A Quick Trip to London

Last week James and I needed to go down to Oxford quite last minute for a business meeting. It was the first time I had been to either Oxford or London and was quite excited to be seeing both. We drove down to Oxford on Tuesday and stayed at the Eynsham Hall in North Leigh till Thursday. Because our meeting was for lunch on Wednesday, it only left us about 3 hours to look around London including travel time (so really only 1.5 hours). We only managed to see Harrod's but it was sooooo worth it. As a total food nut, I drug James to the Food Hall section of Harrod's which is set amongst separate rooms all with their own theme (e.g. Chocolate, Sweets, Meats & Poultry, Seafood & Vegetable, etc.). Honestly, this was heaven, truly heaven and well worth going to. I highly recommend a visit if you are ever in London.

When we arrived back home, I found that we had left some strawberries in the fridge and they were starting to go smushy. So I had a quick look on the old net to see if I could get a recipe using mushy strawberries. I came across a recipe for Strawberry Lemon Bars and decided it was the one. I love lemons! The wonderfully tart taste is summer for me.



Having read through the recipe on Nook & Pantry, I decided to use my own tried and tested Lemon Bar Recipe (see below) but did add the Strawberry Puree as suggested. I personally think they came out great and really do taste like Strawberry Lemonade.

I also had some ripe bananas lying around so I quickly whipped up two of my famous Banana Bread loaves to use them up. I do love a warm piece of Banana Bread covered in butter for breakfast. Yum :)

Lemon Bars (Makes 16 Bars)

Ingredients:

Crust

1 cup plain flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup cold butter, cubed or grated

Topping

3 large eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
3 tbsp plain flour
2 tsp grated lemon zest (2 lemons)
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (use the 2 lemon you used for the zest)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Grease and line an 8 inch square pan.

For the Crust: In a bowl, combine the flour and sugar. Using a pastry blender, a food processor or your fingers, cut the butter into the flour mixture until it roughly resembles course crumbs. Press evenly into the prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven until lightly browned around the edges. (About 12 to 15 minutes)

For the Topping: In a separate bowl, whisk eggs, sugar, flour, lemon zest and juice until smooth. Don't overbeat. Pour over the crust.

Return to oven and bake until set, 25 to 30 minutes. Let cool completely in pan on rack. Once cool, cut into bars. (Just before serving, dust lightly with icing sugar. Make sure bars are completely cool.)