Zesty lemon bars

After two weeks of room service, conference carbs, and some admittedly excellent restaurant meals, it's good to get back to home cooking. Well, sort of. My cooking muscle has somewhat atrophied during our time away, resulting in Thai take-out the night we got back, faux spag bol the following evening, and me begging PJ to make his lovely veggie stew yesterday. Given that he is incapable of cooking less than a vat of this wonderful stuff, we have leftovers for dinner this evening -- to be eaten with mini roast potatoes and roast broccoli while watching Top Gear. Perfect.

However, I need to get back into the kitchen, and what better way than to try out a new piece of equipment. Yes, we might be moving soon and yes, that means that every new purchase comes with an additional 50 euro moving cost, but I couldn't resist this when I visited mecca -- Crate & Barrel.



For the uninitiated -- i.e., English and Dutch -- among you, this is a pastry blender. I've read about this implement for years in my US baking books but have never known what one looked like. So when I saw this on offer for 9 bucks, I knew I had to have it, along with a very cute lemon juicer. What I needed next was a recipe that would allow me to use both, preferably for something cookie-like. Consulting my trusty array of US cookbooks, I came across a recipe for Zesty Lemon Bars in the San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook. Not only did they need lots of lemon juice, but they also required you to cut butter into flour and icing sugar to make the crust. Bingo!

This is a pretty nifty tool; it made short work of the butter, and I won't be picking up bits of pastry from under my fingernails for the next few days. I think we have a winner.



And this is how it all turned out: not quite lemony enough for my tastes, despite doubling the amount of lemon juice and zest in the recipe, but then I do like things to be sour to the point of tear-inducing. However, they are a very definite burst of sunshine on a grey day and the crust is fantastic.