Pucker Up! It's California!

Since I've been in the Napa Valley, a foodie's dream,  for the last 7 days, it seems only fitting that I start blogging again. I'm ashamed of how long it's been since I've posted anything new - but unfortunately life and new job responsibilities have a horrible habit of getting in the way. But I'm determined to not let things slip again.
I've been here to visit Jason and Sarah, my son and daughter-in-law, so many times in the past 4 years or so that I honestly don't feel like much of a tourist anymore. So, I don't really feel the urge to eat someplace new every night and this visit, I've been doing a lot more cooking. It's a lot more economical and I can also fix whatever the heck I want to fix and not have to worry about someone complaining about it (like at home).
There's always a challenge though, in cooking in someone else's kitchen. Not only do you not know where everything is, you often don't know if it's even there in the kitchen. Of course, I'm very spoiled when it comes to kitchen appliances, tools and pots and pans so I can't assume that everyone in the world has a Microplane grater and five different sizes of glass baking dishes. So I kept my recipe choices to simple things that didn't require complex tools.

One of the amazing things about being here at Jason's is the fact that he has both a lemon tree and an orange tree in the backyard, just bursting with fruit. He encouraged me to use as many lemons as I wanted because there were so many that they were probably going to spoil on the tree. So, feeling like the ultimate California cliche I went out Friday and harvested a bunch of lemons and made fresh-squeezed lemonade. Definitely a big difference from the mixes or stuff you get out of cans. Definitely more labor intensive too and stickier, what with having to squeeze all those lemons. But the end result was certainly worth it.
What else is there to make with lemons? Lemon bars, of course. I found an easy recipe on Allrecipes.com and assembled my ingredients, adding a couple of things that weren't in the original recipe (like lemon zest and salt). The only major problem was - I couldn't find the dry ingredient measuring cups. There were plenty of liquid measuring cups so I had to make due with those, knowing full well they weren't really accurate for dry ingredients. Still, you do what you have to do. The recipe came together quickly and the bars came out deliciously, despite the inaccurate dry measuring. They had the right combination of sweet and tart as well as a firm shortbread-type crust. I'm going to have to try making them again when I get home to see if there's a noticeable difference.
Based on some of the reviews for the recipe, I decided to make mine in an 8x11 pan instead of the 9x13 so I had to adjust the cooking time on both the crust and the filling by an additional five minutes or so. Just keep an eye on things adjust your time accordingly.

 The Best Lemon Bars
Crust Ingredients
1 cup of butter, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
Filling Ingredients
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
zest of 1 lemon
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a medium bowl, blend together the butter, flour, sugar and salt. Press into the bottom of a greased 9x13 (or 8x11) pan.
3. Bake for 20 minutes until crust is firm and golden.
4. In a medium bowl whisk together the filling ingredients and pour over the baked crust.
5. Bake for an additional 20-25 minutes. Bars will firm up as they cool so be careful not to over bake. Store bars in the refrigerator.