticky, but it melts in your mouth along with the flaky crust. I highly recommend that you make yourself a pan of these, stick them in the fridge and wait about half an hour, and then devour them!

Lemon Bars

adapted from the Better Homes and Garden Cookbook

2/3 cup butter

1/2 cup powdered sugar

2 cup all purpose flour

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

4 tablespoons all purpose flour

1 teaspoon lemon zest

6-8 tablespoons lemon juice (to taste)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

powdered sugar for dusting.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl cream butter and powdered sugar. Beat in the flour till crumbly, press the mixture evenly into a lightly greased 9 x 13 baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 18 minutes, or until lightly golden.

Meanwhile, in a medium mixing bowl combine the eggs, the granulated sugar, the flour, lemon zest, lemon juice, and baking powder. Beat two minutes, until smooth. Pour the filling over the baked layer (while the baked layer is still warm). Bake for 20 minutes, or until center is set and top is just starting to brown. Cool on a rack, dust with powdered sugar, store in refrigerator. Makes 2-3 dozen bars, depending on whether you like them ginormous or regular sized.

Murder in North Korea: Bamboo and Blood

Set in North Korea in 1997, this book tells the story of Inspector O, a thoughtful and introverted man, trying to maneuver his way through the complicated politics and silences of the North Korean Ministry. The bleak winter reflects the bleak attitude of most of the people in North Korea, who are struggling merely to stay alive while O struggles to discover who killed a woman, when he doesn't even know where or how she died.

His mysterious assignment to discover who killed the unknown woman leads him to New York and Geneva. I feel like the plot gets a bit too convoluted in Geneva, where O's fellow North Koreans diplomats and the Israeli who has been following him are joined by Swiss intelligence, and then the three groups proceed to chase each other in circles while they all try to figure out what O is up to, and he tries to figure out what they're up to.

The glimpse of the poverty and hardship of life in North Korea was gripping though, as was the stark imagery of the winter in Korea and Switzerland. O's obsession with wood, and the feelings that different types of trees can create in him are a part of his thoughtfulness and his careful attention to detail. This attention to detail is reflected both in O's knowledge of what makes a beech different from a maple, and in the way he can see himself in the shoes of those around him, whether they be fellow Koreans, or foreigners. I liked how the characters rarely had names, and those who did have names merely had one, 'Pak', 'O', etc. It made O's humanity in the midst of the obedient North Korean legions all the more apparent.

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with "Cream Cheese" Frosting

So here's the deal. I'd already gone to the store specifically to buy apple cider vinegar, tofu "cream cheese", and soy milk for the vegan cupcakes. I'd then made the cupcakes, and they were merrily baking away while I started mixing the frosting. Then, to my chagrin, I realized I'd used up almost all of the powdered sugar on the lemon bars from the day before. I contemplated going back the store, but I was already in pj pants, and since I can't go to the store without running into nine thousand people from church, I would've had to get dressed again, and well, I decided to experiment.

My handy dandy American's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook told me that I could substitute one cup granulated sugar + one teaspoon cornstarch + a little spin in the blender for one cup of powdered sugar. The cookbook politely said, "Works well for dusting over cakes, less so in frostings and glazes." But did I listen to the cookbook? Nooo....I thought it would totally work to grind up my sugar and cornstarch and then make vegan sour cream frosting with it. Oh well, at least the cupcakes looked good in my cutesy new cupcake caddy.

And the cupcakes themselves weren't that bad, once you got over the crunchiness of the frosting. They were moist, in an almost gummy way, like the other vegan cupcakes I made. I prefer a finer crumb, but they were still had a nice chocolatey flavor. I got mixed reviews about them at work, but the people that didn't like them were merely indifferent, and the people that liked them really, really loved them. So I think all in all, I'd give them one thumbs up.

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with "Cream Cheese" Frosting

from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World

Cupcakes

1 cup soy milk

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

3/4 cup granulated sugar, preferably raw

1/3 cup canola oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp almond extract, or more vanilla

1 cup all purpose flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Frosting

1/4 cup vegan margarine, softened

1/4 cup vegan cream cheese, softened

2 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. For the cupcakes whisk together the soy milk and vinegar and let it curdle for a few minutes. Add the sugar, oil, and extracts, and beat until foamy. In a separate bowl sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add in two batches to wet ingredients and beat till no large lumps remain. Pour batter into a lined muffin tin, until cups are about 3/4 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into one comes out clean. Cool for a few minutes, then remove the cupcakes to a wire rack and cool completely before frosting.

For the frosting, cream together the margarine and cream cheese until just combined. Beat in the powdered sugar until frosting is smooth and creamy, then mix in the vanilla. Keep the frosting refrigerated if you're not going to frost the cupcakes right away.

This will make one dozen frosted cupcakes, plus an extra few tablespoons of frosting...which you can probably snack on if you actually use powdered sugar, and don't have gritty frosting!

Long Time No Blog: North Korea, Vegan Cupcakes, and Lemon Bars

Hey everyone,

Sorry, long time no blog! It's partly a result of procrastination, and partly a result of internet issues at home. And blogging at work seems a little questionable! :)

But I'm reading the book above: it's a mystery set in North Korea in 1997. It's really good so far, I'll keep you posted on my final opinion.

And I made some more vegan cupcakes, which did not turn out so well. The vegans ate them anyway, but they were less than impressed.

I did, however, make some excellent lemon bars with which I have been gorging myself all week, because Noel is out of town and isn't there to help me consume them.

More details will be forthcoming, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die. Bisous!