Cooking On the Side » Desserts

Creamy Lemon-Lime Bars

Kathy Strahs — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 05:43:50 +0000

From now on whenever I think of lemon bars I’ll be reminded of the time that I first met a group of cousins I never knew I had. We all convened at my parents’ house (it turns out they don’t live that far away) for dinner the day after Christmas, just ten days ago. Their great-great-great-grandfather was my great-great-grandfather. I did the calculation and determined that makes us 3rd cousins once removed. It’s a distant relation, but family is family.

One of my “new” cousins, about my same age, brought over lemon bars that day. I hadn’t had them in forever and hers were fantastic. I learned that both she and her sister love to cook and that her sister even has her own special occasion cake business. Even though we’re only 3rd cousins once removed I felt connected over this.

This little reunion prompted me to share a recipe for Creamy Lemon-Lime Bars today. The recipe, which I adapted from the side of a can of sweetened condensed milk, is more reminiscent of key lime pie than the traditional lemon bars my cousin made. They have a rich, creamy texture but are still very sweet, tart and refreshing. I brought limes into the mix to make things a little interesting (plus I love limes).

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It's Citrus Season!

~ Lemon Spaghetti, tossed in a light sauce of lemon, olive oil, parmigiano-reggiano and basil is absolutely as fresh-tasting as it sounds.

~ This Meyer Lemon Whipping Cream Pound Cake is the lightest, most velvety, lemony pound cake I’ve ever tasted.

~ For a comforting, citrus-kissed, one-pot chicken and rice dish give this Honey Lemon Chicken recipe a try.

About Cooking On the Side...

It’s the recipe collection I didn’t even realize I had – the one derived from the side of a bag of fresh vegetables, a box of sugar, a jar of mayonnaise. Cooking On the Side – as in on the side of food packaging – is all about “revealing” these on-the-package recipes, with photos of how they actually turn out, cooking notes and more descriptive directions than package space usually allows for. -- Kathy

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Chocolate-Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies…The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap

Kathy Strahs — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 19:36:16 +0000

As busy as the holiday season gets – and this one is proving to be one for the records – I make it a point to carve out time for the things that I enjoy most about the holidays, such as baking and exchanging cookies. This year’s Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap, masterfully organized by Lindsay from Love & Olive Oil and Julie from The Little Kitchen, turned to be the mother of all cookie exchanges I’ve ever participated in, with more than 600 food bloggers sending 22,000 cookies around the world!

I took the opportunity to try out a Chocolate-Raspberry Thumbprint cookie recipe I found inside a box of Ziploc bags. What drew me most to these cookies (besides the obvious terrific combo of chocolate and raspberries) was the cream cheese in the dough. I hoped the cream cheese would give the cookies a soft, tender texture and that’s exactly what I got. I was happy to wrap them up and ship them off, a dozen at a time, to someone I’ve known since my early days of blogging, Shelby from The Life and Loves of Grumpy’s Honeybunch, as well as two folks I’m now “meeting” for the first time: Desiree from Gustatoria and Allison from Decadent Philistines Save the World.

And since this was exchange, that means I also received three dozen cookies in the mail as well! Read on to see the terrific cookies that arrived on my doorstep as well as the recipe for the Chocolate-Raspberry Thumbprint cookies that I sent.

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Stovetop Cocoa with Toasted Homemade Marshmallows

Kathy Strahs — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 05:41:57 +0000

Hot chocolate was that special treat we got to have after school when it was too gray and rainy to play outside (which didn’t happen all that often in the Silicon Valley). It was something I could make by myself – I’d just microwave some water in a mug and tear open a packet of Swiss Miss. I especially loved the kind with the tiny little marshmallows that would float on top.

I read ingredient labels more often these days and, not to specifically bag on Swiss Miss because they’re not alone in this, but there are a lot of unpronounceable ingredients in those little packets that go a bit beyond “cocoa”, “sugar” and “milk”. And let’s not even get started with the marshmallows. This past rainy weekend I decided to pull out a saucepan and make this treat from scratch. Doesn’t the idea of Stovetop Cocoa with Toasted Homemade Marshmallows just sound like it would be better anyway? Let me assure you that it is.

The cocoa recipe comes from the Hershey’s Cocoa package – it’s just unsweetened cocoa, sugar, milk, water and a little vanilla. It is outstanding! When you top it with a fluffy homemade marshmallow, with a toasty tan outer shell from a quick minute under the broiler…it seriously makes me wish for more rainy gray days.
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Chai Pumpkin Pie

Kathy Strahs — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 06:23:15 +0000

I’d been looking for a good excuse to post an updated pumpkin pie recipe on Cooking On the Side. That first pumpkin pie I posted two Thanksgivings ago was great and all, the classic Libby’s version that I and millions around the country have enjoyed for years. But ever since that post I’ve been wanting to challenge myself to bake a pumpkin pie that was more from scratch – roast a pumpkin and make fresh purée, roll out my own pie crust. Well, I found my excuse to bake a new pie in the form of a sticker on a sugar pumpkin.

On the sticker was a pumpkin pie recipe that not only started with making your own pumpkin purée (no surprise there, it’s attached to a pumpkin) but it also called for a rather unusual custard ingredient: a cup of hot water. I researched a slew of other pumpkin pie recipes and not one called for water. And they all have two eggs, while this recipe on the pumpkin sticker only called for one. The closest relative I could find to this type of custard filling was a Chinese egg custard – in that dish, hot water or other liquid is mixed in to create a light, silky texture. I became very intrigued by this water approach.

I couldn’t leave well enough alone. For my pie, I decided to brew a cup of chai in lieu of the plain hot water the recipe called for. The notes of cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, black pepper and star anise in the tea complemented the pumpkin amazingly and enhanced the traditional pie spices. If you’re in the mood for an all-homemade twist on the classic, Chai Pumpkin Pie is definitely a great way to go.

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Double Chocolate Cookies

Kathy Strahs — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 04:42:05 +0000

I officially have a sweet tooth…or so the new diet and exercise app I recently downloaded to my iPhone tells me. Day after day for the past week, as I’ve logged everything I’ve been eating and drinking, MyFitnessPal has been telling me that I’ve consumed more than double my daily recommended volume of sugar. It gets worse…I’ve usually exceeded my recommended volume by the end of breakfast. Talk about eye-opening!

Just to be clear, it’s not like I’m eating Double Chocolate Cookies for breakfast or anything like that. My main culprit has been orange juice. As it turns out, a single 8-ounce glass of my favorite OJ that I’ve been drinking for years delivers 69% of the amount of sugar I’m supposed to have in a day. Add in a piece of fruit and – BAM – I’m over my sugar limit by 8:30 AM. Granted, I’m pretty sure that natural sugar from fruit isn’t as bad as refined sugar but still…I had no idea.

The good news is 1) I’m now much more aware of my sugar intake thanks to this app (and thanks to my friend Dara from Cookin’ Canuck for first introducing it to me through her recent post) and 2) with this awareness I can now make better eating decisions. I cannot bear to completely eliminate from my diet rich, gooey, brownie-like chocolate cookies like the ones I’m sharing today from Ghirardelli. But I’m now able to do a better job of determining what “moderation” looks like. If I indulge in one of these bad boys, that’s pretty much my treat for the day.

Have your cookie and eat it too! But if you need a little help with keeping your sweet tooth in balance, especially with Halloween and the holidays fast approaching, you might consider an app like MyFitnessPal (and no, I have no connection with this company whatsoever – I’m just a happy customer!).

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White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies

Kathy Strahs — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 04:06:58 +0000

I have happy childhood memories of trips to the cookie shop that opened up in our mall at some point in the ’80s called Blue Chip Cookies. Does anyone remember them? Their storefront was set up just like Mrs. Fields, with a case of fresh baked cookies, but they claim to be the first to innovate with the white chocolate macadamia variety in the United States. These new cookies were a revelation, to me. They became my standard cookie order, while my old standby semi-sweet-without-nuts from Mrs. Fields took a backseat. I felt all grown up and fashion-forward for my taste in cookies.

Today, White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies are a little retro. You don’t see them quite as often as you used to. I haven’t seen Blue Chip stores in years (they’re now primarily a mail order business). But a great-tasting cookie never goes out of style. The cookies from this recipe, from the back of the Ghirardelli White Chips package, are just as yummy as my ten-year-old self remembers.

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Apple Cake with Butter Pecan Glaze

Kathy Strahs — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 04:11:12 +0000

This post should come with a long overdue apology to my sister…for laughing at her (hard) almost 30 years ago. Her first grade class put together a little “cookbook” comprised of their own made-up recipes. My sister’s contribution to this handwritten anthology was the concept of an apple cake.

“Bwahahahaha!! An apple cake!! Who ever heard of an apple cake?!” was my far more mature and worldly response. Everyone knew there were only three kinds of cake: chocolate, vanilla and chocolate chip. Apple cake…what a kid.

I am eating those words today. More importantly, I’m also eating a fabulous Apple Cake with Butter Pecan Glaze from the back of my last remaining package of White Lily flour (Southern friends, I’ll be calling on you to ship me some more!). It’s strange to say, but it almost reminded me of a carrot cake, but with a thick, rich caramel-like glaze on top instead of cream cheese frosting. It’s got a lot of sugar, a lot of oil and a lot of apples. I knew it would be super moist and, oh yeah, it was.

What can I say – my little sister was onto something good.

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Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

Kathy Strahs — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 04:47:17 +0000

I recognized that first time that I brought homemade cookies with me to the hair salon that I would be setting a precedent. None of the stylists ever come out and ask when I arrive for my appointment. They greet me with smiles and hugs as always. But I try to put their curiosity to rest early on – yes, she brought them!

The truth is I love to have an excuse to bake cookies. I am a bit of a cookieholic (they’re up there with french fries as my most significant vices), so the sooner I can get my fix and usher the rest out of the house the better. Luckily, it’s not too difficult at all to find people to help take cookies off your hands.

If you recall our lessons from my Anatomy of a Chocolate Chip Cookie post a few months back, this Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie recipe goes for the thick and chewy approach. They are fabulous. If you didn’t know the ingredients, you might be taken aback a little by the unusual yet highly appealing flavor of these cookies. A dose of cinnamon and ginger give a gentle hint of spice that works so phenomenally with the chocolate and the nutty oats. I will not forget the raisins again next time, as I’m sure they would be a perfect match for the spices as well. The staff at the salon loved them!

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Peanut Butter Crunch Shortbread

Kathy Strahs — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 04:09:44 +0000

These little five-ingredient Peanut Butter Crunch Shortbread elephants marched their way into my kitchen the other day. Even though they’re made with peanut butter (get it – elephants? peanuts? ha ha), the crunch doesn’t actually come from peanuts. Even better: it’s turbinado sugar.

Until now, I’d only ever used turbinado sugar – the kind with the large golden crystals – on two types of occasions: to stir into coffee when “regular” sugar wasn’t available or to sprinkle on top of muffins. It never occurred to me to bake with it. I’m glad that a shortbread recipe on the back of a turbinado sugar package enlightened me to its crunchy potential. What you get is a sandy-textured peanut butter shortbread (the peanut butter was my contribution to the recipe) with coarse sugar pebbles interspersed throughout. It’s fabulous!

It’s gotten me thinking about other baking situations where you might want an extra sugar crunch inside your dough or batter…like maybe pie crusts? Or biscotti? How about pancakes? Apparently you can substitute turbinado sugar one for one with refined sugar in recipes. I still have a few cups left in this bag…I’m ready to experiment!

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Anatomy of a Chocolate Chip Cookie

Kathy Strahs — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 04:02:54 +0000

What makes a chocolate chip cookie chewy? How can I make thicker cookies? Or thin and crisp cookies? I’m afraid I’ve gone and geeked out again (remember the last time?) and did a little chocolate chip cookie recipe analysis to get to the bottom of these questions.

Most chocolate chip cookie recipes call for exactly the same ingredients, but for a variety of reasons (i.e.,amounts, baking time and temperature) they might come out chewier, crispier, thinner, thicker or even with different flavor. Read on for my comparison of the Toll House, Barry Callebaut (see the recipe at the end of this post) and Land O Lakes on-the-package recipes as well as tips for tweaking your favorite recipe to match your preferred cookie style.

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