The Land of 10,000 Lakes

Whenever I drive by a car with license plates from my home state I wave to the driver.  Whenever I see people wearing licensed apparel of my hometown teams I stop to talk as if we know each other - most of the time the person I stop to talk to tells me they won the T-shirt in a raffle or that they just happen to like the color purple.  I can't help it, I long for a connection to home.
Several years ago when I left the Land of 10,000 Lakes to begin my career in the Big Apple, I had budgeted to live for 3 months on savings until I received my first actual paycheck.  Needless to say, my budget didn't allow for any luxuries...  Well, I take that back - on Fridays I would splurge on a slice of $.99 pizza at the shop next door to where I worked, but every other day I ate a carefully planned brown-bag lunch.
The one other splurge in which I indulged was butter.  I still do it to this day.  I almost always buy a certain brand of butter simply because it is made at home.  It is silly really because it hardly ever goes on sale like it's local buddies but I like the picture on the box and most importantly I crave that kinship.
Because of my loyal patronage, sometimes I receive brand recipe booklets.  Last week I tried:
http://www.landolakes.com/recipe/1866/coconut-cream-bars
My mom had made them before and said they were always  a huge hit at (what else?) potlucks.
They were indeed quite popular at my social gathering (one friend is allergic to chocolate and another to nuts - so finding just the right treat can be tricky).  I made both the frosting and coconut pink because I love pink and I can justify it with Valentine's approaching.  It was my intention to photograph the bars on a sweet, little pink tray but just as my mom had said, they were a huge hit and were gone before I had a chance.  I think I will call them - coconut dream bars.

The Fourth Law of Thermodynamics...

"If anything can go wrong, it will."
I am certainly no astrophysicist.  My daily routines are not at this moment world-changing (although I do hope that my job rearing children, encouraging my husband, and supporting friends and family will have a positive impact on the community around us).  Therefore, day to day crisis' are rather small scale in the scheme of things.

Crisis #1:

Blueberries?
They were on sale!  My kids love them... or they used to until they went on sale, then they went on a 3-day blueberry strike.  It happens quite regularly actually.  Last summer they lost all interest in peaches during peach season.  Honeycrisp apples finally made their way to the west coast and suddenly my children loathe apples.  I have a freezer full (it is a pretty small freezer - I long for a basement with room enough to house a deep freeze) over-ripe fruit waiting for it's place in a pie.  Trouble is pie is a huge temptation for me and I can only make it when equally-pie-loving company calls.

Solution:
White Chocolate Blueberry Squares

2 cups amaretto cookie crumbs
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 ½ cups fresh blueberries
1/3 cup whipping cream
8 oz. White chocolate, finely chopped

Directions

Line an 8 “ square metal cake pan with parchment paper, leaving a few inches of overhang; set aside.  In bowl, toss cookie crumbs with butter until moistened; press firmly onto bottom of prepared pan.  Sprinkle with blueberries; set aside.
In a saucepan, bring cream to a boil; pour over chocolate in heatproof bowl and stir until melted.  Let cool slightly; spoon evenly over berries.  Refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours.  Cut into squares.

Crisis #2:
What are amaretto cookies?  A cookie I am not familiar with?
I looked at 3 local grocery stores and could not find them so I used butter cookies for the crust instead.  I was happy with the result.  Nonetheless, I did eventually find them on amazon.com.  http://www.amazon.com/Amaretti-Saronno-Cookies-Window-Lazzaroni/dp/B0001K5LTY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=grocery&qid=1296004760&sr=8-1
See how sweet they look?

I would like to try the recipe again using the intended crust (blueberries are still on sale) and I think I will even try to add some lemon zest.

Crisis #3:
Promises broken.
Well, not broken but not met according to my expectations.
My friend asked me to donate some bars to a bake sale at her child's school.  How fun!!! I love this kind of stuff.  I began dreaming up cute packaging and assembling taste-testing panels.  Decisions were made.  I planned to wait until the 11th hour to bake the bars as to ensure their freshness.  It was a great and seemingly practical plan until... my daughter came down with a virus that seemed treatable only with constant snuggling, unending doses of fever-reducer, and several night wakings met with even more snuggling.  It is difficult to bake a pan of bars with a 1 year old in your arms.
In the end I did deliver 3 pans of bars (including the new produce savers), individually wrapped and labeled.

*I did in fact try the amaretto cookie crust and found the taste to be a bit overwhelming.  I will continue to use the butter cookies in the future.  I also tried the lemon zest with no real consequence either way.

Exactly what I was looking for... exactly where I wish I could get it:

http://www.barsbakery.com/bakery.html
Wouldn't you know those Swedes would think of this?

Don't forget your pan of bars for the potluck on Sunday...

This is a certain colloquialism I miss.  I grew up the Midwest, home of the potluck and the lutefisk feed.  For the past eight years however, I have been living in the nation's two largest cities (did I mention I grew up on a farm?!?) moving back and forth between the two as it suits my husband's career.  In one city homes are too tiny to host potlucks and most social gatherings take place at a restaurant - maybe the park if the weather cooperates; in the other city people are so conscious of what they are eating that potlucks consist of carrot sticks and fruit salad! 

I long for a get together where the dessert table is more massive than the main dish (hot dishes & casseroles, naturally) table, a table laden with cake and jelly roll pans filled with BARS!

Sure these cities have cupcakes galore (and I LOVE cupcakes too!) but I have had such a hard time finding a good peanut butter bar coated in chocolate or a butterscotch blondie or an oatmeal raisin bar.  I love looking through old 4-H cook books and my mom's recipe cards and making my own but I ALWAYS end up eating the entire pan by myself - my husband was not born in the Midwest, I don't think he is Scandinavian in the least, and therefore does not share the same sweet tooth (I married well - I get to eat all of the frosting he scrapes off his cake when we go to weddings!), thus the burden I hold.

But what if I open a bar bar?