• Eye Spy

    into the woods

    into-the-woods


    I love this wedding invitation. It reminds me that I need to start planning my big 40th birthday bash that is supposedly happening in July. I had high hopes for a desert retreat for all my best girlfriends but I’m starting to think a campfire kumbiya might be more affordable than a spa day. Anybody have any great outdoorsy retreat ideas?

  • domesticity,  Lemon Week,  the sticks

    Lemon Week 2012

    home sweet home...tomorrow: lemon week

    I’m so pleased to announce that I will be blogging another Lemon Week! I figure I might as well squeeze as much out of those lemons as I can while I still live here! Ha ha. Pun intended. Anyway, I’ve got a couple new recipes and a couple of old ones and hopefully I can put something new up all week. We’ll see.

    You know what’s cool about Lemon Week around here? We’ve made such a big deal about it in the past that now my kid gets really excited about it. It’s like a festival in our own house. We even dress up for it:

    freshly showered and dressed for lemon week!

    Here I am freshly showered, in my lemon week shirt and full of enthusiasm (and coffee probably).

    My lemon week shirt.

    I even took an Instagram of my shirt I was so excited about the whole event.

    dressed for lemon week acessories

    Bug dressed up in her finery which included yellow and orange accessories. We were ready!

    da lemons!

    Bring on the lemons!

    Lemon Week: lemon bars!

    So first we made lemon bars which I’ve made a zillion times and blogged about. The recipe calls for extra zest so they are extra zingy and delicious. (faster more direct link) I love them. Swoon! Swoon! Swoon! I could eat them all day until I popped.

    freshly baked lemon loaf

    Then we made lemon loaf which is sort of like what they serve at Starbucks but without the hard candy icing on the top. It has a sugary lemon juice that you pour on top that I think is even yummier, personally. It’s my Great Grandma’s recipe.

    You’d like the recipe? Well let me share!

    Ingredients:

    • 2 cups of sugar
    • 1 1/2 sticks of melted butter
    • 4 eggs
    • 1 cup of milk
    • 3 cups of flour
    • 4 tsp baking powder (that seems like a lot to me but it tastes fine, shows you what I know)
    • 1 tsp salt
    • Grated rind of 2 lemons

    For glaze
    • Juice of 2 lemons
    • 1 1/2 tbs sugar

    Directions:

    1. Preheat oven to 355º F

    2. Mix sugar, butter, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, salt and lemon rind

    3. Pour into two loaf pans

    4. Bake for 45 minutes

    5. Mix together juice of two lemons and 1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar

    6. Pour lemon mixture over piping hot loaves and serve!

    zesting

    It’s a pretty simple recipe. I love that when I typed it up originally I typed “flower” instead of flour. I guess that means it was passed onto me a long time ago when I was even worse at spelling than I am now. Which I guess could technically be yesterday but I know it was a really long time ago because my great grandma died a long time ago and I’m pretty sure she passed it onto me when she was still alive. So I must have been a teenager or younger. I remember eating it in her little condominium kitchen at her little metal table with the aluminum sides. I remember that and the awful disgusting pepper slaw she always used to make. Funny how things like that stick with you.

    zested, juiced

    Anyway, it was fun to make and think about her making this back in the olden days. I wasn’t super fond of her in her last days. She was a crotchety old bitter woman but here and there I see clues that she had a kinder loving side. I think her lemon bread definitely spoke to that.

    lemon juice over the top

    Especially the lemon juice topping. I think you should all rush out and make some and then come back here and reminisce with me in the comments about your Grandma. Did she make lemon bread for you? Was it better than Starbucks?

    Tomorrow: Lemon Pickle! I’m so excited! You’re gonna LOVE it.