dessert

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Cookie Swap Reminder, Dinners This Week

Carla and one of her friends and I made So Many Cookies this weekend. Like, a staggering number of cookies. So many cookies that I RAN OUT of regular flour (I had whole wheat flour, almond flour, self rising flour, and bread flour, but no all-purpose flour) and had to borrow some from the neighbors. 

I made three batches of dough (cream cheese sugar cookie, regular sugar cookie, chocolate snickerdoodle) and Carla’s friend’s mom made a batch of gingerbread, and I divided all the dough in half and froze half for later, and we STILL had thousands of cookies.

The kids had a blast, making cut outs and rolling snickerdoodles in cinnamon sugar and smashing Jolly Ranchers into smithereens and decorating baked cookies. And I have plenty of dough leftover to make more cookie plates this weekend. 

Also, after Birchie mentioned saltine toffee, I made a batch of that. Our house is cram jammed with sugar, y’all!

Anyway, this is all to say that if you are baking this week, or have baked recently, and want to be included in the Cookie Swap, send me a) a photo of your baking project(s), plus links to the recipe and/or b) a link to your own blog post about your cookie project. Please send your photos and/or links to  lifeofadoctorswife [at] gmail by midnight Eastern time on 12/20. Then I will assemble all the links and photos in a post this weekend and we can all virtually enjoy one another’s delicious creations. 

Now on to the less festive, more grueling side of food prep and consumption: dinners. I continue to be burnt out on dinners. This week, my husband and I have TWO date nights to look forward to, which will be fun in so many ways, including that we will go OUT to dinner. So I’m on the hook for five dinners and I am taking the easy way out.

Dinners for the Week of December 16

  • My Favorite Fall Salad with Roasted Chicken: My grocery store had giant blueberries on sale, so those are for sure going into this salad along with apples, goat cheese, pecans, and red onion.
  • Ham Sandwich: Heck yeah. Ham sandwich time. (“Ham sandwich” is our family shorthand for “make your own dinner.”) (I did buy some ham for my husband, but I also bought him some roast beef and I got ingredients to make black bean tacos.) 
  • Pizza: I also bought ingredients to make homemade pizza.  

Last week before Christmas! Let’s goooooo!

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Lemony Desserts

Last year’s birthday cake order did not go as planned, so this year I am reluctant to outsource my birthday dessert. My husband has kindly volunteered to make me whatever I want with two exceptions: he will not make a cheesecake (He made a lemon curd cheesecake for my birthday a few years ago, and it was WONDERFUL but he said it was A Whole Big Deal and would rather not go through that again.) and he will not make a cake.

(This is a little disappointing, I have to admit, because what my heart really desires for my birthday dessert is the cake I wanted last year. A vanilla cake with lemon curd filling and a cream cheese frosting. I would be fine with a cupcake matching that description, honestly. But my husband does not make cake and he would not be able to make it until the day of my birthday anyway, so. No cake. Unless I want to make it myself, an idea which I have contemplated and discarded for its high probability of making me feel grumpy and resentful.)

(My husband did come up with a list of local bakeries that we could try instead of the one we used last year. Carla and I dutifully visited one a few weeks ago, to sample the cupcakes. They did not have anything with lemon curd, so that was a disadvantage right out of the gate. But also the frosting wasn’t my favorite – I like a cream cheese frosting, not a simple buttercream because I am picky – and the vanilla cake was just okay. The other bakeries either don’t have cupcakes available for sampling [and by “sampling” I mean buying, as one would normally procure a cupcake] or they don’t have a cream cheese or lemon option in the lists of cakes they offer. So I think we decided that spending $40 on a cake that MIGHT be okay wasn’t the best use of our money or calories.)

Anyway! Cake is passe. An entire world of lemony desserts lies at my fingertips! And yet I cannot choose among them. Care to join me in a genial overthinking of the narrowed-down (yes, I speak the truth) list of considerations? Perhaps you have strong opinions about which way I should lean? Or perhaps you have other lemony desserts to recommend that sound even better!

Lemony Options:

Lemon Bars

Pros: Delicious. Easy to make. Probably freeze well, if there are any leftover.

Cons: But which recipe??? Are they too simple to feel special? 

Magic Lemon Pudding Cake

Pros: My husband has made this before and it is truly delicious.

Cons: I am just not feeling it this year.

Lemon Curd Yogurt Cheesecake Bars

Pros: A marriage between cheesecake and lemon bars – both of which I love.

Cons: I am unfamiliar with this recipe and the blog, so can’t attest to quality.

No Bake Lemon Curd Cheesecake Bars

Pros: I am sensing a theme, and that theme is cheesecake in bar form, and this addresses both points very succinctly. 

Cons: I am unfamiliar with this recipe and the blog, so can’t attest to quality. Also, I apparently have a weird and heretofore unknown bias against “no bake” recipes for some reason???

Mini Lemon Curd Cheesecakes

Pros: This might be a way to sneak around my husband’s no cheesecake restriction. 

Cons: Again, a new-to-me blog and recipe. Also, I’m not sure if a lemon curd swirl would give me the burst of lemon curd I’m craving. Also, should I really be trying to trick my husband into making something he does not want to make?

Lemon Curd Dessert

Pros: This looks lovely in photos, and I like the idea of pillowy whipped cream. This also has a lot of elements that seem to be popping up in my “that sounds yummy” list this year: cream cheese, lemon curd, shortbread crust.

Cons: What IS it, exactly? A bar? A pie? 

Lemon Curd Mousse

Pros: Finally, something that isn’t cheesecake adjacent! This looks light and yummy and wonderful! I have never had a lemon curd mousse before and it seems like I really SHOULD do.

Cons: Will this feel about as special as eating Jello on my birthday? Hard to say.

Lemon Curd Tartlets

Pros: This is exactly the kind of thing I would buy from the pastry case of a fancy patisserie. Plus, they are very cute. 

Cons: Perhaps I would eat one and think, “Is this all?”

Lemon Supreme Pie

Pros: This looks magnificent. 

Cons: Can I really ask my husband to make a PIE from SCRATCH?

Lemon Tiramisu

Pros: I love tiramisu. Many lemon tiramisu recipes call for limoncello, which I do NOT like, and this one doesn’t. 

Cons: I am suspicious of the pudding ingredient. And…there is no CURD.