Cooking Show: Lemons!!

My friend, Gayle, recently told me that she lived in California when she was a child and there was a lemon tree in her yard.  My reaction was like, GET OUT!!!

It was fitting that Gayle should join me for our recent cooking show!  Lemons were the featured ingredient in each recipe that we prepared.

Gayle also told me that they had an avocado tree as well.  Mental note: future show.

Okay, back to lemons.  We started with Limoncello & Raspberry Fizz.  So refreshing!

Next, we prepared salad with grilled lemon chicken and lemon vinaigrette.

Click here for the printable recipe for the vinaigrette.  It's loaded with fresh herbs and a little goes a long way!

Toss together a salad using your favorite fresh salad ingredients.  We used 4 cups of romaine, 1/2 English cuke (chopped), 1 cup of grape tomatoes, 1 avocado (sliced) and 1/4 cup of kalamata olives.

We also used my favorite Grilled Lemon Chicken in this salad. It's one of my summer staples!  I like to prepare a large batch of this chicken at the beginning of the week and use it in weeknight dinners.

It's a great addition to salads, sandwiches, pasta and as you're about to see--pizza!!

Yes, PIZZA. Specifically, Chicken & Broccoli Pizza with Lemon Cream Sauce.   All the recipes you need--pizza dough, grilled chicken, cream sauce--are included in the link!

If you like Bertucci's Silano pizza, this is my attempt to replicate it.  It disappeared quickly when we finished filming the show...I think it was a hit!

Finally, we finished up with a Lemon/Almond Tart.  Sooo good, and also gluten-free.

Thanks for stopping by!

Raspberry Lemonade

 Ahhhhhhh......summer.    Maybe it's not officially summer yet, but my kids are through with school and the weather is warm-- the lazy days of summer are in full swing around here.  This recipe for raspberry lemonade is the perfect refreshment on a hot day!

But first.......I need to give a shout-out to my baseball team, the Cardinals.  We won our semi-final game tonight and are headed to the league championship game on Friday.  What a great group of kids they are, so much fun to be around.  Go Cardinals!

Watermelon Lemonade

Today's weather could not have been more perfect.  

The morning spent at the baseball field, our first game of the 2012 season.  My team got their first win.....it's always nice to start the season with a victory.  Go Cardinals!

Then I spent the afternoon gardening: pruning, trimming, planting bulbs and seeds.  While I gardened and worked up a sweat, all I could think of was an ice-cold glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade.

By the time I was done gardening, I felt the need to add some fresh raspberry puree to my fresh-squeezed lemonade.  As usual, this complicated things........I had the ingredients for my lemonade, but I didn't have any raspberries.

So I went to the store, and they didn't have raspberries, either!  But there was some spectacular-looking watermelon.......so I found myself thinking, why not?

I've never even had watermelon lemonade before, much less made it myself, but I decided to give it a go.  I'm happy to say that it went well!

Strawberry Scones with Lemon Curd

It's been a few weeks since I made one of the gazillion recipes that I've been pinning on Pinterest.

Eenie-meanie-miney-moe...........for today's recipe I picked Strawberry Lemonade Scones by Munchkin Munchies.

The recipe says to drizzle them with prepared lemon curd.  I know, you're just. like. me.  You're thinking, "why used prepared lemon curd when I can make my own?"

I'm so glad that we think alike!

Make the lemon curd the day before you make the scones.  It's not difficult at all to make, but you need to give it time to chill before you use it, and chill time takes at least an hour.

Unless you like to get up at an ungodly hour so you can make your homemade lemon curd and give it an hour to chill and then make your homemade scones in time for breakfast.  In which case, we don't think alike at all.