Week 28

Week 28 Sunday February 21, 2010

Lemon Chicken Stir-Fry,  Lemon Bars

A friend gave me a bag of fresh lemons she had recieved somewhere and I decided it was a good time to put them to use before they went bad. It was a night of discovery about lemon. Lemon, it turns out can be quite temperamental. Whilst the lemon bars were delicious, the lemon stir-fry.....not so much. I've decided to distrust any recipe heavily laden with lemon that doesn't include an equally large dose of it's equalizer--sugar! In my opinion some things are not meant to mix with lemon, in this case, meat and vegetables.  Perhaps that isn't a fair assesment for all recipes, but it is with this one. Even hefty additions of sugar didn't take away the tongue twisting tartness of the main ingrediant. While I found it to be palatable, despite the flavor, my children didn't. They pushed it around on the plate, but even Isabel the stir fry queen, had difficulty swallowing.  Live and Learn, I guess.

JJ went on a work snowboarding trip to Flagstaff for the day. I enjoyed sleeping in Sunday morning and woke happily to the aroma of Isabel making pancakes. She had gotten up, found a recipe, and made them herself. When I came downstairs, she was flipping them. It was so nice to be served breakfast, which is a fairly rare occasion. They were good too! Way to go Isabel!

Pound that Chicken!

Glad to see them consulting the recipe

Isabel's First time making a smoothie on her own.

Lookin' good

Coating the chicken

It looked good, Unfortunately looks can be misleading!

Lemon Chicken Stir-fry

Ingrediants

4 chicken Breasts

1 tbsp. soy sauce

5 tbsp. cornstarch

1 bunch scallions

1 lemon

1 garlic clove

1 tbsp. sugar

2/3 cup homeade chicken stock

4 tbsp. olive oil

salt and pepper

(we added more veggies such as zuccini squash, and yellow squash,

Directions:

1. place chicken in between syran wrap and flatten to 1/4 think with mallet or rolling pin.

2. cut in 1 inch strips and place in bowl of soy sauce. Sprinkle 4 tbsp. cornstarch and toss to coat

3. cut scallions diagonally into 1/2 pieces only using the root part.

4. Remove lemon rind either by grating or peel and cut into thin strips. Reserved the lemon juice.

5.Blend juice, sugar, chicken stock, and mix with water and cornstarch to form and paste.

6. heat oil in stir fry pan or wok, and cook chicken quickly in small batches for 3-4 min. until lightle  

    colored. remove to dish.

7. add scallions and garlic to pan and cook 2 min.

8. add other veggies cook a couple min.

9. add chicken and paste and bring to boil. sirring until thickend and veggies are cooked.

10. Serve over rice.

Review

Whilst I enjoyed the consistancy of the sauce and the way it coated the rice, it was much too tart to want to cook it again.

Lion House Lemon Bars

Crust:

1 1/4 cup butter

2 1/4 cups flour

1/2 cup powdered sugar

Filling:

4 eggs

2 cups sugar

6 tbsp. lemon juice

4 tbsp. flour

1 tsp. baking powder

Frosting Glaze:

1 1/2 tbsp. milk

1 tbsp. butter

1 1/4 cup powdered sugar

1 tbsp. lemon juice

1/2 tsp. lemon rind

Directions:

Beat butter, flour, powdered sugar until crumbled and mixed evenly. press into 9x13 pan. bake @ 350 for 10 min until light brown on corners .

Mix eggs, sugar, lemon juice, flour and baking powder in a medium bowl. mix on low for a just a few minutes. pour onto partially baked crust.  and bake @ 350 for 30-35 min.

(I added the lemon glaze from another recipe in the book on top.) Make sure the bars are well cooled. Then mix ingrediants for glaze together and spread over the top. Cut into bars.

Review:

These turned out scrupmtious and the kids really liked them too. The glaze on top made them even more delectable than regular lemon bars.  Thumbs up on this one. The crust is pretty thick so have a drink handy they make you thirsty.