I still can’t believe how much I love these cocktails with a creamy foam created by egg whites. While I understand the chemistry behind the egg white + acid + simple syrup mixture, I still can’t get the drink names straight. Continue reading
As soon as we picked eggs as our ingredient of the season, I knew that I wanted to try out a few cocktails that include egg whites. These are recipes that I’ve seen all over the web, on fancy bar menus, and well-curated Instagram photos, but, there was no way that I could bring myself to taste one. Until now. Continue reading
There’s nothing I love more than the smell of lilacs in spring. Their fragrance is intoxicating.
Holy cow, I wish they would last longer in a vase. I’ve tried all sorts of tricks, but I have to admit that I think their fleeting season is partly to blame for my lilac love.
Today we’re pairing lilacs with lemons in this simple simply delicious cocktail. But I bet you’re wondering where potatoes come in? Vodka, my friend. Vodka.
With hot and humid days in the forecast, this Lemon Lemon Gin Fizz is the perfect refreshing drink for your holiday weekend. Trust us!
Why “lemon lemon”? Because the recipe contains lemongrass infused simple syrup in addition to the lemon juice typically found in a gin fizz.
The night before leaving for our big trip east, I roasted lamb shanks as a going away dinner. We were going to be away from Calder for about two weeks, and in just a few more days, Sarah’s off to Nepal! So something special was definitely in order.
Since we loved the creativity and flavor of the chicken with preserved lemons, Calder said we should just make that again (it was that good!). Instead, I decided to test another recipe from the Tagines & Couscous cookbook, and I’m so happy to report that we hit another home run!
Hands down, one of our favorite perks at the beach is the outdoor shower. We love it for clearing away the sand after a day at the beach, but we also love to bring sand INTO the shower in the form of scrubs. Today’s lemon, sugar, and sand scrub is the perfect zesty indulgence as we’re looking to make the most of these late summer days.
We arrived at the beach house to greek yogurt in the fridge, blueberries in the freezer, and lemons on the counter – right next to the empty popsicles molds. What were we to do but make some blueberry lemon yogurt popsicles?
If there’s one thing making this chicken with preserved lemons dish confirmed, it’s that Calder and I fall hard for main dishes with a mix strong flavors. For example, this dish calls for fresh and preserved lemons, fresh ginger, garlic, onions, olives, and cilantro (wow!). I would never dream of putting that many flavors together on my own, and I wouldn’t have the confidence to assume that they would go well with chicken. BUT when flipping through cookbooks, that’s just the sort of edgy combination that jumps out and gets me excited to try a new recipe. Such was the scene last week when I pulled our Tagines & Couscous cookbook off the shelf.
Stop. Do you know what a tagine (also spelled tajine) is? It was only in the past few years that I learned, and then we received a beautiful tagine as a wedding gift. A tagine is a piece of cookware from North Africa that’s made of clay and is sometimes glazed or painted. It’s made of two pieces, the bottom is flat with low sides, the top is cone-shaped. The top’s shape is meant to allow condensation to form and drip back down into the bottom of the dish. While tagines are traditionally used to cook over hot coals, they can also be used on traditional stovetops and in the ovens.
Funny thing – ours is so beautiful that I still haven’t gotten up the courage to actually use it. I’m scared it’ll break! Luckily, even if you don’t have a tagine, you can still make many of the recipes that call for them using a heavy-bottomed pot, like a dutch oven. That’s what I did for this dish.
Lemon cream popsicles : just three ingredients and you’ll create a popsicle that’s equal parts tart, sweet, and deliciously creamy. I’ve been trying for days, but I can’t quite figure out how to explain these. They’re creamy like a lemon custard, but airy, like whipped cream. Maybe lemon mousse? Try licking whipped cream off of the slice of a lemon. That’s what this is (sort of).
I got the idea for these after reading The Merrythought’s post on Brazilian Limeade Popsicles.Loving desserts that blend citrus and cream (orange sherbet & vanilla ice cream, key lime pie), I was immediately intrigued and thought it would be fun to make a version that uses lemons. Subbing the limes for lemons, produces the recipe as I wrote it below, which just contains milk, sweetened condensed milk, and lemons. That’s it! And there’s no cooking involved, just blend, strain, and freeze….
At this point are you thinking about the lemon juice and milk combination? Won’t you just end up with curdled milk? That’s what I wondered, but amazingly surprisingly, it just works! Calder says it’s because you’re using cold milk. Maybe that’s the case, but I’m incredulous, I think there’s something else going on here, I just don’t know what it is.
Ingredients
Instructions
A note about our popsicle molds : we love them! We have both the mini pops and the classic molds. The mini pops are the perfect size for kids and for small treats for adults (each pop is less than an ounce). Those are made from silicone and it’s so easy to remove each pop without having to run them under water (the silicone sleeve turns inside out as you’re pulling out the pop) . The classic molds produce large/average-sized pops. These aren’t made from silicone, but you can remove each pop with its plastic sleeve from the large holder. This makes it easy to grab just one pop at a time to run under hot water, or to carry a bunch at a time as you deliver them to your guests on the deck. Zoku. I’m having so much fun making popsicles this summer that now I want to collect all of the Zoku holders (rocket ships! sea life!). I’m obsessed, but really just because they are such high quality molds that are well designed.
Luckily for me, I live with a little popsicle monster. If he had his way, he’d have them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I have to admit, as the supply dwindles, I love planning what the next batch will be. Strangely enough, he calls every one a “watermelon pop” because that’s the first flavor he ever had!
Since our wedding was such a relaxing, picnic-on-the-farm affair, it would have seemed out of character to serve a traditional, multi-layered cake. Plus, there’s no way that Calder and I could decide on just one flavor! Instead, my mom made three different cakes for the reception, my favorite carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting for Calder, and a delicious almond cake with buttercream frosting and lemon and orange curds between the layers. All three were amazing, and it was nice to be able to offer guests options for their dessert.
Our sister, Kristin, made the citrus curds for the cakes, and they were perfect. Just the right consistency and with that bit of tart flavor that paired so well and added a bit of interest to the white cake and buttercream. I asked her what her secret was, and her response : Martha.
Even though I can go through a jar of Trader Joe’s lemon curd in no time, I’ve never tried making my own, assuming that it was fussy and would require too much precision or time (funny since I’m always itching to work on my macarons). But, with lemons as our ingredient of the season, I knew it was time to make a batch, and to my surprise, it couldn’t have been easier!
Following Kristin’s lead, I turned to Martha and made this version (reprinted below). You’ll see that this makes a fairly small batch, which is perfect if you’re the only one eating it in your house, but as far as I can tell, the recipe easily doubles. Kristin sent me a recipe from Martha that was exactly double this one. Although, search “Martha Stewart lemon curd”, and you’ll come up with a number of variations. This recipe’s size is more than double the one I’m sharing, and it includes salt, which would be a nice addition to the recipe below. This recipe is the exact same size as the one I just linked to, but here she has you add the butter to the saucepan while it’s cooking (something that the other recipes did not do). There seems to be some flexibility in both the proportion of the ingredients and the technique used to make it.
Bottom line : don’t stress and just make a batch.
Ingredients
Instructions
Want to make orange curd? Just substitute the lemon juice and zest for orange juice and zest, and you’re welcome to use bottled orange juice.
If you’ve never had lemon curd before, it has a sweet and tart lemon flavor and the consistency of a really thick pudding (I think that’s the best way to describe it?). I like to spread my lemon curd over toast with butter, but it’s commonly used in a variety of desserts. You could put it between the layers of a cake as we did for the wedding. Use it to fill a tart shell. Serve a dollop over ice cream. Stir it into some cottage cheese for a mid-day snack. Eat it by the spoonful.
