Life at a "Swell's" pace

I hate cooking. Anyone that knows me well will tell you that. Cooking, baking, or even standing in the kitchen making a sandwich, I hate it all. Which, seems odd to say, as most people that are in my bloodline seem to enjoy it a lot. I've never been one to find any joy in it. I've heard people say that it gives them joy, or melts their heart to watch people eat what they've cooked. Nope, not me. If you like it, cool, if not, I'm not surprised. Ha! But, there are random times where I will go into the kitchen and make something completely unexpected. Skylar tells me all the time that he likes that part of me the best. When I cook, or bake something that no one expects. He tells me that's his favorite kind of cooking and describes me as-"The unexpected cook."

The unexpected baking I did this week was lemon squares. I took advantage of our local food co-op's citrus sale in January and stocked up on organic Meyer lemons. I ended up juicing all of them and freezing the juice to use at a later time. Well, this week was the "later time."

These lemon squares are five ingredients and are delicious and easy to make.

Here's what you'll need:

For the crust:

1 cup softened organic butter
2 cups organic sugar
2 ¼ cups all-purpose organic flour
4 organic eggs
Juice of two organic Meyer lemons
Organic powdered sugar for sprinkling (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, or 176 degrees C.

Mix butter, 2 cups of the flour, and ½ cup of the sugar in a bowl. Press the dough into the bottom of an ungreased glass 9x13-inch* baking dish. Bake for 15-20 minutes until lightly golden. Do not over bake. Set out to cool completely.

(*roughly)

For the lemon filling:

Mix in a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, or by hand, 1½ cups of sugar, ¼ cup flour, all of the eggs (one at a time), and add the lemon juice slowly.

Pour over the top of the cooled crust.

Bake at 350 degrees F (176 degrees C) for 20 minutes, or until the top is firm and set.

Allow to cool completely before dusting with powdered sugar. This step is optional, but it does make for a tastier lemon square and it just looks pretty. Place them on a plate and serve. We like to eat them when they are still a slight bit warm, but they are also delicious when they are chilled.

With last year's garden being covered in a lot of ash from the wildfires, and losing everything, we decided to keep it simple this year. We planted some pumpkin seeds and zinnia seeds, but to our shock a lot of the sunflower seeds from last year came up this year. Sunflowers are not perennials, so it was a nice surprise and kind of a wonderful things given what happened last year. It was almost like the garden was telling us, "I'm still strong and can make it through the worst." Kind of like all of us. Last year was hard, so very hard, but we are still strong and can truly make it through the worst. Our garden is now beaming with bright yellows and after a long, trying day, bright yellow is a nice color to see.