Wednesday, April 14, 2010

PW's Creamy Lemon Crumb Squares

This is the second time I have done this post. Yesterday I spent an hour and a half loading pictures, making sure they are in the right order, and then typing the text to go along with each picture. I previewed the post to make sure everything was spelled correctly and I was very happy with the result. I published the post to the blog. But when I went to view the blog, right away I realized........it's the wrong blog!!!
All that time and effort; I was not happy any more. So here I am, starting all over again. This time I made sure it was the right blog.
Rachel is helping me with this recipe. She is happy to help me. I guess when we're making dessert any of the kids would be happy to help me.
She starts with 1 stick of slightly softened butter and 1 cup lightly packed brown sugar.
We take turns mixing them together.--
In a seperate bowl, Rachel sifted together 1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 tsp salt and 1 tsp baking powder.

She adds 1 cup oats to the butter and brown sugar....



...and stirs to combine.




Next comes the sifted flour mixture. The recipe says to add the oats and flour together, then stir. But I decided it would be easier for her to stir with one at a time.



This is the fun part for kids, I think. Mixing with the hands. (Clean hands.)
By mixing with her hands, she was able to distribute everything more evenly.







Once the mixture is well combined, I put half in a 13x9 baking dish. The recipe calls for a slightly smaller pan, 11x8, but I don't have one that size. We both press down the mixture.






Nest comes the "creamy lemon" part.
In a bowl, mix together 1 (14 oz.) can of sweetened condensed milk, 1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice and..............








.........the zest of one lemon.
That was no easy task for Rachel. She tried and tried but only managed a little bit of zest.




Scott wanted to give it a try.


He produced more zest but Rachel, not willing to give up, wanted to try again. She got better results for sure but I ended up taking over to finish.





I poured the lemon mixture on the first layer and carefully spread it around. Rachel and I used our hands to sprinkle the remaining crumbs over the lemon mixture. Bake at 350 for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown. Now, the recipe directions say to cool for 30 minutes after baking, then cut into squares and refrigerate for a couple of hours or until cool. However I did not wait that long. It was already 8:30 on a school night so we went ahead and served it hot. It does hold together better when its cool but it tastes good either way. My husband added whipped cream to his so of course the kids had to have some too.





Rachel is very pleased with her dessert. I thought it tasted good and the kids liked it too but I think they prefer cookies, cakes or ice cream. It was fun to try.














Friday, April 2, 2010

Moose Burgers

Two posts in one week; shocking, I know.
For tonights dinner we made moose burgers. Its not as easy to make hamburgers with moose meat like it is with ground beef. Ground moose does not have as much fat as beef so it falls apart easily. My husband's solution is to cook the patties in vegetable oil, which I don't really like. We did find another way to hold the meat together that is tasty and preferable to the oil.
We were watching PBS's, CREATE one night and the program that was on was BBQ University. The host was showing three different ways to prepare and cook hamburgers. Only one way caught our attention and that is to mix shredded cheddar cheese in the groung meat.
This is what I have Emma doing here. She is shredding the cheese right into the meat.
In the frying pan I did add about a tablespoon of olive oil.
I taught her how to make the patties with her hands and to carefully place the patty in the pan.
Can you see the cheese?
The tricky part is to flip the patty without getting splashed with hot olive oil. Emma wrapped a towel around her hand and arm so that she would not get splashed.

Abandoned!! Emma's friend came over to play and I was left to finish dinner by myself.


I buttered (butter spread) the potato-bread hamburger buns and toasted them in a pan.
The patties are a little small. Next time I need to thaw more meat.


Here is my burger. I added sauted mushrooms to mine.
It doesn't matter what kind of meat you use, I think mixing shredded cheese in the meat is different and delicious. We like to add an extre slice of cheese to the burger. We love cheese.