CELESTIAL LEMON BARS MADE EVEN MORE HEAVENLY WITH THE ADDITION OF APRICOTS, OR RASPBERRIES, OR BLUEBERRIES.

This is a picture of Nelda's fabulous, heavenly, the best! Lemon Bars.  The recipe is found on the following link.
http://michigancottagecook.blogspot.com/2011/01/neldas-best-lemon-squares-for-either.html


This is going to be a little different food post than my usual ones because I had a disaster in the kitchen. I should have photographed the mess, but at the time I wasn't thinking pictures. I was thinking about a book burning as this was the second recipe from a famous restaurant's cookbook that didn't work out, but was a spectacular failure. 

 I used fresh raspberries for half my bars and apricot preserves with dried apricots for the other half of my bars.

My friend, Nelda who lives in Maine, and I have traded recipes, discussed recipe ideas, and hunted for cookbooks together since the 1960's. We have declared her Lemon Bar recipe as THE best. We also have favorite flavors and one of those is apricot. When I found a recipe for Lemon Apricot Bars, our mouths started to water. In one of our lengthy phone calls, we decided adding some dried apricots to the apricot preserves would take the flavor up to even more heavenly heights.

 Chop some dried apricots into very small pieces.

Put the apricot pieces in a strainer.

Pour boiling water over the apricots and let them dry or dry them with paper towels.

Add apricot pieces to apricot preserves.

Spread apricot mixture onto baked crust.

For a change of flavor, use blueberry preserves and dried blueberries.

I decided to try the Apricot Lemon Bars as Nelda and I discussed.  I want to try an idea I saw at Martha Vineyard Wine Shop in Grand Rapids which was fresh raspberries or fresh blueberries in lemon bars.  I would not use frozen berries as they would be too wet.  As my Grandma would say, "I had to pay an arm and a leg for fresh berries this time of year because they are so expensive."  Of course, my leg isn't worth much until I get my new knee.

Sprinkle fresh fruit on baked crust.

Sprinkle fresh fruit with some flour.  Do not use frozen fruit.

Pour lemon mixture over the preserves or the fresh berries.

Bake until the bars test done.  Chill.

INGREDIENTS FOR BARS WITH PRESERVES


Ingredients for Nelda's Lemon Squares
Apricot preserves, for one-half of 9x13-pan use 1/3 cup plus about 8 small dried apricots.


To cover the full bottom of an 9x13-pan use a heaping 1/2 cup of preserves and a few more apricots.


Use these same proportions when making bars with blueberry preserves and dried blueberries.




INGREDIENTS FOR BARS WITH FRESH RASPBERRIES OR BLUEBERRIES


Ingredients for Nelda's Lemon Squares


A little flour to dust the berries with before pouring the lemon mixture over them.


1/2 of a 1/2 pint of berries to cover half the bottom of a 9x13-pan.  (Are there enough 1/2's in there?)

To cover the full bottom of a 9x13-inch pan, use a 1/2 pint of berries.