Yearning For Summer

I am aching for summer.  I want warm sun, cool breeze, cold drinks, and lemon anything.  With my wants that specific...I need to make lemon bars.

Some people are reading this as, "ew I don't like lemon bars" the rest of you are saying to yourself, "ahhhhh I love lemon bars". If you are in the latter of the two catagories, read on.  If not, maybe try some chocolate chip cookies from a lovely, tattooed, silly lady named Banannie...

The hardware:

For the crust:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cups confectioners sugar

2 sticks butter, softened

Pinch salt

Filling:

4 eggs, room temperature

2 cups granulated sugar

6 tablespoons all-purpose flour

6 tablespoons lemon juice*

*you can use regular lemons here, but I used MEYER LEMONS(that's me being excited). Meyer lemons are different from your standard lemon because they're a cross between a lemon and mandarin orange.  The Meyer lemons are much sweeter and floral than a regular lemon.  But it's up to you what kind of lemon(or lemon and lime or whatever) you would like to use. End ramble.

Note: this will NOT work with margarine, please don't use margarine anyway because it's gross and weird

Before we start everything please, please, please pinky swear that whenever you use lemon juice you will ALWAYS use the zest as well.

Ok lemons zested

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees(325 if using glass or a dark nonstick pan) and line a 9x13" pan with parchment paper or spray with cooking spray or butter, whatever you normally do. 

In a large bowl combine the flour, butter, salt, 1/2 the lemon zest, and the confectioners sugar.  Using your hands or pastry cutter/2 forks/2knives/however you want to make this crust, rub the butter into the dry ingredients until it becomes like a coarse meal

The crust is sort of like a shortbread, heavenly I mean. It's a firm, yet crumbly, not-too-sweet vehicle for the lemony goodness on top.

Press this into the 9x13" pan

Depending on how warm or cold your hands are, this step might be easier to do with either:

A: wet hands

B: a piece of plastic wrap

Smooth/press the dough evenly in the pan

Bake this for 20 minutes

While the crust is baking prepare the filling

Combine the eggs, salt, sugar, flour, lemon juice in a small bowl

DO NOT ADD THE REMAINING ZEST

Mix until smooth

In the above picture I have put a mesh sieve over another bowl because the flour will most likely be clumpy

After it's been strained add the remain zest, if you do this before straining the zest with not make it through the sieve and it's pointless. 

Oh so smooth

After the crust has baked for 20 minutes, pour the filling over the HOT crust 

Bake for another 22-25 minutes

Et, voilà

Let these cool and eat if you must, BUT you could always dust with some powdered sugar.  And maybe even on top of that sprinkle some sea salt...ideas, ideas

Oh, baby. 

Tried & True

Baking basic:

Chocolate Chip Cookies 101

Maybe you're reading that all like, "really Banann?  I can read the back of the bag of chocolate chips on my own"

No, these are not those chocolate chip cookies.  These are the chocolate chip cookies that you give to someone and they take a bite and close their eyes.  These are the chocolate chip cookies that make your heart go pitter-patter.

Maybe if you make these you'll wax poetic about cookies too. 

Before I tell you what temperature to preheat your oven to, consider making this dough and letting it rest in the fridge for 6-24 hours.  Baking is tasty science; letting the dough rest gives it time to absorb everything and meld into a homogeneous mixture of cookie magic.  

If you're impatient like I am today and just want a damn cookie, preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

All the usual suspects:

2 cups+ 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt*

12 tablespoons(1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, MELTED**

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 whole egg, room temperature

1 egg yolk, room temperature 

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 bag(12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped, roasted nuts(I used walnuts)

1/3 cup chopped toffee pieces, this is the secret ingredient but it is also optional

*while table salt is best for baking because of the finer grind of it, I use kosher salt because I think it tastes "less salty" and then I just grind it finer with a mortar & pestle

**most chocolate chip cookies call for softened butter but using melted butter changes the recipe significantly. 

Ok, we can begin

Cream the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until light and fluffy

Creaming butter with sugar gives the dough a fluffy, soft, caramel-y base

It will start out dark and gritty 

You will have to cream this far longer than any other recipe will tell you to.  I ran my mixer for a solid 8-10 minutes to get the fluffy, light, smooth mixture I wanted.  The color will begin to lighten and will just about double in volume. 

Once it looks like this the sugars have dissolved into the butter and the butter has a lot of air incorporated into it.  

Butter+sugar+air=finer crumb, softer cookie

Add the eggs and vanilla, mix until again, fluffy

Beautiful.  

Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda 

Sifting=more air

Working in thirds stir/mix/fold in the dry ingredients

1/3:

Working gently and slowly mix in the first 1/3 of the flour mixture.  Do this slowly and gently as not to over mix or WORSE get it everywhere including your eyelashes, hair, floor, counter, light fixture, you get it. 

Add the next third, repeat mixing slowly

You get it, mix the last 1/3

Yay!  Nice and smooth, softly mixed. 

A+ Banann

Add the secret ingredient:

The toffee is completely optional, but listen to me when I tell you this bumps your cookies up to some next level kind of stuff.  The toffee will melt and become a nuance of caramel-y, malty, hmmm what is that?  Just try it.

Fold in the roasted nuts and chocolate chips

Fold GENTLY

Perfect.  If you choose to chill this overnight, cover with plastic and put in the fridge. 

If you like pretty much instant gratification, line 2(or 3) baking sheets with parchment paper

*I'm using one dark-ish aluminum sheet pan and one square "air bake" style sheet pan.  The differences here are the darker pan will absorb heat faster(thus lose heat faster) AND produce a darker bottom on the cookie.  The "air bake" pan is essentially 2 sheets on top of eachother with room for air inbetween.  It will absorb heat slower(and lose heat slower) and produce a lighter bottom on the cookie, you'll see.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees, if you haven't already

Using 2 tablespoons at a time roll the dough into equal size balls

Place them on the parchment lined sheets

Sheet 1: dark-ish aluminum 

Sheet 2(below): Air-bake

Using only 1 sheet at a time, bake on the lower-middle rack, turning half-way through baking time, bake for 15-20 minutes

They should look underdone and LIGHTLY browned when you remove them from the oven

Sheet 1, above

Sheet 2, below

Leave the cookies on the sheets for 10 minutes.  They will continue to cook on the hot trays.

Before we eat, let's compare 

Left: sheet 1

Right: sheet 2

Nice, right?

Look at me I'm just a regular old cookie-making DaVinci

Let's eat these bad boys

 

Braising Hell

  I, unapologetically, love braised meat.  I don't know how you couldn't love it.  Taking a "cheap" cut of meat and slowly simmering it in a silky broth until it's fall-off-the-bone-tender is the way straight to my heart.  Ok Annie, stop swooning over meat.

Let's get down to business;

This is braised chicken thighs with roasted garlic and mushrooms

What we have here is:

5 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs

1 small onion, diced

1/2 cup peas

4 medium white mushrooms, chopped roughly

2 heads garlic, roasted

1/4 cup flour, for dredging

1/4 cup white wine(mine is Pinot Grigio)

1 1/2 cups chicken stock

Parsley

A few sprigs of thyme

1 lemon

Salt

Pepper

*I contemplated using beer instead of wine, so if you prefer beer give it a go or maybe even hard cider. 

Season the chicken with salt and pepper, dredge lightly in the flour

*you could skip this step if you really want to, but the flour helps get the outside crispy and it will help thicken the sauce without having to make a roux

When the chicken is all coated, begin to heat a large pan/skillet/pot/whatever (as long as it has a lid) over medium-high heat and add 2-3 tablespoons of oil(olive, vegetable, whatever you normally use)

When the oil is hot add the chicken pieces skin side down

*Season this side if you haven't already

Let the chicken cook skin side down until GBD(remember? Golden, brown, & delicious). The chicken pieces will release from the pan in their own, if it's sticking don't force it, just let it brown.  Then, flip.

O.M.G. Hold the phone, that is serious GBD-ness

Ok, cook the chicken on the underside for 10-12 minutes and remove to another bowl

Add the diced onions to the pan and sauté.

Cook the onions until they begin to soften and add the mushrooms 

Cook the mushrooms with the onion until they become slightly soft and begin to release their own moisture, about 6-8 minutes.

Remove the onions and mushrooms from the pan and deglaze with the wine and squeeze half of the lemon

Oh look, an empty pan.  Exciting. 

While the wine is in the pan and bubbling away, use your cooking utensil to scrape up all the browned bits off the bottom of the pan.

Then reintroduce the chicken, onions, mushrooms to the pan, also add the roasted garlic

Zest a lemon

Add that to the pot, along with the thyme

Add the chicken stock about half way up the chicken pieces, don't completely cover the chicken.

*these look like the exact same picture, which is good because I didn't add too much stock as to disturb everything and have it floating in stock.  Good job, Annie.

Cover

Oh cool, a pot with a lid on it. 

Simmer this over low-medium heat for 30-40 minutes(depending on how big the thighs are)

You could also put this in the oven at 350 for 30-ish minutes, I used the stove because my range can be kind of a temperamental b-...witch when the stove and oven are both on. 

When the chicken pieces are cooked, add the peas and parsley

Do this just at the end so they don't over cook and get all mushy 

Squeeze the remaining half of the lemon over everything. 

Excuse the steam, it's a foods best garnish. 

Aaaaaannnnndddd serve.

I had it with a side of arugula and some crusty bread and it was perfect.  But it would be great with mashed potatoes or polenta or whatever you want, it's your dinner. 

Down With The Sickness

It got me.  The flu bug got me.  Call me a waaambulance.  I'm a firm believer in chicken soup as the cold/flu season cure all. 

So, I made some.

Note: I didn't add any noodles, dumplings, or whatever carb people like in their soup. This is because I wanted to keep this gluten free just in case my dear friends Ryan and Katie come down with sickness as well. 

Ok, back to the task at hand.

The hardware:

1 medium onion

4 celery stalks

3 carrots

2 parsnips 

Fresh dill*

Fresh parsley*

Bone-in, skin-on chicken**

Salt

Pepper

Water or chicken stock

I'm not listing measurements because it's soup and an exact amount of anything in soup is superfluous.

*you could use dried but I prefer fresh 

**I used "pick of the chick", which is 2 breasts, 2 thighs, 2 legs

Anyway,

Chop the vegetables

In a large pot add all the chicken, and some peppercorns(or not, it's soup) and cover with enough water to cover the chicken plus 1-2" 

Cook the chicken, then remove from the water, let it cool in a bowl. 

Oh so pretty...

Add the chopped vegetables to the cooking water

There are carrots in there, I promise. 

Remove the chicken from the bones

The chicken isn't cooked all the way through, I was being impatient.

Put the chicken in the pot with the vegetables

Throw in some pepper and salt

I added another 3 cups of chicken stock from the freezer, because I like a lot of broth. 

Continue to simmer until the vegetables and chicken are cooked

Chop the herbs

This is like 1/4 cup of chopped parsley and dill

Add it to the pot

Ahhhh I feel better already.

Stir in the herbs, taste for seasoning, add additional seasoning if needed. 

Pop in some Ninja Turtles and enjoy your soup

Hey, they don't call it "Jewish Penicillin" for no reason.