Think Spring: Pink Pyrex in the Pantry

(Yes, I love alliteration.)

A neighbor kindly brought us a bag of lemons from her backyard tree a few days ago.  (The fact that lemons bear fruit and flowers simultaneously, is a blessing with many benefits.)

I wondered for awhile how best to use so many lemons, and then I remembered the pink Pyrex dishes I'd found at a couple of recent estate sales.  Pyrex pink and lemon yellow are excellent Springtime colors -- and in some parts of this country we really need Spring to come again soon -- so I decided to combine them in my kitchen by making Lemon Bars.

Pyrex bowls and serving dishes are, as I've discussed elsewhere in this blog, extremely durable and useful. 

The blue snowflake Pyrex mixing bowls, featured in a previous blog post.

They came in a variety of colors, including at least two shades of pink.  I now have a carnation pink mixing bowl and a coral pink baking dish. 

 I also have a very good recipe for Lemon Bars, that came many years ago from my friend in Vermont.  I copied the recipe into the ring binder that serves as a homemade cookbook:

(You can tell that the recipe is a good one by the amount of food stains that have collected on the page over the years.)

Here's the recipe:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine in a mixing bowl (using an electric mixer if you have one):

1/2 cup (one stick) real butter
1 c. flour
1/4 cup powdered sugar

Mix these together in the bowl until the mixture looks like large crumbs about the size of split peas.  It may take awhile, depending on how cold the butter was when you started.  

Press this shortbread mixture into an ungreased 8x8" or 9x9" baking pan so that it covers the bottom of the pan evenly.  Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

While the shortbread mixture is baking, beat together thoroughly:

2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons freshly-squeezed lemon juice, strained

When the shortbread base is golden brown, remove it from the oven.  Pour the lemon/sugar mixture over the top evenly and return the pan to the oven for an additional 20-25 minutes or until the top is set and brown.

Cool before slicing into bars.  (I used a sharp knife dipped in very hot water to cut the slices.)  

Since my pink Pyrex baking dish is larger than 9x9", I doubled the recipe and it worked fine.  No sense running the risk of running out of Lemon Bars!  And I can take half of them to church for dessert after lunch tomorrow.

Here's a link to my previous blog post on Pyrex bowls:

http://estatesalechronicles.blogspot.com/2012/08/bless-you-julia-child.html