Happy Easter!

I didn't get to do much cooking over Christmas, so I wanted to make sure and show/tell you what I cooked/ate over Easter weekend. I started out with the assignment to make a "lemony cake" for the Easter potluck I was going to at church. After making lemon curd a couple of weeks back, I was grateful to stumble across thisrecipe, thanks to recipegirl.

I used my lemon curd, made the cake from scratch, and even whipped the cream myself! It was fun and the cake turned out SO well. I was a little nervous about it sitting in my car during church with the whipped cream on top, but it served up really well, although the texture got a bit weird, which I think you can kind of see in the photos.

Here it is sliced up.

Once it was sliced into, you could see the layers..... yum!

As you can tell, the whipped cream looked much better when it was still fresh from the fridge at my house.

Sink or swim? Swim! It was great that I already had homemade lemon curd (what are the odds?) for me to start from. It was super satisfying and creamy and lemony at the same time, and it got tons of complements. Way to go recipegirl!

Lemon Curd

I'm adverse to the word "curd." It brings to mind expired milk. Upon researching, wikipedia did not give any peek into the derivation of the word curd in the sense of fruit curd.

If you are put off by the word curd, just look at this picture.

Yuuuum.

If you've never had lemon curd, it tastes similar to the center of a lemon bar, or the filling of a lemon pie. It's cream, thick, and super lemony. I found a recipe in Rachel Ray magazine last fall, and only recently pulled it out to make. As I'm on spring break, I've had lots of extra time to do some cooking, so I thought it would be fun to do some seasonal cooking since my favorite season is upon us. What says spring more than crisp, fresh lemon?

Fruit curd is essentially egg yolk, sugar, butter, and fruit juice/zest. Ummm....yes to all of those things, please.

Essentially you take a saucepan, mix together sugar, egg yolk (and some whites), butter, and a ton of juice and zest. My recipe called for 1 cup (about 6 lemons' worth) of juice and 1/4 c (about 3 lemons' worth) of zest.

Here's the middle of the juicing process.

Lots of juicing.

And lots of zesting.

My first try ended up a little soupy, but the flavor was amazing! Here's some more photos-

Lemon Curd is great on cookies, stirred into yogurt, on ice cream, possibilities are endless. Think of it like caramel, except it tastes spring-y.

Sink or swim? Sink on the consistency, swim on the flavor. Happy spring, cats and kittens!

Cayenne Caramel Corn

Over the last week I've been anticipating fall in a big way. I've been drinking pumpkin-spice lattes, listening to Sarah McLachan's Christmas album, and counting down the days until fall starts. It's been rainy and I can pretend like the weather is cold(er). I LOVE fall cooking. The flavors and spices are unique, comforting, and make me so happy!

Last weekend Sarah and I whipped up a batch of honey-butter popcorn after a long, rainy day at the Dallas Zoo. This started me on a week-long popcorn binge. Caramel popcorn ensued at 6:00 Tuesday morning to take to bible study after work. Then I had some people over for an impromptu viewing of the premiere of The Office and realized 10 minutes before they showed up that I should probably provide a snack. So I whipped up some more caramel corn. This time I had a moment of pure inspiration. I promise, it was like my hand just reached into the cabinet, and when it came out it was holding-

Cayenne pepper.

The result of this recipe was a sweet, slightly spicy, fallish delight, thanks to the cayenne and a host of other fall spices. If you think making caramel popcorn is very very difficult or are incredibly impressed by homemade caramel corn, be prepared to add it to your list of foods to try. I promise you, it's really simple.

For the popcorn:

1/2 c unpopped popcorn kernels

2-3 T vegetable oil

For the caramel:

1/2 c butter (1 stick)

1 c brown sugar

1/2 t cayenne pepper

1/4 t nutmeg

1 t cinnamon

1/2 t baking soda

1 t salt

Begin by heating the oil in a large pot. Add 1 kernel of popcorn and when it pops, add all of the kernels. Put the lid on and shake the pot vigorously until all of the popcorn is popped. Remove the popcorn immediately into a 13x9 cake pan, or a cookie sheet with a big lip on it.

The caramel is really easy. Melt the butter in a small pot and add the brown sugar over medium/low heat. Whisk them together until they are well mixed and then allow it to heat for about 5 minutes without stirring. It will get puffy and bubbly. After it gets nice and puffy, give it a stir and add in the cayenne, nutmeg, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. (The baking soda is what gives it that creamy-ness.) Mix it all together well and pull it from the heat.

Drizzle the caramel over the popcorn and stir it all up so that all of the kernels of popcorn are well coated. Put it into a 300 degree oven for about 10 minutes. This allows it to get crispy on the outside, rather than just be a soft coating. Take it out after about ten minutes and spread it out into one layer on a counter on some wax or parchment paper. Let it cool and harden the rest of the way.

The balance of sweet caramel and cayenne is just enough to be sweet at first and the hit you with that slight tingle of cayenne at the end. Fall officially starts on Tuesday, so start looking for many more fall recipes!

Sink or swim? Swim, but with room for improvement as I perfect this recipe.

Strawberry-Oatmeal Bars

I know six people moving in the month of July.

Yes, six.

I'm not really sure why they all wanted to move when it was 8 million degrees outside, but more power to them. Way to sweat out those toxins!

Two of these six were victims of one of my baking moods last week, which resulted in 3 recipes I'd never made before. I'm posting the best now, with hopes of getting around to the others at some point.

Strawberry-Oatmeal Bars

1 c flour

1 c oats (I used Irish Steel-Cut Oats)

1/2 c brown sugar

1/4 t baking soda

1/2 t cinnamon

1/2 t nutmeg (I LOVE fresh ground)

1/2 c butter

For Strawberry Filling:

1 1/2 c sliced fresh strawberries

1/8 c water

1/2 c sugar

Put all ingredients for strawberry filling in small pot and bring to boil, let simmer until thickened, about 25-30 minutes. It should look like jam. (I put it in the freezer for a bit to get it cooled and thick quicker.) If you don't feel like making the filling, you can just slap some jelly in there, but then you don't have the satisfaction of saying you made the filling from scratch.

Meanwhile, mix flour, oats, sugar, soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg together. Cut in the butter until it makes coarse crumbs. Press into a Pam'd 9x9 square pan until it makes a crust, reserving 1/2 c of mixture. When the strawberry filling is thick, pour on top of the crust, then sprinkle with the reserved crumbs. Bake at 350 for about 20-25 minutes.

These turned out SOOOOO good! The spices made it really great. I tossed them in on impulse, and to tell the truth, I put a bit of cinnamon in with the strawberries while they were simmering too. The filling would also be really good with any fruit: apples, cranberries, blueberries, raspberries, whatever you can think up. It was kind of like a fruit crumble, but in bar form.

I hope Brian and Julie and Rachael, Amy, and Emily all enjoyed the goodies. The best thing about cooking when you're single is having someone to cook for. =D

Sink or Swim? Swim, for sure!