Lemon Bars

This is an easy recipe for lemon bars. I've had this recipe since I was around 14 years old. I was the manager of the girls swimming team during my 9th & 10th grades in high school. One of the girls brought these for us to snack on as we were driven to an "away meet". We all raved about how good they were & the girl's mom made copies of the recipe for us. It's nearly 30 years later & I'm still making these lemon bars.

Lemon Bars
(crust)
Yellow cake mix (pudding in the mix)
1 egg
1/3 c. oil

(creamy part)
1 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese
1/3 C. sugar
1 t. lemon juice
1 egg

Mix cake mix, egg, & oil until crumbly. Take out 1 cup of mixture & set aside for topping.
Press the rest of the mixture into a 9X13 pan & bake at 350 for 10 minutes.
While the crust is baking, beat the cream cheese, sugar, egg, & lemon juice. Spread this over the baked crust layer. Sprinkle the reserved crumbs on the top. Bake an additional 10 minutes.
(the original recipe said to bake 15 minutes, but this is way too long in my oven. So if your oven runs a little cooler, you may need an extra 5 minutes.)

Sorry I haven't been around here lately. We've just been busy with school, babysitting kids, & graduation plans.

Beef and Barley Soup

I thought with the weather gettting warmer, I'd post this soup recipe next fall. But we are having a cold snap here, maybe even getting some more snow in the next day or too.
This is one of many recipes that I've found over at Tammy's Recipes.
Here is a link to her original recipe. I have added a few things to mine so I'll add to the recipe below.
I have never used a roast in a soup. It seems like I usually use round steak cut into cubes. Using roast gave it a really nice flavor. For a meat, it seemes like it was a little sweet. It was delicious!

Beef and Barley Soup From Tammy's Recipes

2 pounds beef roast
1 large onion, chopped
6 celery ribs, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 3/4 cups barley (dry/uncooked measurement)
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
beef bouillon, optional
3 1/2 quarts water, approximately
4 carrots
1 quart green beans
freezer corn
Basil
Thyme

Instructions:
1. Trim fat from meat and dice into 1-inch cubes. Saute meat with garlic in a large (6-quart) stock pot. Brown on medium-high heat, stirring often.
2. When meat is browned, add part of the water (enough to cover the meat) and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, for an hour. (I think I covered mine)
3. Add the remaining ingredients (except for the green beans & freezer corn). Bring to a boil and then simmer for at least 1 hour. If soup becomes too thick, add additional water according to your preference.
4. Add the beans & corn during the last 15 minutes of cooking.

This is a really wonderful & flavorful soup.
We all loved it!

Rocky Road Whoppers

This is one big cookie. Now I understand why they named them Whoppers. It's not because there are Whoppers in them (there aren't), but because they are BIG.

I found this recipe at Cooking.com. Since we all love rocky road, I just had to give it a try.

The original recipe is here. I'll post the original recipe, but then will tell you what I'll do next time down below.

Rocky Road Cookies
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt
2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips, divided in half
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon instant coffee powder dissolved in 1 teaspoon water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
60 (about 2/3 cup) miniature marshmellows

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Stir flour, baking powder and salt in small bowl to blend. Set aside.
Stir 1 cup chocolate chips and butter in medium bowl set over saucepan of barely simmering water until melted and smooth. Transfer chocolate mixture to large bowl. Set aside.
Whisk sugar, egg, coffee mixture and vanilla in medium bowl until blended. Stir egg mixture into reserved chocolate mixture. Mix in flour mixture just until blended. Add nuts and remaining 1 cup chocolate chips.
For each cookie, drop 1 rounded tablespoon dough onto prepared baking sheet, spacing 3 inch apart. Gently press 5 marshmallows into center of each. Gently press 1 rounded tablespoon of dough atop each to cover marshmallows and form 2-inch-high mounds. Bake cookies until top is dull and feels crusty when touched gently, rotating baking sheets front to back and top to bottom halfway through baking to ensure even browning, about 14 minutes.
Cool cookies on baking sheet 15 minutes. Transfer to rack and cool completely.
DO-AHEAD TIP: Cookies can be made up to 2 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature.
Recipe created exclusively for Cooking.com by Elinor Klivans.
Makes 12 large cookies (serving size = 1 cookie)

I made mine just like the recipe, well, except I didn't have any walnuts so I used pecans. Also, I had half milk chocolate chips & half semi-sweet.

I have to be honest, these cookies were delicious, but they really were WAY too big.

Each cookie takes 2 TABLESPOONS of dough plus 5 mini marshmellows.

The whole recipe only made 12 cookies...so of course I doubled the recipe. *giggles*

But look, this big cookie sheet (about 10X15) could only hold 6 cookies.

I didn't get any pictures, but on the second batch I used a teaspoon instead of a tablespoon, & only used 3 marshmellows. It still made a really big cookie.
I think next time, I'm just going to fold the marshmellows into the dough & drop them by teaspoonfuls onto a cookie sheet. This would be much better for us.
Now if you want giant, whopper cookies, by all means, follow the instructions above!
The other little problem I had was the marshmellows. They seemed to melt during the baking process. But, just after I made these cookies, I saw a recipe that Claire had over at Cooking is Medicine. She made some cookies with marshmellows in them & she suggested freezing the marshmellows first. I made her cookies, & freezing them did help, because the first few batches turned out wonderfully. The last cookie sheet that I put in the marshmellows had thawed so they all melted & then made the cookies stick. So freezing them before hand is good. Actually, it's highly recommended. :) Thanks for that tip Claire!

I wondered how in the world I'd get these cookies to fit in my cookie jar.
But I got them in there!