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Golden brown on top.
Then a spongy cakey layer.
Then a gooey lemony layer.
And crust too.

This pie is definitely a family favorite, and the recipe has been passed down for several generations (on my mom’s side).

Here is the original recipe, as written in my Grandma’s Cookbook:

Line a pie pan with crust. Take butter the size of a walnut, cream with 1 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon flour. Separate 2 eggs. Beat yolks and add to dry ingredients. Add 1 cup sweet milk and stir up well. Grate the rind of a lemon, add juice of 1 lemon, stir into liquid. Lightly fold in beaten egg whites. Pour into crust and bake in a moderate oven. Bake until nicely brown on top and fluffed up.

Needless to say, this pie never comes out quite the same. Each time I make it, I try to figure out what I did right or what I did wrong, hoping it will come out better the next time.

Once I used too moderate of an oven, or maybe just didn’t let it cook long enough. I brought it to my friend Jenn becuase I know she likes lemon treats… and sadly when we cut through the cake layer, the rest of the pie oozed all over the place. It was still totally edible, we just needed spoons instead of forks Now I know, “moderate” is your basic 350 degree oven.

The part of the recipe my family always jokes about it the butter measurement: the size of a walnut. Not that it is an exact science… but what kind of walnut are we talking about?! Surely walnuts 100 years ago were smaller than the walnuts of today. We’ve come to the agreement that a tablespoon is about the right amount of butter

And what to do with the egg whites? Beat them of course, but how long? I like beating them by hand with my big balloon wisk (my arms could use the exercise, and this pie has been made long before the electric mixers were an option anyway, so it can be done!). It’s probably easier to eyeball how stiff the whites are getting when you do it by hand too, I let them get to a stiff peak stage. It’s the folding in part that always makes me nervous. They make it look so easy on TV… I try my best to fold and not stir, and have accepted the fact the filling will look a bit lumpy.

This time, the pie did get “nicely brown,” hooray! Seems the pie needs about 45 minutes in the moderate oven. It is puffy looking when it comes out of the oven… and then un-puffs a little as it cools. Sometimes is pulls away from the side crust as it unpuffs, which makes me sad. But mom says that happened to Grandma when she cooked it too.

Whenever we get lemons from the neighbors, it’s almost a given that a Lemon Cake Pie is in the near future. So bright, delicious and, once you navigate through the recipe, comes together pretty easily (especially if you cheat and use a store bought crust… shhhh).

I definitely encourage you to try this recipe. If you do, let me know how it turns out!

NY Times No Knead Bread. Oh my goodness, it’s a long process. Pretty simple, but you can’t really speed it along. By the time it was done, you almost aren’t in the mood for bread anymore… almost. The end result looks like a great, high quality loaf of Artisan bread. But it just tasted ok. Not bad, but nothing so spectacular either. And the crust was too tough to eat… so we just threw chunks of crust to the dog, and she was very happy :p

Here are some photos from my bread making journey. (see Part I for recipe and actual instructions).

Mix the 3 ingredients together. I used a scale to measure the flour.
It’s supposed to look like a wet blob.

Let it sit for about 20 hours!
It will grow and you’ll see little air bubbles.

Dump blob on well floured work area.

Fold blob into thirds (envelope style).

Pick up (an interesting task) and fold edges under so it creates a dome/bubble structure of a blob. Place on a well floured tea towel (I used a cloth napkin) and cover with another cloth.

Let it sit for a couple more hours. It gets bigger!

Place/dump blob smooth side down into a Dutch oven.
Clean up the flour that flew all over the kitchen during the dumping process.

Put the lid on and stick it in the oven.
Isn’t my Le Creuset dutch oven the cutest thing ever! Love it

Take off the lid, bake it some more.

Remove from oven. Admire.

Remove from Le Creuset dutch oven. Yay bread!

And so concludes my bread making adventure, for now. Considering the ingredients cost less than $1, I just might try it again… maybe in a smaller pot next time around so the loaf will be taller.

If you try this recipe, let me know! If you have any tips to make it slightly more edible the next time around, let me know too

Don’t you want to be friends with someone who’ll make you some honey-chipotle glazed wings from scratch

This is the second batch, which came out better that the 1st… unfortunately my family filled up on the OK-first-batch so this one is now in the fridge.

I used a recipe from the new Food Network Show “Mexican Made Easy.” She made the process looks so easy, and her cookie sheet came out so pretty and yummy looking… I just had to try it.

Not that I am mad, per say, but that show LIES. Her pan came out of the oven looking fine, just fine… as in, no blackened chared glaze cemented to the bottom (luckily I lined the pan with foil). Also, the tv version came out looking dark and glazey… even with the basting 1/2 way through, the sauce didn’t really stick to the wings. Also, the skin didnt get nearly as crispy as she lead us to believe it would.

Overall, this was a decent meal. The sauce was pretty good, and I learned in the 2nd batch tossing in wings in reamining pan sauces makes a world of difference (something not suggested on the show). Another thing I’d do next time around: divide the sauce into separate containers. I probably used only 1/2 of the pan of sauce to baste the wings, but since the brush hit the raw chicken, I couldn’t save the rest Next time, after making the sauce, I’ll be sure to pour 1/2 into another dish to be saved for later use.

Or I could just bypass the whole sauce-on-raw-chicken step all together. My family is big on the standard (fried) type wing, and missed that crunch we’re used to. Frying is also superior because you can cook a lot in a little amount of time. I could only fit about 15 wings on a pan at a time, and cooking took 35-40 minutes (hence no one was interested in the 2nd batch by the time it came out of the oven). So now we know: Make sauce, fry wings, toss in sauce, devour wings

Sweet and Spicy Drumettes
Recipe courtesy Marcela Valladolid, 2009

Ingredients
Marinade:

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 cup honey
• 2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 2 tablespoons ground ancho chile* (or chipotle powder)
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 pounds chicken drumettes

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a small saucepan, add the butter and melt over medium-low heat. Stir in the honey, and cook until the mixture bubbles, about 3 minutes. Remove from the heat, and stir in the vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, pecans, ground ancho and garlic powder. Season the marinade, to taste, with salt and pepper.

Arrange the drumettes on a baking sheet, and brush each with the marinade. Bake until the chicken is cooked through, about 25 minutes. Baste once, halfway through baking time. Transfer to a serving platter and serve hot.

Recipe courtesy Marcela Valladolid, 2009
Show: Mexican Made Easy Episode: Great Game Day Grabs

A bulk bag of frozen Broccoli from our latest Sams Club adventure got put in fridge instead the freezer… not good. With pounds of broccoli needing to be eaten ASAP, I though making a batch of soup would be the best way to go. A quick google search brought me to this recipe on AllRecipes.com. Best Cream of Broccoli Soup it says… we shall see…

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons margarine
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 stalk celery, chopped
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 8 cups broccoli florets
• 3 tablespoons margarine
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 cups milk
• ground black pepper to taste

• I also added in garlic and salt

Directions

1. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in medium sized stock pot, and saute onion and celery (and garlic!) until tender.

2. Add broccoli and broth, cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Puree* soup and return to heat.

*Based on many of the recipes comments, I decided to not puree the soup, Instead, use a potato masher and mash it up. This leaves some big chunks of broccoli in the soup, which is fine by me Also, I probably used closer to 10 cups, just eye-balling it, lots of broccoli to use up and all

3. In small saucepan, over medium-heat melt 3 tablespoons butter.

P.S. Melted butter may be the best thing you will ever see and taste in a kitchen. Just sayin…

Stir in flour* ...

*I stirred in the flour and cooked it for a little bit before adding the milk. This gets rid of the “raw flour” taste

...and add milk. Stir until thick and bubbly…

...and add to soup. Season with pepper (and SALT) and serve.

Ta Da!

It was a little bland when I first tasted it… so moved the finished soup from the pot to our Croc Pot on low for about an hour or so. My family topped our bowls with grated cheese and bacon bits. Turned out pretty good, considering how easy it was to make. So I’ll be keeping the recipe on file, maybe tweeking it next time by adding more heat somehow or using cream in place of 1/2 the milk. Luckly, it’s turning into soup-making weather outside

A single serving of chocolate cake, made in 5 minutes w/o having to turn on the oven?? Sounds Fabulous. And wouldn’t a mug with a baggie of ingredients & recipe card attached make a creative Christmas gift for friends? My mom and I decided to try the recipe before investing the time and money in Holiday Mugs pounds of sugar and flour… which was one of the best decisions we have made. The following is possibly the worst thing every created in a kitchen trying to pass itself off as “cake” or “edible.” Oh, and as it cools, it turns into a brick. So, in your disappointment/rage at the so called chocolate cake, please do not throw it at a window or anyone you care about. Just sayin’.

5 Minute Chocolate Mug Cake
Here is the “recipe” that has been forwarded via email to all ends of the Earth, somehow making its way to me:

1 Coffee Mug
4 tablespoons flour (that’s plain flour, not self-rising)
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons baking cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional) some nuts (optional)
Small splash of vanilla

Directions
Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well.
Add the egg and mix thoroughly.
Pour in the milk and oil and mix well.
Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla, and mix again.
Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes on high.
The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don’t be alarmed!
Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.
EAT! (This can serve 2 if you want to share!)
And why is this the most dangerous cake recipe in the world?
Because now we are all only 5 minutes away from chocolate cake any time of the day or night.

I followed the directions exactly. You have to stir it because there are not a lot of liquid ingredients and all of the dry ingredients are at the bottom. You’ll end up with a think brown paste. Yum.

I figured it would probably turn out soufflé-like, since there was now realy levening ingredients included. Too bad those missing ingredients help make things light and airy; instead, I got a dense, rubber-ish, disastrous excuse for food. It also could have used a tad, say a pound, more sugar to make it taste a little less bland.

The presentation is a bit lacking too. PS “Tipping” it over on a plate makes it look even less appetizing.

You may see this recipe in your inbox. If you do, delete it immediately.
You have been warned.