Easy Lemon Cookies

The Workshop has maintained an Anti Rachel Ray stance for sometime. This cooker feels that she misrepresents her 30 minute meals and her $40 a day show is a detriment to servers and restaurants everywhere. Next time you watch $40 a day, look at how much free stuff she gets, how many "budget friendly" specials happen to be featured that day and she is the worst tipper ever. Stepping down from the soap box. Her magazine does have a good staff of writers and bakers it seems though. Mrs. Cooker found a simple lemon cookie recipe that is actually good. Clearly the Workshop has mixed emotions about the whole thing. However, with the exaltation of lemons in mind, the Lemon Cookie. This cookie is nicely crunchy with a pronounced lemon flavor and a nice sweetness to balance the acid of the lemon juice. The ingredient list is taken directly from the Rachel Ray website but the directions are pure Workshop.

Admit it, you have never seen baking goods look so ominous

Freshly "grated" lemon zest is crucial to the lemoniness of these cookies

The cookie dough in an arty shot

You might notice that these hands are far too delicate to be those of the Workshop Cooker. Those beautiful fingers belong to Mrs. Cooker, who made these cookies

Sugared and ready to go into the oven

Fresh out the oven and ready for consumption

General notes:
Prep Time: 25 min and 15 min baking time
Servings: 2 -3 dozen depending on how big you make them
General Notes:

Ingredients:
1 Stick Unsalted Butter, chilled
1 1/4 cups Sugar
Grated Zest of 2 lemons
1 tbsp Lemon Juice
1 Large Egg
1 1/2 Cups AP Flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon table salt

Equipment:
Mixing bowls
Stand mixer or hand mixer
Microplane grater or cheese grater
Measuring Cups
Cookie Sheets
Parchment paper or Pam, paper preferred
Oven set preheated to 350 degrees

Written Instructions:

• Preheat the oven, line the cookie sheets with parchment, put a quarter cup of the sugar into a small bowl, get your stuff together in general
  
• Combine 1 cup of the sugar, the lemon zest, and the lemon juice in the stand mixer bowl and beat until fluffy.
• Add the egg and mix until it is incorporated
• Add the flour, baking soda and salt and mix until just combined.
• Spoon out about a tablespoon of the dough into your fingers and roll into a ball.
• Drop the ball into the bowl that has the remaining sugar and coat the ball with sugar
• Put the ball onto the cookie sheet, evenly spaced out
• Continue until you are out of dough or cookie sheet space
• Bake'um up for 12 to 15 minutes, they should have browned edges like cookies
• Remove from the oven and set aside to cool
• Remove from pan and cool somewhere
• Make it happen in your tum tum
  

The Lemon Czar (aka what to drink when you have too much Amish Lemonade and want to enjoy a cocktail)

Wondering how to make your Amish Lemonade a little less Amish, maybe a little more Russian? Well adding some Vodka is always a good place to start. Is it a little tangy and harsh for you now? Okay then add in some Cointreau to smooth that out. A little too sour still? Okay, fine, time to pull out the fancier guns, put a sugar rim on it. Delightful and refreshing right? Now go and dance, dance, dance.

Arty shot of the finished product in front of the ingredients

General Notes:
Preparation Time: 3 -5 minutes depending on how fast you can sugar a rim
Servings: 1
The workshop makes drinks pretty strong as a house policy, so decrease the booze if you need to. Also, use the best quality alcohols that you can afford, the difference is incredible.

Equipment:
1 12 ounce glass
Stirrer or shaker
Jigger, or shot glass

Ingredients:
1.5 ounce (1 shot, big side of jigger) Good Quality Vodka ( the Workshop is currently using Stolichnaya Elit, because the best Southern Wine and Spirits rep in the country, Dan Crockett, delivers free goods to the Workshop occasionally)
.5 ounce (small side of jigger) Cointreau, or Grand Marnier, or Triple Sec
Ice to fill glass
Amish Lemonade to fill the glass
Small amount of sugar to rim the glass
Lemon Slice

Written Instructions:

• Get the various ingredients together
• Rub the slice of lemon around the rim of the glass
• Invert the glass into the sugar and spin the glass or generally just try and rub the sugar onto it
• Add the booze to the glass and stir
• Add ice to the glass to fill
• Add the lemonade to the glass to fill
• Stir again
• Make it happen in your tum tum
• Put on some Smokey Robinson and Dance, Dance, Dance
  

Lemonade, Amish Style

Let's be honest. The first thing that you thought of when you heard Lemons were being worked on was Lemonade. There is nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing. However, had you not immediately thought of the honest, hard working Amish women working on some delightful Lemonade perhaps while the men are raising a barn, or driving a buggy or generally just doing things without the use of electricity, then you should be ashamed. Make this Lemonade and your shame will be lifted, not unlike that barn wall. The following is the Amish method of making Lemonade. It features a bright, full Lemon flavor that is far more round than the powdered variety you are used to.

A serrated knife is used to start breaking down the Lemons

The Lemons, halved with the tops and bottoms removed, ready to be sliced

Thinly sliced Lemon ready to go into the pot

The sliced Lemons covered in sugar, ready for their massage

The mashing /muddling begins

The mashing/muddling when finished

The resulting mush is then strained through a fine mesh strainer into a waiting pitcher

The strained lemon syrup is then mixed with cold water

General Notes
Time: 10 - 20 minutes, depends on your cutting speed and your muddling/mashing speed
Servings: 6 - 8 glasses of Lemonade
Notes: Adjust the amount of water and sugar to you personal taste

Equipment:
Cutting Board
Serrated Knife (preferred)
Pitcher
Fine Mesh Strainer
Potato Masher, or back of a spoon, or bottom of a ladle, child's clean feet, fists
Big Pot, pasta boiling pot or something that you can mash in and fits 12 Lemons cut up

Ingredients:
13 Lemons, any type will work
1 & 3/4 Cup Sugar
1 & 1/2 to 2 quarts (6-8 cups) cold Water

Written Instructions:

• Wash all of the lemons as you will be using the skin as well
• slice the tops and bottoms from 12 of the lemons, and halve them
• Thinly slice the lemons and add them into the big pot
• Add the sugar to the big pot
• Using the potato masher start mashing the lemons up with the sugar
• Keep going until the sugar has dissolved and you are left with a viscous syrup
• Strain the mixture through a fine mesh strainer into a waiting pitcher
• Gently press down on the mush each time to try and get as much syrup out as possible
• Then mix in the cold water and check the flavor
• Add fresh lemon juice if it needs some more acid, more sugar if it is too tart
• When the flavor is ready, make it happen in your tum tum