Saturday, May 31, 2008

Delta Bars

Has anyone ever heard of Delta Bars? I'm on my way to a barbecue this evening, and spent a long time this morning pouring through my bookmarked recipes to find something to bring with me. We were getting slammed by thunderstorms, no shopping for me, so I had to work with the ingredients I had on hand. I ended up choosing Delta Bars from the Betty Crocker Cooky Book. Our copy is so old and worn, with the cover falling off. Anyway, these bars jumped out at me because 1) They're totally weird, and 2) There's no photo of what they look like.
The concept is a basic sugar cookie crust, with a brown sugar meringue (mixed with some chopped nuts) spread over the top and then baked. The description says "Nutty brown sugar meringue bakes into cooky base to make chewy butterscotch bar. Popular with young and old." I wonder how they'll turn out!!

Here's the recipe.

Delta Bars
From Betty Crocker's Cooky Book
Makes 24 bars

1/2 cup shortening
1 cup granualted sugar
1 whole egg
1 egg, separated
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Heat oven to 375f. Mix shortening, granulated sugar, egg, egg yolk, and vanilla well. Measure flour by dipping method. Stir together dry ingredients through salt. Blend into shortening mixture and mix thorougly. Spread in greased baking pan, 13"x9.5"x2". Beat egg white until foamy. Gradually beat in brown sugar. Continue beating until mixture is stiff and glossy. Fold in nuts. Spread meringue over dough in pan. Bake about 25 minutes. Cut while warm in 2" sqaures.

Delta Bars



Edit to add: These bars are, um, totally underwhelming. You can not cut through meringue, warm or otherwise. It is dry and crunchy. The top layer of these bars crumbled and broke into a zillion pieces when I tried to slice through. Also, note to the world: Shortening does not make a delicious cookie base. Because it has no taste.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Lake Lounging

So I missed Sandra's Memorial Day bbq, but for good reason! I was here instead. Who could blame me?

lake 1

Hope you all had a great long weekend!

Monday, May 26, 2008

Baseball and Fun-B-Q

Hello & Happy Memorial Day! What better way to spend the weekend than going to a ball game and having a fun-b-q!!

Me and Charlie saw a Yankee game on Sunday; it was really exciting since they made a come from behind win. My favorite part was when the whole stadium did the wave!

We took lots of pictures, Charlie got this great one of Mariano closing out the game.


And heres a shot of me outside the new stadium they are building across the street.



Today, we had a fun-b-q at the house. My mom, sister, nephew, grandma and best friend came over. We didn't do much in the way of cooking anything fancy so it was a fun relaxing day. Just burgers, hot dogs, macaroni and potato salad, corn on the cob and grilled veggies.

Charlie manned the grill by the blooming rose bushes


and whipped up some icy strawberry lemonade...mom really liked it!


Ryan likes to play soccer (and basketball and baseball) and he's not even 2 years old yet!


We all had so much fun!
(Ryan, Lauren my older sister, Mom, Charlie, me and Grandma)

Rachel was away with her friends for the weekend. I hope she had fun! Maybe I'll talk to her tomorrow, we have lots of catching up to do. We might go visit my friend Stephanie in her new place next Sunday. I hope Rachel doesn't have plans yet!
Kisses
Sandra

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Good things start out small

We haven't gone missing, I swear! Sandra and I have been pretty busy. I was away last weekend, and this past weekend was Mother's Day, so we've been out of the Sunday Dinner loop. Next week doesn't look good either.

However, I was able to run to the garden center on Saturday and pick up some plants in anticipation of gardening this weekend. They didn't have a few things that I wanted, so I'll have to go somewhere else, but I picked up some herbs and gave them a new home.


herbs 004

Basil (front), Lavender (left), and Thyme (right)




herbs 007

Lavender




herbs 022

Sweet Basil