Pucker Up!

That's right.  Pucker up, for this fabulous recipe for Tangy Lemon Bars.  My friend Thea gave me this recipe.  I have made lemon bars a time or two before.  I love anything with lemon in it.  But lemon bars never turned out the way I wanted them to.  Not this time.  The whole thing is whipped up in the Cuisinart.  Starting with the dough.

This gets pressed into a 9 x 13 pan and baked.

The filling is made in same bowl, and no washing is necessary til the end.  Pop the bowl back onto Cuisinart, and make the filling.  Pour into cooled crust, and bake again.  Do you have a microplane?  I am a bit of a gadget lover, both for cooking and sewing.  I have so many gadgets and tools that I love.  This microplane is one of them.  Great for zesting citrus! 

And this gadget is a favorite of mine too.  My Mom got it for me.  It juices lemons down to the very last drop! 

Back to these delicious lemon bars.  After it is baked, it comes out of the oven with a slight crust to the top. 

Dust the top with powdered sugar. Slice when cool, and PUCKER UP. These are fantastic!  I hope you will try them.  Thank you Thea, for sharing this yummy recipe from your Georgia friend!  Here is the recipe:
                                                               Luscious Lemon Bars
Crust:
1 Cup Cold Butter
1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar
2 Cups Flour
Pinch Salt
Cut butter into cubes and toss into Cuisinart.  Add rest of dry ingredients, and pulse until mixture comes together and resembles peas.
Press into 9 x 13 baking pan and bake in 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes.  I took mine out at 18 minutes.
While cooling make the filling:
In same bowl:
4 Eggs
2 Cups Sugar
4 Tablespoons Flour
5-6 Tablespoons Lemon Juice ( I used 6 GENEROUS T of juice )
Zest of 2 lemons ( I zested 4 lemons, because I am a rebel like that )
Pinch of salt
Mix together, then pour over your cooled crust.  Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.  Top will form a crust.
Sprinkle powdered sugar over top.  Cut when cool.  Pucker up and ENJOY!!!

For dinner last night I made a Turkey Pot Pie.  This is so easy, and such a delicious meal.  Also makes a perfect dish to take to a shut in, or someone who is just home from hospital.  It also freezes very well.

Fresh & Easy had their cooked turkey breasts on sale for half off the other day.  I bought this one, and then cubed the whole thing.  Freezing what I didn't use for this meal, in three other separate bags, to use for future meals.  I cubed some turkey, minced 1/2 an onion, very small, cooked a few small potatoes in the micro for 10 mimutes, to cube and add to pie.  I used about 2/3 of this bag of mixed veggies.  I rolled out store bought pie dough and put into pie tin.  I use a large pie pan for this, with deep sides.  Cook two packages of either chicken or turkey gravy.  I had one of each, so used both, no problem.  Using a large bowl, combine your turkey, veggies, minced onion, and cubed potatoes.  Pour cooked gravy over this and mix to combine.  Season well with sea salt and fresh cracked pepper.  Pour into your prepared pie dish.

I don't know why I bothered to flute those edges, because you add a second crust to top this.  I roll the crust out to be a couple of inches larger than the pie pan diameter.  Then, using the rolling pin to roll your dough back up onto the pin, take the edge of the dough, and line it up, slightly overlapping the edge of the pin pan, and then using the rolling pin, just roll the dough off, onto the pie.

Take the overlapping dough that is hanging over the edges, and tuck it up underneath the edge of the pie crust on the bottom, and then flute the edges.  I also like to brush mine with some egg wash for nice sheen on the crust when it comes out of the oven.

 I cut slits in the top of the pie dough to allow steam to escape. 

Bake in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes.

Allow to set up for 5 minutes or so before cutting into it so that the contents holds shape when you cut.  Serve with a salad and you have dinner!

In other news here at my house, I have been wanting to do some machine quilting.  I have several quilt tops that have stacked up in my sewing room that need to be finished.  I am not a proficient machine quilter by any stretch of the imagination.  But I have done a simple meander on all of the wall hangings and runners I have made.  It takes a LOT of practice to get the correct ratio of hand movement to machine speed, to achieve nice even stitches.  I have a LONG way to go.  But I thought, why not practice by making up all of those small projects I have that are accumulating in my sewing room.  So I have been playing with my machine and got it all set up to do free motion quilting and after I took Noah to school yesterday I came home and got to it.  This runner is one that I made several years ago in a Thimbleberries series class that I took at my local quilt shop.  It has been hanging on my design wall forEVER.  Since it has hearts, I chose to do that one first.

Here I am attaching the binding with m walking foot.  Yes I take my camera everywhere with me.  Don't you?
This next photo, I was trying to take it of all of the machine settings so that if I ever allow a long time to go by between switching the settings for free motion quilting, I would remember where I put all of my dials.  But when I viewed it on my computer, I saw that the dials were all fuzzy, but the photo of Geeps and I that is sitting on the table was in perfect focus.  I thought that was kind of neat.

Here is the runner, or topper, all quilted, with binding attached, but not yet hand sewn down.  I will finish that today. 

One down, a bazillion to go.  Maybe by the time I get to the last ones, my machine quilting will be getting a bit more adventurous.  I did stitch a heart in the corner of this one.  And I found some quilts I had done for the grandkids when they were babies, and I had done their names and dates in cursive, and some echo quilting and simple shapes.  But I am rusty, and need to practice more.
It's Friday people!  Go out and make it a great day!   And have a wonderful weekend!!!
So, what have YOU been up to?????
PS  As I was making the pot pie, and pausing to take pictures, I got to thinking how much easier it would be be to do some videos of some of the cooking techniques that I talk about here on my blog.  Maybe that would be a great way to go for my some Cooking 101 online?  I will need to have Gennifer help to show me how to set that up.  I have a tripod, so it shouldn't be too difficult.  What do you think?  Cooking Class via video? 
XO  Kris