I’m so excited, I can hardly contain myself!!  I want to jump out of my seat and shout it out to you all that…

My marketing team (my super awesome, amazing, wicked smart, drop-dead gorgeous husband Joel) is working on my first official GIVEAWAY contest for you awesome peeps!!

What’s better than cool stuff?  FREE cool stuff!

I’m SO in love with this clever kitchen gadget that I want to make 1 lucky Firefly reader as happy as I am when they’re playing around in the kitchen.

No more spills when adding sifted dry ingredients to your mixer!  Say goodbye to sloppy messes when adding wet ingredients to your mixer!  These pourable mixing bowls really are POURfect!

Check back here and visit my Facebook fan page (“like” us while you’re at it!) for details & an entry form shortly!

*Full disclosure: that is not my hand, nor is that my pic.  It’s just a product I’m in love with and I want to share some happiness with y’all…well, 1 of y’all.

xoxo

~pw

I’ve read a ton of lemon bar recipes (yes, this gal reads cookbooks like others read novels).  I’ve taste-tested a gazillion lemon bars (it’s a requirement of mine to never pass up a lemon bar that stares me in the face).  I’m now ready to publish this lemon bar recipe and call it the best.

Yep, I said it: the best lemon bars recipe is here.

Just in time for my Mother’s Day lunch!

This recipe is perfectly tart and sweet, slightly salty and tastes of pure sunshine.

Start by creaming together room temperature butter and sugar.

I prefer salted, sweet cream ~ yes ~ salted.  And I’m going to add a dash more salt in a moment!  True bakers beware…I’m feeling a bit rebellious.

Add flour and salt to the butter mixture on low speed and beat until just mixed.  Lumps of butter might remain if you were impatient and didn’t allow your butter to fully come to room temp (like me).

No big deal.  It will still come together.

Pour dough out onto 9 x 13 x 2 baking dish.

Flatten the dough with your hands.

Add flour to your hands if the dough sticks or the butter gets too warm.  Press to the edges of the pan forming a slight edge up the sides of the pan.  Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until lightly browned.  Remove to wire rack and allow to cool slightly.

While the dough is baking and then cooling, zest 4-6 lemons.

Don’t go overboard zesting, you only want the bright shinny outer layer where the oils are.  Too far down into the rind and it will just be bitter.

Juice the zested lemons, you want about 1 cup of fresh lemon juice.  Set aside.

Crack 6 large eggs into your mixing bowl.  Add sugar and whisk together.

Add lemon zest, lemon juice and flour.  Beat until combined and pour onto baked crust.

Bake another 30-35 minutes until browned and custard has set.

Cut into squares, let your adorable little Pookie dust them with powdered sugar and serve with berries.

Stand back because they will go fast!  If you bake it, they will come.

You will taste memories of childhood summer-times, I promise.  And sunshine.  Gloriously delicious sunshine.

Best Lemon Bars Recipe

• 1 cup of salted, sweet cream butter ~ room temp
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 2 cups of flour
• pinch of kosher salt
• 6 eggs ~ room temp
• 3 cups of sugar
• 2 tablespoons lemon zest (from 4-6 lemons)
• 1 cup of lemon juice (juice from the zested lemons will be plenty)
• 1 cup of flour
• powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream together the butter and 1/2 cup of sugar, using your standing mixer, until fluffy.  Add 2 cups of flour and salt to the butter mixture and beat until just combined.  Dump into 9 x 13 x 2 pan and use your hand to press the dough evenly to the edges.  Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until lightly browned.  Remove to wired rack and allow to cool slightly.

While crust is baking, zest the lemons and juice them.  Set aside.

Crack eggs into standing mixer, add 3 cups of sugar and whisk until combined.  With the mixer on low, add zest, juice and1 cup of flour.  Whisk until well combined.  Pour into slightly cooled crust and bake for 30-35 minutes or until browned and custard has set.  Remove from oven and allow to cool to room temp.  Cut into squares and dust with powdered sugar.  Serve with fresh berries.

I have a major craving for fried rice.  Mom’s basic, short-cut fried rice, to be exact.  Not to be confused with her all-out combination fried rice reserved for special occasions.  Just her school night, easy fried rice.

So I set out to make myself a batch based on what I could remember.  Then I second guessed myself and went for the phone to call her…then I put down the phone before dialing because I couldn’t bring myself to admit to her that I couldn’t remember what she taught me!

Call her? (and admit defeat) Don’t call her? (you can do this!) Call her? (she’ll help, of course, but she’ll laugh) Don’t call her! (she can’t know I don’t totally remember!)

I decided not to call her and start digging through the refrigerator, pantry and freezer for what I think should go into this dish.

Voila!  I have it all on hand.  Leftover rice, margarine, vegetable oil, bag of frozen veggies, eggs, soy sauce, salt, pepper & garlic powder.

Don’t laugh at my banged up stick of margarine; so what if I dropped it, uh, I mean, it fell out of the fridge!  I like margarine over butter in this dish, I can’t explain it.  Just a taste preference, I guess.

The shrimp I had on hand were frozen and I don’t feel like dealing with shells and I didn’t have any pre-diced ham, leftover chicken, pork or bacon so this batch is vegetarian (if you’re a veg that is ok with eggs, that is).

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the vegetable oil and margarine.

Be careful because oil & margarine don’t mix as well as oil & butter do.  Just keep an eye on it and raise the skillet off the heat if it gets too hot.

Add the leftover, cold, white rice.  Lucky me, Mom made me some rice late last week that I found in the fridge.

If your mom didn’t leave you any, think leftover Chinese take-out, or make a larger pot of white rice than usual and let the leftovers hang out in the fridge for about a week.  Fresh rice will be too soggy to fry.

Break up the rice and toss to coat.  It might look like you have too much oil and butter in the pan, but keep in mind you have veggies and eggs to add still.

Now the important part ~ DON’T STIR for 2-3 minutes to allow the rice to “fry” up.  I use this time to open up my seasonings caps and bag of frozen veggies.

After 2-3 minutes, stir, using a spatula to bring the fried layer up to the top to give the other grains a chance.  Add veggies.

Add seasonings (garlic powder, pepper, salt), stir to combine, then step away for another 2-3 minutes.

I use this time to put my seasonings away.

Add soy sauce ~ you can use any type you like. This is the homestretch folks!

Stir to combine and make pockets, or wells in the rice for your eggs.

Cover them with rice and let the eggs steam up for 2-3 minutes.

I use this time to wipe the counters and get dishes and silverware out.

Now go crazy ~ use your spatula to break up the egg yolks and stir to cook and scramble the egg into the rice.

About another 2 minutes or so, then remove from heat to a serving bowl and devour.

Well, of course, I’ll feed the kids too!  You know my little Pookies love rice as much as I do!

Easy Fried Rice Recipe

• 4-5 tablespoons of vegetable oil
• 4 tablespoons of margarine
• 4-5 cups leftover white rice
• 1 cup of mixed veggies (frozen) ~ I stick to peas & carrots
• 2-3 eggs ~ your preference
• 1-2 teaspoons garlic powder, to taste
• 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
• 1-2 tablespoons soy sauce

Heat oil and margarine in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Once margarine melts and oil is hot, add cold rice and stir to break apart and coat grains evenly.  DO NOT stir for 2-3 minutes.  Get seasonings and veggies ready to add.  After 2-3 minutes, use a spatula to bring the “fried” grains to the top and rotate un-fried grains to the heat.  Add frozen vegetables, garlic powder, salt & pepper; stir to combine with the rice and distribute seasonings.  After 2-3 minutes, add soy sauce and stir once again, leaving pockets or wells.  Crack your eggs into these wells and cover them up with additional rice/veggie mixture.  After 2-3 minutes, use a spatula to break up the egg yolks and stir to cook and scramble the egg into the rice.  About another 2 minutes or so, then remove from heat to a serving bowl.  Garnish with chopped scallions and serve warm.

Cook Time: 20-30 minutes

Makes: 4-6 servings

We grew up eating rice (bai) with every meal.  Mom’s fried rice was a treat, and her noodle soup weekends were feasts!  Rice & steak, rice & pork chops, rice & fish (with mangoes and fish sauce), fried rice & pork chops (Dad’s breakfast specialty!), rice soup & Chinese sausages, etc…this list goes on and on.

No wonder the food in Cambodia was so amazingly, deliciously comforting to me.

I couldn’t get enough of the Phnom Penh style noodles at Seng Lipp restaurant (Granny’s favorite noodle shop in the city)!

I am so in love with green noodle soup that I devoured my bowl of it at this roadside stand in 1 minute flat (50 cents a bowl ~ I should have had seconds…or thirds!)

Check this out:

It’s a mobile rice warmer.  Actually, just a giant thermos shaped cooler that Khmer use to tote rice around while keeping it warm (instead of throwing beer or ice in like we would here in the states).  Smart, huh?

Mom’s sister, my Aunt Mala, makes these amazing beef sticks (saich-koh ah’ng) flavored with garlic, lemongrass, salt, black pepper, sugar and some other awesomeness skewered and cooked over a charcoal fire pit.

Mmmmmm.  Thank goodness you can’t see me, I’m practically salivating over the memory.

Fresh fruit is a big part of every meal.

Mangoes (svai), ripe & barely ripe dipped in chili salt (picked from the family trees) ~ I’ve turned Joel onto the barely ripe apple mangoes.

The cutest little pineapples (m’noa-ah), so sweet they taste like their trees were watered with honey, peeled and cut while you wait.  Bagged, skewered and served with a side of chili salt.

Kulen, or lychee fruit, sold by the kilo at Phnom Kulen (Lychee Mountain).  Just peel the red skin back to reveal a pearly white cotton ball sized fruit.

Coconut juice (dteuk doang) for 25 cents, or fresh from my Auntie’s backyard (which is on the land that Dad grew up on).

Machete your way to the refreshing juice, then scrape out the young coconut meat for a little snack.

Beef cubes (bo luc lac, which is actually Vietnamese pronunciation, but that’s what we called it growing up), cooked with whole Kampot green peppercorns, served with a side of rice.

Mom makes the best, but Paper Tiger on Pub Street came a close 2nd.

Prawns and rock lobsters cooked up on the beach, dipped in lime juice and (you guessed it!) eaten with rice.

I need to stop!  I’m making myself hungry.  Not for anything I can cook well here in Khmer (pronounced: Kh-mai) tradition, but for the mouthwatering meals mom and dad make, the local Khmer favorites the Aunties spoiled us with, the delicious foods that remind me where I come from.

chum reap leah (good bye) for now ~ I have to go to bed before I raid the fridge and make myself a midnight snack!

Love,

~pw