Our Garden

It's been one of those weeks. We had guests over the weekend, two birthdays, and then Tink was sick Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Now the Goose is sick. I haven't gotten anything done and am seriously happy that today is Friday! This week I made my slow cooker chocolate cake and then gave in and turned on the oven to make my chocolate chip cookies because some weeks call for heavy consumption of chocolate. So, because I didn't make anything new this week and basically just subsisted on cake and cookies, I thought I would share some pictures of our organic garden.

We have a raised bed garden and we planted yellow onions, strawberries, and sweet corn. Only one of 8 strawberry plants is growing (sad), but the onions and corn are growing like gangbusters!




Look at that silk!!



I just love how fast corn grows.



We also have tomatoes. Once they reach full-size some of them will be sacrificed before they are ripe because a Southern girl has got to have her fried green tomatoes!



And a black raspberry bush. Very excited about that!!



We have a blueberry bush with one remaining blueberry. Just one...



the rest were eaten by this beast.



And this one, too!



But not this one. He is a walking heart. Sweetest baby in the world!!



Our orange tree is heavy with baby oranges. They won't ripen until January or February. This year we had soooo many oranges we didn't know what to do with them all. We decided we would prune the tree so we would have less oranges next year.



But how to you choose which pretty baby orange to kill? I can't do it. We'll be swimming in oranges again come January. :)



We have a tiny lemon tree. It was my Valentine's Day present from Bubba!



Here's another picture of our small dinosaur who thinks she is a chicken. Originally she was named Eragon, which then became Eragonsian, then Gonsie, then Donsie, and now she's just Don.



She can pretend she is a chicken if she wants...as long as she keeps leaving us a present every day.



The other one has embraced her dinosaur side and has stopped laying eggs. Maybe she's just lazy. When you look into her eyes you can see there are no lights on in there. :) :)



And last, but not least, our banana tree. We've had it for three years now and are hoping this is our year for bananas.



So that's it! Our garden. I dream about making lemon meringue pies, blueberry pie, black raspberry jam, banana pudding, orange juice, and strawberry shortcake. And then I ask Bubba, for the fifteenth time, to put some chicken wire around the blueberry bush. Dang dinosaurs!

Lemon Squares

After I got married my mom gave me a Better Homes and Gardens cookie cookbook. On the inside she inscribed, "have fun baking--be sure to clean up the flour!" I did a lot of baking as a kid/teenager and maybe, once, I got one tiny speck of flour on the counter top. But it was a tiny amount and just that once, right Mom? ;)


I love this cookbook. The first half is "All Day Treats" and then you flip it over and the other half of the book is "Christmastime Treats." This cookbook is well-used, spotty with recipe remains (and just a touch of flour), and marked up with alternate measurements and ingredients. The Lemon Bars recipe is the best I have ever tried.



Just look at that gooey lemon deliciousness! Makes your mouth water, doesn't it?

1/3 cup butter, softened (Smart Balance sticks)
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 cup flour
2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
2 tsp lemon zest (optional)
4 tablespoons lemon juice (use lemons, not the bottled juice stuff)
1/4 tsp baking powder
powdered sugar for dusting





For the crust, cream butter and sugar in mixer and add 1 cup of flour. Beat until mixture resembles crumbs. Just like a pie crust.





Press this mixture into an ungreased (because of all the butter) 8x8 inch baking pan and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. You aren't looking for golden brown, so don't overbake.




That's the before baking photo. I forget to take the after, but it looks like that only puffy.


While the crust is baking, beat the eggs in the same mixer bowl until they are foamy.



Now add the 3/4 cup of sugar, 2 T of flour, lemon juice (I have started using real lemon juice-not from the bottle-and it makes the squares soooo much better), and baking powder. (If you are using unsalted butter you might want to add just a pinch of salt.) Beat on medium speed for 3 minutes, or until slightly thickened. Stir in the lemon zest and pour mixture over the partially baked, still hot crust.




Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges and the center is set. Be careful putting it into the oven...I slung it around a bit and had the lemon mixture slosh up the sides of the pan. So...it looks a lot browner around the edges than it should. :)



Cool in pan on a wire rack, dust with powdered sugar, and cut into squares. What? You have a crappy wire rack that sits directly on the counter and allows no airflow thereby defeating the purpose of the wire rack? I have a solution for you! A word of caution...kids find this hilarious. Don't know why.




Now, as Tinker Bell likes to say, time to feast!





That is not a fair representation of how many squares this recipe makes. Most of them never made it to the plate. The recipe claims it makes 20, but I have never counted. I've found it best not to count how many baked good I eat.

Alton Brown's The Chewy

Oh, how I love Alton Brown. What could be better than a little science mixed in with baking? (I'm a sci-fi junkie, so maybe this appeals more to me than to you. :) I watch Good Eats all the time and loved his show on chocolate chip cookies. He made three batches: The Chewy, The Thin, and The Puffy. I really only like chewy chocolate chip cookies, so I watched him, then read through his recipe, then "fixed" it to my tastes. I think the milk he adds is unnecessary if you decrease the butter and flour a bit. Plus, I always bake cookies at 325 degrees. It just works the best, I've found. So here's my recipe:
2 cups King Arthur (yes, it has to be King Arthur) all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup butter (1.5 Smart Balance sticks)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 T vanilla
1 egg
1 egg yolk (makes a big difference, I promise)
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (brand doesn't matter)

The Usual Suspects:



Cream butter and sugars until it looks like this:



About adding the egg yolk instead of the full egg...Alton Brown explained the reasons, but I just know it works. Seriously. Since we get our eggs from our sweet girls out back, I don't have the heart to throw away the extra white so I put it in a small baggie and save if for omlettes or something. (The larger egg on the left is courtesy of our Jersey Giant, Eragon.) Throw in the vanilla with the eggs and stir until fully incorporated.




Sure, you could sift your flour and baking soda into the mix. I don't sift. First, with King Arthur it is unnecessary. Second, my sifter broke...I think because I bought it at the dollar store. :) (Try King Arthur, really. It is so far superior that you will never, never go back to any old flour. You may need to add less flour if using a different brand. I've been using K.A. for a long time, but I seem to remember needing just a touch more of it when I first starting using it. It has a finer texture than most flours.) After adding the chocolate chips your end result will look like this:



Bake at 325 on a lightly greased cookie sheet (or use parchment paper) for 15-17 minutes. Don't wait until they are browning all over. Take them out at the first hint of slightly brown around the edges and let them set on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes and then remove to a rack to cool. Taking them out before they look done will give you a cookie that is crisp at the edges and chewy and soft in the middle. Plus they will stay chewy the next day. BTW, uniformity means nothing to me when baking cookies. I just use a soup spoon and plop them on the cookie sheet. Homemade cookies should look homemade, I think. As far as measurements, I used slightly less than a 1/4 cup of dough per cookie. Makes about two and a half dozen. They came out like this:




After setting and cooling:




Oh, boy! The kids need to get home from school NOW.