Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy.

The blog post perfectly describes these Lemon Squares.  They are super fast, super easy, and super delicious to boot.   These would be great on a cookie/candy tray delivered to your neighbors doorstep on Christmas Eve.  They’d be great to take to a cookie exchange.  They’d also be good for leaving out for Santa.  Heck…these little suckers would be good anywhere, anytime!  Let me show you how easy peasy these are.

First, you need to spray a 9×13 pan with cooking spray and line it with parchment paper.

Now grab a big bowl and dump in 1 cup oatmeal, 1 cup all purpose flour, 1 1/3 cups coconut, 1/2 cup packed brown sugar, 1 tsp baking powder, and 1/4 tsp salt.

Give it a good stir to get the dry ingredients combined.

Now, pop 3/4 cup of butter into the microwave until melted.  Pour into the dry ingredients.

Stir together until mixed well and press half the mixture into the prepared pan.

Now, in a seperate bowl (sorry…I know, I hate washing dishes too!) empty one can of sweetened condensed milk.  Add to that 1/2 cup of lemon juice.  I just used the bottled stuff…I was too lazy to juice that many lemons. Plus I was out.

Stir well and pour over mixture in pan.

Crumble the reamining half of the dry mixture over the top.

Bake this in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.  Let cool and cut into bars.

It doesn’t get much simpler than that.  And like I said.  Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy. 

Another 4 ingredient dessert… Key Lime Pie

I love anything and everything lime.  But my number one favorite is key lime pie.  I’ve made several different key lime pie recipes, and honestly, they were all good.  But this one is probably THE EASIEST to prepare.    I mean, come on…FOUR ingredients!  And that’s including the graham cracker pie shell! 

Well, here we go.  Here are the four simple ingredients you’ll need for this.  Sweetened Condensed milk, eggs, lime juice and a graham cracker pie shell.

Using an electric mixer, in a medium bowl, (or in your KitchenAid mixer bowl) combine 2 cups of sweetened condensed milk (which is about 1-1/2 cans), 6 egg yolks (I’ll show you what you can do with the whites tomorrow!), and 2/3 lime juice just until the ingredients are combined, don’t overbeat it.

Pour into the graham cracker shell…

Bake at 350° for 20 minutes or until the filling jiggles only slightly when shaken.  Cool until room temperature and then chill for several hours before garnishing and serving.

Of course, you can serve it as is, but if you want to pretty it up a bit, here’s what you can do…

Slice a lime into thin slices – get them as thin as possible.  Then pat them dry on paper towels.  Take a knife and cut from the center out to the rind on one side…

Whip some heavy cream to stiff peaks, and spoon it into a piping bag with a star tip — if you don’t have a piping bag, just make a cone out of some waxed paper, like I did here…

Go ahead and cut your pie into slices…I cut mine into eighths, because I like a nice hefty piece of pie!  Then, pipe a ‘rosette’ of whipped cream on each slice by just swirling the piping bag slightly while squeezing.  Then, take a slice of lime and twist it where you cut the slit – moving one side in one direction and the other side to the other direction.  Place on top of the rosette of whipped cream…

That’s it!  You’ve just made a professional looking garnish, easy peasy!

If that doesn’t make you want to head to the kitchen, I don’t know what would!  It’s simple.  It’s quick.  It’s DELICIOUS!!

Get Cookin’!

Fresh Fruit Turnovers

Oh.  My.  Goodness.  These things are the bomb-diggity!  They are similar to fried pies you might be familiar with (especially if your local…think Haney’s fried apple pies!), but they are baked, not fried.  I dare say they’re healthier than fried pies because of that…but with all the butter and cream cheese in the dough…I’m not so sure.  But who cares…they are divine!  I made two kinds…peach and cherry, because I had both that needed to be used before they went bad.  You could make these turnovers with pretty much any fruit though…I’d love to make some raspberry ones sometime.

So anyway,  let’s get started.  First you need to make the dough.  Start by adding the following to your food processor bowl:

1-1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp sugar

Now, cut one stick of butter into small cubes, and do the same with one  8 oz. block of cream cheese. 
Add the butter to the flour mixture…

And process for about 10 seconds to blend, until it looks like coarse crumbs.  Now, add the cream cheese chunks and pulse quickly about 25 times or until the dough forms a ‘ball’ in the bowl.  Dump that big wad of dough out onto waxed paper and knead it gently 2 or 3 times to bring it all together well.  

Flatten into about a 6 inch square, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least a half hour (or up to 2 days).

While the dough is chilling, prepare the filling.

If you are using something like peaches, you’ll need to chop your fruit.  If you’re using berries, just leave them whole.  Of course, for the cherries, I had to pit them…I don’t have a cherry pitter (but I’m now trying to find one!), so I just cut the cherries in half and scooped the pit out with a grapefruit spoon.  I left my cherries in halves, but next time, I’ll go ahead and quarter them, b/c the halves were a little too big.

So, chop up about 2 cup of  fruit and add the following to it:

2 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

1 tbsp cornstarch (or 2 tbsp flour)

1/4 tsp salt

Stir together…

Now, grab your dough from the fridge and roll it out.  At this point, decide whether you want to make half-moon shaped turnovers or triangle shaped turnovers.  If you want the half moons, just cut circles out of your dough (I didn’t have circle cutter the size I wanted, so I just used a plastic container!):

Or, if you want triangles, cut squares…

Place your cut out pieces on a baking sheet that has been sprayed with cooking spray.  Then spoon about 2 tbsp of fruit filling on HALF of the dough:

Now, make an egg wash with one egg yolk and 2 tbsp milk or cream.  Brush the egg wash along 2 edges of the dough (or along half the circle)…

I just use my finger for that…it’s just easier.  Then, fold the dough over…

Use a fork to press the edges together…

Then brush the egg wash over the entire turnover, and cut 2 or 3 slits in the top with a sharp knife.  Sprinkle a little sugar over the top.

Now bake the turnovers at 375 for about 25 minutes, or until they’re golden brown.  Remove them to wire racks and they’ll look something like this:

Now, make a glaze with about 1 cup powdered sugar and a few tablespoons of milk.  Just add milk until it’s a smooth drizzling consistency:

 

Mmm…I think I just put on another 5 pounds just looking at those! 

These will keep at room temperature in an airtight container for 2 days.  They will get a litte ’soggy’, but you can crisp them right back up by popping them in a 375 degree oven for a few minutes.

This recipe made  about 10 triangles and oh, about 6 or 8 small half moons.  We took them on a picnic down to Cumberland Falls…and only came back home with a couple!  Yes, they are THAT good!

I think they’d also be good with just some milk chocolate inside, or a cream cheese filling, or OOH, what about chopped apples with some caramel sauce.  Well, there went another two or three pounds on the ol’ hips!

Please don’t let the length of my post discourage you from trying these…they really aren’t difficult at all.  I just try to give you as many step by step photos as I can!