I’ve had these on my mind for awhile. The perfect marriage of tart & tart, lemon and rhubarb were made for each other. All you need to do here is chop fresh rhubarb (fairly finely, or at least not in enormous chunks – go for the size you might cut celery to add to a salad) and scatter it over a baked shortbread base before pouring the lemon filling on top. Those thin red stalks of tender rhubarb are perfect here.
My standard shortbread base has half the butter of a traditional one – generally it’s 1/2 cup butter to 1 cup flour, and I use 1/4 cup butter to a scant cup of flour. (It’s easy and almost instantaneous in a food processor.) The result is a crumbly mixture that doesn’t appear to be moist enough to work, but pat it into the pan and it totally does.
It will crack a bit as it bakes – that’s OK. You won’t notice one bit once the filling is poured overtop. And that trimming of just 1/4 cup of butter equals about 44 grams of fat and 400 calories. So why not? You’ll never notice the difference.
I cut these while they were still a little warm – everyone was outside waiting for dessert. The secret to cutting gooey, sticky-filled bars like this cleanly? Freeze them first. Then flip them out of their 8″x8″ pan onto a cutting board and cut into neat squares or bars. Set them on a serving tray and they’ll thaw in about 20 minutes. Everyone will ask you how you cut your bars so cleanly.
Rhubarb Lemon Bars
Base:
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 scant cup all-purpose or whole wheat flour
pinch salt
Topping:
1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
pinch salt
2 large eggs
grated zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1 lemon (about 3 Tbsp.)
1 1/2 cups fairly finely chopped fresh or frozen rhubarb
icing sugar for sprinkling
Preheat oven to 350°F.
In a medium bowl, stir together the butter and sugar until creamy. Add flour and salt and stir until well combined and crumbly.
Press into the bottom of an 8” x 8” pan that has been sprayed with nonstick spray. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until just barely golden around the edges.
In the same bowl (no need to wash it), combine the sugar, flour, baking powder and salt. Add eggs, lemon zest and lemon juice and stir until well blended and smooth.
Sprinkle the rhubarb evenly over the base, and pour the lemon filling over top. Bake for 30 minutes, or until golden and set. Cool completely in the pan on a wire rack before cutting or freezing. Cut into squares or bars, and sprinkle with icing sugar before serving.
Makes 12 bars or 16 squares.
I’ve decided to share a few links to rhubarby things that have been inspiring me lately. If you’re looking for inspiration for your ginormous rhubarb plant, or that healthy, ruby-red one down the alley your neighbours seem to be neglecting, Gwendolyn has some pretty tasty looking rhubarb pudding cakes, Tara has a lovely rhubarb story, and Simple Bites served up a rhubarb upside-down cake.
And Lottie + Doof have an absolutely heart-stopping rhubarb raspberry crostata that has just shot to the top of my must-make list.
July 03 2011 | cookies & squares | 19 Comments »
Right, we snuck off to Disneyland. I meant to check in and report from there, but it seems I haven’t yet learned that I don’t get any work done when I go away. Especially when there are just under 48 hours to take in Disneyland with 5 and 8 year old boys. We were too busy having a blast. By the time we maxed out our days and nights and collapsed into bed at 11 or so (midnight our time) there was no way I could keep myself awake to check in here. I tried. I did not succeed.
Besides, this time it was all about paying attention to the boys and not being distracted by my laptop. W has in recent weeks gently but firmly removed it from my lap and closed it in an attempt to get my full and undivided attention. He has begun eye rolling. And growing up. And I’m feeling guilty about not spending as much time having fun as I should before he transforms into a sweaty teenager with dwindling interest in hanging with me. I can see it coming.
I wanted to demonstrate I could be fun too. Mike’s fun. He plays Star Wars and knows all the characters. He plays Lego and doesn’t have to feign enthusiasm. I had fun envy. What better place to get away and play? To be honest, I expected to tolerate Disneyland for the sake of the boys.
I loved it. I really did. It was so much fun. My cheeks hurt from smiling.
My last time in Disneyland I was about 12. We figured at some point as parents it was mandatory to go back. Much of it was just as I remembered, not even crumbling and weathered (like me!). Some were revamped – the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse (I loved as a kid) is now the Tarzan Treehouse. I remember climbing it with my mom and dad, and he excitedly pointing out details and referencing the book we had read together. Crazy to be the parent telling the boys not to run on the rope bridge.
I’m not sure how they do it. But Disneyland is not hot and crowded and midway-ish. There’s lots of green, and tons of shade, and not a bit of trash. It’s somehow spotless. We discovered fresh rosemary, sage and thyme growing in neat rows between the rides in Tomorrowland. Although there was no shortage of people, we never had trouble finding somewhere to sit down that was comfortable and shady. And somehow never felt boxed in or crowded. No one was rowdy or loud or obnoxious. How can you be at Disneyland? It’s like reverting back to childhood, and knowing Santa’s watching.
We stayed at the Grand Californian Resort, right at Disneyland park. Which I could not recommend more highly. When there’s so much to see and do, there is nothing like being able to take a break and jump in the pool or have a lie down in the afternoon, when it gets hotter and busier. The two mornings we were there we got up and dressed and were down at the park in about ten minutes. It was cool and empty, and we walked right on to Pirates of the Carribean and Indiana Jones, both of which the boys had been anticipating for weeks. By afternoon we could pop back into the hotel to change or take a load off. After watching the evening shows – World of Color and Fantasmic!
And the food! Not a deep fryer in sight. No deep-fried midway shock food, like deep fried Coke, or Oreos, or Mars Bars. There were fresh fruit carts everywhere. I did not see a chicken nugget, but I did see grilled chicken satay, and kabobs, and interesting grainy salads. For lunch the day I started writing this post we had rice bowls – the boys’ with Teriyaki chicken, ours with spicy Korean beef – both came with fresh pea pods, peppers, bok choy and other veg, with a side of steamed edamame, in their pods, with coarse salt. The times they are a-changin’.
The Stampede could learn a thing about midway food from Disneyland.
Our first dinner was at Napa Rose, in the Californian Resort. Stunning. Truly.
The kids’ menu had prime rib, with real mashed potatoes and steamed green beans. Nary a nugget.
It was a gorgeous restaurant, yet being at Disneyland, more than kid friendly. They celebrated kids by offering them their own selection of real food – the same food the grown-ups were enjoying – with white linens and china. I like exposing the boys to this kind of dining experience without feeling like everyone is giving me the eyeball for bringing kids into that sort of a restaurant.
They have an open kitchen, and impressive wine cellar. And an even more impressive breadbasket. I may have missed out on photographing it entirely in my rush to try each type of bread before it was devoured. This -right here? Is what we ate AT DISNEYLAND.
The Asian-style greens with tempura lobster? Never had a salad like it. So working on recreating this somehow. Otherwise I may have to make a pilgrimage back for another.
There were also some fantastic restaurants at Downtown Disney, which reminded me of some idyllic movie-set downtown, impeccably clean, well-lit, warm and breezy, and everyone’s happy. I half expected everyone to know my name. Wait, that’s Cheers.
Back out in Disneyland Proper it wasn’t all fruit stands – there was ice cream (a great parlor, with white moustached gentlemen in red and white striped vests behind the counter) and candy apples and cotton candy, so there great chocolate shops, so there was no missing out on treats. There was a great bakery that sold fantastic coffee, sandwiches and cinnamon buns. There just didn’t seem to be any junk – no deep fryer haze settled over the grounds like a greasy cloud. As W put it: “wow, all your dreams really do come true at Disneyland!”
July 02 2011 | eating out | 11 Comments »
Happy belated Canada Day! It was too late to post last night, after the fireworks, a crazy fun Canada Day party (which looked very much like last year’s, minus all that gardening) and emceeing the festivities at Fort Calgary. A long, fun day.
And really, it doesn’t have to be Canada Day to make strawberry-rhubarb cobbler in jars. (Or individual ramekins – anything oven-proof.) Or plum cobbler, peach cobbler, raspberry-blackberry cobbler – ’tis the season! All you need is fruit, sweetened or not, topped with drop biscuits and baked.
July 02 2011 | leftovers | 1 Comment »
