Blackberry Pie Bars
When I planned the menu for Caroline’s birthday party, these bars were something of an afterthought. They helped round out the dessert portion of the menu, adding another berry treat for our little berry fiend. I suspected they would be good but oh.my.gosh, people, these were definitely the highlight of the spread. The buttery, crumbly crust with a hint of lemon and the amazing blackberry filling are an irresistible combination. These bake up very thick, so you can cut them on the small side. The recipe doubles easily in a 9 x 13-inch pan to feed a larger crowd. This recipe will undoubtedly become a total staple for bringing to spring and summer parties, potlucks, and more. I’m looking forward to trying it with other fruits as well.
Ingredients
For the crust and topping:
1½ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup sugar
Pinch of salt
Zest of half a lemon
¾ cup (12 tbsp.) unsalted butter, cold
For the filling:
2 large eggs
1 cups sugar
½ cup sour cream or greek yogurt
6 tbsp. all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt
Juice of half a lemon
1 tsp. vanilla extract
15-16 oz. blackberries, fresh or frozen (thawed and drained of excess juices)
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Line a 9 x 9-inch baking pan with foil and grease lightly. In the bowl of a food processor or electric mixer, combine the flour, sugar, salt and lemon zest. Pulse briefly to blend. Cut the butter into small cubes, then add to the bowl with the dry ingredients. Process in short pulses to cut the butter into the dry ingredients until only small pieces of butter remain and the mixture is crumbly.
Reserve ¾ cup of the mixture for topping the bars. Add the rest of the mixture to the prepared pan and press to form an even layer of crust on the bottom of the pan. Bake 12-15 minutes, until light golden. Let cool 10-15 minutes before proceeding.
In a medium bowl, make the filling mixture. Combine the eggs, sugar, sour cream, flour, salt, lemon juice and vanilla. Whisk until smooth. Gently stir in the blackberries with a spatula. Spread the filling mixture over the pre-baked crust in the baking pan. Crumble the reserved topping mixture over the filling evenly.
Bake until the top is beginning to brown and the bars are just set, about 45 minutes. Let cool completely on a wire rack. Chill to firm up before slicing and serving.
Source
The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather via Pink Parsley
Somehow it seems time has gone and played its tricks again, and our precious baby girl is no longer a baby at all. Suddenly, she’s a big girl. A big two year old(!) with a very big personality. It took some time for me to settle on a fitting theme for her party, but eventually I tried to just think about what she likes best. Of course as a two year old, she doesn’t have a great many favorite things yet but undoubtedly one of her absolute favorite things to do is to read. Mostly to have us read to her, but sometimes to sit with books we have read so many times she knows them by heart, and then she “reads” them to herself. She has a hilarious habit of backing up to any grown up’s lap with book in hand whether you’re ready or not. But depending on your posture, it’s not always a lap she lands on. We’ve both had our heads sat on on multiple occasions while lying on the playroom floor followed by, “I read book!” So, I went with the idea of story time plus her favorite color purple, and came up with this simple celebration for our sweet girl. (By the way, the photo above is completely unstaged – she just really likes berries.)
The invitations (by 
Story time is a pretty subtle theme to work with, and I didn’t want to waste time or money collecting certain books or fancy vintage editions to decorate. I did my best to make do with things we already had on hand. We used this bookshelf that is normally in a different room to display photos of Caroline throughout the past year as well as some of her favorite books (the 
I used pages from old, fallen apart books to make a few small paper flowers to decorate the birthday banner and I thought they were a cute touch.
A lot of beautiful spring flowers just happen to be purple, so that worked well bring the color scheme through the various details. Irises were my mom’s favorite flower so they have a special meaning in our family, and it was nice to have some displayed on the main table. She also really loved hyacinths so this arrangement just made me feel happy.
I have to give a special shout out to Molly of 
The party was in the middle of the afternoon so not during prime meal time and as a result, I kept the menu on the small side. It was as follows:
The tartlets are actually just a mini version of this 
I never pass up an opportunity to make the ever popular 
We made a little collection of some of our family’s favorite storybooks for other kids to look at if they wanted. The crate was actually just the box left over from one of the birthday gifts I had given Caroline a few days before the party. And of course, I couldn’t resist cookie favors. I made my favorite 
The weather on the day of the party was absolutely gorgeous, so we spent the majority of the day outside playing. But eventually, we came inside to settle down and have story time before cupcakes. We have quite a few educators in our families, so I tapped them as a resource for reading duties. First my brother Steve, a fourth grade teacher, read one of our childhood favorites, 
Then Ben, a first grade teacher, followed it up with one of his childhood favorites (and what has become one of our absolute favorite stories for the kids at bedtime), 
Happy birthday, sweet Caroline! We couldn’t have dreamed up a more wonderful girl if we tried.
I’ve been on an organization bender since the beginning of this year. I think the post-holiday putting away of decorations and reorganizing to fit in new toys, etc. always gives me the nesting urge. I’ve been making big and small improvements in lots of areas of our home but one I am most excited about is using a pant hanger as a ribbon organizer. I picked up two of these from Target on a recent trip and having wrapped gifts twice in the past week I can attest that this thing has been fab to have. Just do it. (I can’t link to the ones I bought from their website and I definitely did not buy a $19 hanger like the one I see online. I’m pretty sure it was the Threshold brand and was around $8.)
I wish I had a fabulous book recommendation for you but unfortunately the book I just finished was only so-so. But, I have as usual been listening to episode after episode of This American Life. I have heard numerous episodes recently that have blown my mind, made me cry, made me laugh…I just can’t get enough of it. There are a couple I have found especially captivating lately. The one pictured above, 
Throughout my childhood, our pantry had a near constant supply of various boxed snack cakes. Dad did an 
Recently, rather out of the blue, I had a sudden craving for one. I haven’t bought packaged cookies or cakes in so long I can’t even remember, so I knew it was time to try out a homemade version of this childhood favorite. Thankfully Stella of 
When I first began learning to cook, back in my college apartment with a couple of random cookbooks and a few recipes printed from the interwebs, I was aaaallll about pasta. I’d venture a guess that pasta was one of the first foods many of us prepared beyond cereal or popcorn. Plus, I knew I loved it. Who doesn’t love pasta? As my interest in cooking has grown, I’ve steered away from pasta a bit. We still love it and eat it at least once every couple of weeks, but in many ways I started to equate it with something like a sandwich. In the same way you can put pretty much anything between two slices of bread and call it a meal, so too can you throw random ingredients into your pasta dish and call it dinner. While some nights that sort of adaptability and easy approach is a necessity, on others I just want something a little bit different.
