It cooled off immensely during the night, after the front moved though. We dropped from 90 degrees (and over) yesterday to mid-50s all day today. Although with skies like this...
The storms were mostly south of us, so I was able to watch the lightning from my back porch, looking over the roofs of other buildings in town here. The light spot in the middle was a really hot spot for lightning at that moment; this was right at sunset when everything was cast in a really bizarre orange-yellow hue, and then suddenly all was dark as night finally enveloped it all. It was gorgeous and a little scary; that's the magic of storms. <3 nature. ;)
I may have been lamenting the loss of cool weather a little too soon, although I love cool weather. Mid-50s and 60s are perfect in my mind; sweater = yes! No sweater? You'll survive. But more than that, cool weather invites tea-drinking. It's not very fun at all to brew up a cup of tea when it's 90 degrees outside, is it? Air conditioning or not, it's still hot and sticky. But today...
I brew loose-leaf Irish or English Breakfast tea in an individual strainer/teapot that actually serves up quite a bit of tea. I used to drink a lot of tea, than switched to coffee for a while, but a family vacation taken to the UK this past winter obviously set me up for some pretty serious tea-imbibing. After finding the greatest little tea house in London (there are several!), Teapod, and going there daily while I wound up my stay in the city, I bought some of their house blend black tea and fell. in. love. The closest I've been able to come here in town is Fava Tea Company's Irish Breakfast loose leaf tea.
And sipping it while streaming the new Bon Iver album via NPR?!? Check it out! Everybody is doing it! It's a fantastic, fantastic, fantastic album. Just amazing. I can't stress enough how much the pre-release streaming features on NPR ROCK MY WORLD. <3 you NPR.
Have a wonderful night!
I'm not sure what it is about dessert bars that I always love the idea of, but then feel a little let down when I actually make them. I suppose it's that bars are kind of an in-between of cookies and cake. I love cookies. And I love cake. So why do I usually love bars? I like them alright. I'll eat them if someone offers me one. But if I'm not really partial to them, then why did I go ahead and make a whole pan?
Well, the recipe called for ingredients that I already had, except for the almonds. It was a pantry dessert. In the end, it wasn't what I would call "excellent," due to the fact that I may have overbaked it by a couple of minutes, and I might have cut down on the total amount of almonds, or at least chopped them finer if I was going to add them all. Don't get me wrong, they were tasty. My family loved them. But like I said, me and dessert bars...
Almond Coconut Bars
Crust:
1 cup all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons butter at room temperature
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
Top:
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 cup chopped almonds
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the crust:
Cream butter and brown sugar in a bowl. Sift in the flour and blend into the mixture, then pour the mixture into a greased 8x8" pan, spreading evenly and patting down lightly with your fingers. Bake at 375 degrees F for 20 minutes.
For the topping:
In a bowl, sift flour with baking soda and salt, and mix with coconut and the nuts. In another bowl, beat eggs, add brown sugar and vanilla, and continue beating this mixture until fluffy. Combine the two mixtures and pour the batter over the baked crust. Bake at 375 degrees F for about 20 minutes. Cool slightly and cut into bars. Store in air-tight container.
...
Tonight, the sun is setting beside some pretty strangely-hued incoming storm clouds. The sky is an ominous grey-yellow-green that's occasionally sliced open by a flash of lightning. We've been waiting for this storm front to break up our hot spell that's hit us all of a sudden. It will be a relief to be free from the sweltering heat (temporarily, I'm sure), but more than that I look forward to the storms themselves. Summer thunderstorms are something, in my opinion, not to be missed. Granted there's no tornado threat, a thunderstorm is always an invitation to take a beverage out onto the porch steps and, at least until it starts pouring, watch the clouds roll on in.
I'm enjoying the storm while eating these:
I think that about sums it up!
