citrus | strawberryplum

Lemon Curd & Earl Grey Shortbread Tart

April 2, 2013 | posted by Sarah | 4 Comments

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

April 1, 2013 | posted by Sarah | 2 Comments

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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Radicchio, Avocado & Hearts of Palm Salad

February 17, 2013 | posted by Sarah | 3 Comments

You’ve heard the old adage “failing to plan is planning to fail”, right? Gosh, feels like the story of my life.

I’ve been in this rut lately of going to the gym in the middle of the day, about the time normal people with well-planned, put-together lives would be eating lunch. I run a few miles, fueled only on coffee and maybe a cookie or 2, and then return home, a ravenous beast. Watch out, I’m going elbow deep in the granola, almonds are consumed by the handful, and my daily cookie count triples.

Hey, wait! I just did something good for my body. Why am I un-doing it as soon as I get home?

Because I fail to plan. Regularly.

No more! If I plan just a teeny-tiny bit, I can make a killer salad in 5 minutes, stuff my face with that and go about the rest of my day feeling proud instead of remorseful.

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Easy Preserved Lemon

January 2, 2013 | posted by Sarah | Leave a Comment

The holidays are over and it’s back to regular life. Real life. Mundane life. It’s time to tackle all those little projects that have been haunting you: the chipped paint, peeling caulk, the enormous pile of laundry.

Let’s start simple.

Let’s start with preserved lemon.

Why start with here? How are these for 2 good reasons?

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Chocolate-Dipped Orange Shortbread Cookies

December 16, 2012 | posted by Sarah | 3 Comments

Every December my mom turns into a Christmas baking machine. Everyday for a month she’s getting butter out to soften, firing up the oven, and cranking out cookies. There are peanut butter balls, fudge, jam turn-overs, bittersweet chocolate and coconut shortbread, cherry bars, buttery cut-outs, snowballs, thumbprint cookies, and on and on.

It’s pretty amazing. It’s also a ton of work, lots of trips to the baking aisle of the supermarket, plenty of yelling at cookie dough-snitching kids/dogs/husbands, a few miscellaneous melt-downs along the way.

There is another way though. An easy way. You can arrive at your holiday gatherings with a kaleidoscope of cookies without baking for a solid month.

It’s called a cookie exchange. Most people are probably familiar with the concept, but it came as a revelation to me. You gather up a few friends (preferably amazing bakers) and everyone makes a big batch of one type of cookie to share with the group. You end up with a beautiful assortment of goodies after only one day of cookie baking. Plus, if you’re not a blabber-mouthed food blogger, you can bring your beautiful tray to Christmas, pass them all off as your own, and really impress your family and friends.

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