Lemon Curd & Earl Grey Shortbread Tart

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Lemon Curd & Earl Grey Shortbread Tart

Invite me over for dinner and I’ll generously offer to bring dessert.  I’ll pretend baking is a completely selfless act, something simply to show my appreciation and gratitude.  Little do you know, I’m really just looking for a reason to try out a new concoction that fits my favorite ingredients neatly into a cake, pie, or tart and your dinner invitation was the green light go-ahead I’d been  waiting for.

My latest “selfless act” of dessert was this tart I brought to Easter dinner.  It’s an Earl Grey tea infused shortbread crust, filled with lemon curd, and topped with tangy whipped cream.  It’s your afternoon tea with lemon and a side of cookies all rolled into one tart.

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How to Make Lemon Curd

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Lemon Curd Recipe

Do you ever teach yourself how to make something new and as soon as you finish, slap yourself on the forehead and wonder why you haven’t been making it for years?

I do quite often.

This time around it was homemade lemon curd.  I’d never given lemon curd much thought, but I had an itch to make some sort of lemony shortbread dessert so I figured out how to make it.  It was so easy and the results were so much better than I imagined that I’m now having a hard time thinking about a refrigerator void of a bowl of lemon curd.

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Pea, Ricotta & Prosciutto Crostini

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Pea, Ricotta & Prosciutto Crostini
Recently, I was trying to organize my recipe index here on the site.  In doing so, I realized 2 things:

1. I’m hardly better at organizing my online recipes than I am at organizing the hand-written and clipped from magazines/newspaper recipes that you’ll find strewn about my house.  My index was/still is kind of a mess.  And,

2. I’ve hardly shared any appetizer recipes on my website!

Disorganization–duh, that was a given.  Ask anyone who has ever lived with me; I am the slobbiest slobs. But only a handful of appetizers in 6 months time?  That came as a shock.  That’s not right.  In my household of 2, we’re just as likely to have a plateful of crostini with a bottle of wine on the couch for dinner, as we are to dine on roast chicken and potatoes at the table.  Normally, this is a last minute, late night affair which is why it never makes the blog.  I bring home a baguette from the restaurant, slice it up, toast it, and root around the refrigerator until I find something I can transform into a topping.  My other half is in charge of what he does best–opening the wine.

This batch of crostini was pre-meditated though, and I dare say, share-worthy.  They’re topped with fork-smashed peas, prosciutto ham, and creamy ricotta cheese.  They scream spring (!), are easy to make, light enough to precede a meal, and, if eaten by the half dozen, tasty enough to be the meal.

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Carrot & Quinoa Salad with Roasted Cannellini Beans

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Carrot & Quinoa Salad with Roasted Cannellini Beans

I’m sure you know the feeling.

It’s halfway through the afternoon.  You’ve been out and about all morning, running errands.  You get home and you realize you’re beyond famished.  You’re on the verge of completely losing your mind to hunger.  You open the refrigerator door and slap your forehead.

D’oh!  Grocery shopping probably should have been on the morning to-do list.  There’s nothing here. Nothing, nothing, nothing.  No bread, nothing green.  Not even eggs or milk.  Oh, crud.

So what do you eat when there’s nothing to eat?  Don’t say the box of chocolates you have stashed away. You don’t want this day to end in self-regret or a massive belly ache.  We’ve got to do better than that.

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Almond, Hazelnut & Fig Granola

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Almond, Fig & Hazelnut GranolaIt’s hard for me to post a recipe for granola without thinking back on the first granola recipe I shared.

It was a disaster.  Tragic, even.

There was nothing wrong with the granola.  No, that was great: full of sweet spices, dried apricots, and candied ginger.  No, I was the disaster.  I had just launched my blog and was feeling this very strange pressure to get myself out in the world at lightning speed.  It was suddenly incredibly important to make the world’s best granola, photograph the whole process, write something über-charming about it, and release it to my 2-person fan base, asap.  I thought there was a lot riding on pressing “publish” before I ran out the door to work.  My kitchen was a mess and I was tripping over my dog and dirty dishes, with a toothbrush hanging out of my mouth, when the unspeakable happened.

I dropped my camera.  I watched it plummet from the counter all the way down to the floor.  It replays in slow-motion every time I enter the kitchen armed with my camera, the tipping off the edge of the counter, my dramatic dive across the room, the loud, echoing thud of it hitting the ground.  I remember thinking, maybe it’s fine, maybe, please, please, please.  Of course, it was not, and I sat on the grimy kitchen floor, cradling my camera with its jammed lens, cursing myself.

Thankfully, my blogging style has grown up a little since then.  I now realize that creating, photographing, and writing a recipe can’t happen in the 45 minutes before you need to get your butt to your real job. Also, bad things happen way more frequently when you’re a complete mess.  You’ve got to keep up with the dishes and you’ve got to shoo your dog out of the kitchen.  And the toothbrush?  Girl, you’ve just got to get yourself together.

In honor of my blog growing up, I have what feels like a very adult granola recipe to share with you.  It’s an extra crunchy granola, flecked with flax seeds, rosemary, and quinoa, loaded with hazelnuts, almonds, and dried figs.  It is every bit as delicious as the first granola I shared with you and I went through a heck of a lot less heartbreak to get it onto the blog.

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