Every Monday, we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was from Christy Jordan’s book Southern Plate. (She has a web site of the same name, here.)

Robyn’s take:

Nance got to pick this week’s recipe. We both own Christy Jordan’s cookbook, but it wasn’t ’til we started this site that I made anything from it. Actually, even though Christy is local to me it wasn’t until my friend Katherine pointed me to Christy’s site and specifically the Butterfinger Cake recipe a couple of years ago that I even knew who she was. Now that I’ve started using her cookbook, I want to make EVERYTHING from it!

So Nance chose this week’s recipe and I was ALL about making lemon bars. I love all things lemon and I knew I’d love these.

Your ingredients:

Don’t you like my super-awesome way of labeling my confectioner’s sugar? I am klassy with a capital K. Also, I like how the no-name brand of butter just says “BUTTER” on it, that cracks me up for some reason.

Anyway, these are the ingredients for the crust. As you can see, super simple. Confectioner’s sugar, all-purpose flour, and softened butter (you can use margarine if you want. I don’t know why you would, but I’m not here to judge.)

Apparently I didn’t get a picture of the part where you sift together the flour and sugar and then cut in the butter. It went about as you’d expect. I used a pastry blender. It was amazing.

Then you pat the dough into the bottom of a 9×13-inch dish. Christy didn’t say anything about greasing the dish, but the idea of not greasing the dish made me nervous, so I used the butter wrappers to butter the bottom and sides of the dish. Could I say “dish” any more often there? Dishdishdishdishdiiiiiiiiiiiish.

Put your crust in the oven to bake for about 25 minutes or until it’s lightly browned. Like such:

These are some fabulous pictures this week, aren’t they? Hey, I never claimed to be a food photographer. I tried offering the crust some catnip, but it refused to roll around and look cute.

Now, warning: I am a dumbass and I skim when I read recipes. So I missed the part where you’re supposed to let the crust cool. I didn’t let it cool at ALL, and in fact I made the filling while the crust was cooking and dumped it right on the hot crust. It turned out okay, but perhaps if I paid attention to what I was supposed to be doing, it would have been BETTER.

Here are the filling ingredients:

Eggs (from our very own chickens), granulated sugar, lemon juice, all-purpose flour, baking powder, and confectioner’s sugar. You mix it all up (except for the confectioner’s sugar, which is for sprinkling on the top) and then you yell for your husband to come dump it over the crust so you can get a picture of it.

Then stick the whole shebang in the oven and bake it for 15 minutes or until slightly browned and set. Now, my bars weren’t set at 15 minutes, it took another 3 minutes in the oven. Pro (HA HA HA) tip: if the filling is still jiggly, give it a few more minutes.

Perhaps a little more brown around the edge than it should be? But still, they turned out really really good. Fred and I each had a small piece once the bars were cool and they were SO GOOD. They were even better the next day – I’m not sure if that’s because sitting made the flavors blend better or just because we were hungrier the next day.

The verdict? These were oh so good. Perfectly lemony, but not overwhelmingly so. I am definitely going to make these again and I think you should too!

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Nance’s side:

It was my turn to pick the recipe and, once again, I went for The Fattening. Y’all (yunz – shout out Western Pa!) should just get used to it.  I’m sure that Robyn will take care of all that healthy stuff.  Something tells me that I’m going to see zucchini and okra in my future.  Barf.

I thought the Lemon bars would be good because Holy Two Sticks of Butter Batman! I have never had lemon bars, but rumor has it that it’s pretty popular in the south (per the husband). I figure I like butter and I like lemonade. How bad can it be, right? And I noticed that the ingredient list wasn’t full of freaky stuff that I didn’t recognize.  Plus, I have tried a few other recipes in Christy’s cookbook and they all turned out excellent.  Can you see where this is going?  Oh, just wait.  It’s going to get ugly up in here.

It cracks my shit up that Robyn and I both took a picture of the butter.  Please note that the placement of my butter was well thought out (unlike someone who just chunked it down on their counter and snapped away, ahem).  Yes, I had to open up a new package of butter and that’s why they don’t look the same.  I’m wishing now that I had taken the extra time to do that.  And if you believe that shit I have some beautiful lemon bars for you to try.

Since Robyn and I are both doing the same recipe (and reviewing it) I follow the directions exactly.  I even busted out the SIFTER for this bitch because Christy said that’s what I was supposed to do and I did it.  Oh look!  Canisters that don’t have masking tape labels.  I guess I’m just not as cool as Robyn.  And I don’t see anything about where Robyn SIFTED her stuff.  Maybe she couldn’t be bothered, hmm?

I cut the butter into the flour until I couldn’t stand it anymore. And this is what it looked like when I got ready to press it into the pan. You like that purple casserole dish? Get used to it because I use that thing a lot.

Me and my man hands pressing that mess into the pan. I thought about making it pretty and then I woke the fuck up and realized that there is no hope.  And no, I didn’t grease my pan because hello, two sticks of butter!

Even Felina (the ridiculous chihuahua) was concerned about how this situation was going to turn out.

It didn’t turn out bad at all. I took this picture so everyone could see what “lightly browned” meant. Or at least my version of it anyway.

This is where I think the situation took a serious turn for the worse. I had Rick beat the eggs and he went to town. And I let him because I was having fun snapping pictures of that it.

See, action shots! What? We were bored.

I even sifted the flour and baking powder. I did what I was supposed to do, dammit! If this was Robyn she would have typed damnit because she’s so perfect.

And yeah, we were really into catching it while it was happening.  Get a life, Nance & Rick!

Looks good, no?

Set the timer. Did everything just like the book said. And guess how it turned out. Well, let me show you…

How do you say FAIL?

I managed to get 3 pieces out and on a plate (dug from the center, gah!) and the shit was oozing everywhere.

I was thoroughly disgusted and as I was walking out the door to go grocery shopping my mother asked me what she should do with them. “Throw them in the garbage for chrissakes!”

And then I went to the store and saw this. How rude!

I am still trying to figure out where I went wrong. And no, there isn’t anything wrong with our stove. The only thing I could come up with is the over-beating (whisking, whee!) of the eggs. If anybody has a clue, feel free to let me know in the comment section. For once, this bitch needs to buy her own vowel. Sigh.

PS:  Even though I screwed it up (oh, trust me, I know it was something I did) I would definitely recommend this recipe based on how Robyn’s turned out.  I’m going to have to try this again (once y’all tell me where I messed up).