Easy peasy lemon squeezy cookies

Super easy.  Super lemony.  This recipe scales up easily as well, if you're baking for a crowd (or if you want to give them away at Christmas time)

125gm butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
grated rind of one lemon 
1 egg
2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

Line cookie sheets with baking paper.  Preheat oven to 190C.

Cream butter, sugar and lemon until light and fluffy.  Add egg and beat well until it's incorporated fully.  Add flour and baking powder and continue to beat into creamed mixture.  Roll teaspoonsful of mixture into balls and place on oven trays.  Flatten with the back of a fork or your thumb.

Bake for 10 - 12 minutes or until cookies are just starting to brown.

Back into it

Mike has recently gone back to work (shocked?!?!  We were!) which currently involves traveling to India for several weeks at a time.  Hence the radio silence at this end: eggs and beans on toast for tea don't make particularly interesting blog posts!

Well, he's back this week so we've been having more interesting meals again... And baking too!

We've also been blessed with some amazing weather over the past couple of weeks, very different to the crazy storms we had last month.  Callum is adamant Spring is here already and I've even been able to hang washing on the line again - hooray!  Our lemon tree is heaving with juicy lemons so today's job was using a few of them up:

Lemon & Rosemary Chicken

2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, chopped

2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

1 tablespoon good olive oil

1-2 tablespoons pine nuts

Juice of one large lemon, plus one lemon thinly sliced

Salt and pepper

4 small skinless, boneless chicken breasts

Preheat oven to 180 C.

Roughly combine everything except the chicken in a food processor or with a mortar and pestle (you want it to stay chunky).  Place lemon slices in the bottom of a baking dish, put the chicken on top and then spoon lemon and garlic mixture on top of breasts.

Bake chicken until cooked through, about 25 minutes depending on the size of the chicken breasts.

Tonight I'm serving this up with couscous, sautéed silverbeet and lots of green beans.

Lemon Yoghurt Cake

A couple of people recently suggested I start a food blog ... so I thought I'd resurrect the one I started way back when...

To get back in the swing of things, here's my famous-in-Lower-Hutt Lemon Yoghurt Cake.

125gm butter, softened
2 t grated lemon rind
1 c sugar
3 eggs
1 c plain flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 c greek yoghurt
juice of half a (large) lemon

1/4 c lemon juice
1/4 c sugar

Beat butter, lemon rind, sugar and eggs together until light and fluffy.

Sift flour and baking powder together.  Mix yoghurt and lemon juice in another bowl.  Alternately fold flour and yoghurt into egg mixture, mixing until smooth.

Pour mixture into a greased, lined 20cm round cake tin.  I use a springform one as it makes things easier once it's out of the oven.

Bake at 160 C (fan forced) for 45 mins or until cake springs back when lightly touched.  Leave in tin for 5 - 10 minutes before turning out onto wire rack.

While cake is baking, combine lemon juice and sugar in a small saucepan.  Stir over medium heat until sugar is dissolved.  Pour syrup over warm cake (put it on a plate first else it'll end up all over your bench!!)

Chinese Lemon Chicken

I used to buy those Lee Kum Kee sachets to make lemon chicken (or fish!) but one afternoon I didn't have any but REALLY wanted lemon chicken... I found a recipe online (thanks google!) and then came up with this ;)

The original recipe includes a batter, since that is how lemon chicken seems to be served in restaurants.  I think it's better without it (and faster!) but I'll include both options anyway.

Ingredients:

Around 1kg chicken (!) although I usually just use two large breasts which is more than enough for our family of 4 if we have rice and veggies too.

Batter:
2 large eggs
1/4 cup corn flour
1/2 t baking powder
pinch white pepper
oil for frying

Sauce:
1/4 cup sugar (or less, to your taste)
1 1/2 t cornflour
1 cup chicken stock
2 T lemon juice
3/4 t salt
3 slices lemon, no peel
2 T oil (rice bran or similar)

Place cut chicken in a bowl, cover with 2 T soy sauce and marinate in fridge for 30 minutes.

Mix together eggs, cornflour, baking powder and pepper to make batter OR simply coat chicken lightly with sifted cornflour and white pepper.  Coat meat with batter, if using, and fry in batched until chicken is cooked and crispy.

Combine sugar, stock, cornflour, lemon juice and salt.  Mix well and add lemon slices.

Heat 2 T oil in a wok and stir mixture until well mixed and sauce becomes clear.  

Remove lemon slices and pour sauce over chicken.  Serve with stir fried veggies or steamed greens and steamed rice.