When Life Gives You Lemons, You Can do Better Than Lemonade: Lemon Bars, Anyone?

I have a cold-- a terrible cold-- a terrible, terrible, terrible cold!  And while I'm sure that death is imminent (one way or another), I decided to find a way to ease my passing into that dark dark night.  So, I went to the store for bourbon, lemons, and honey.  Turns out you can only drink so many hot toddies before you transition to straight bourbon, which hopefully has medicinal properties on its own.  That leaves me with an abundance of lemons.

What to do?  Lemon meringue pie?  I'm out of cornstarch.  Some sort of lemon chicken something or another?  No.  I want dessert.  Aha!  Lemon bars.  Seasonly appropriate and ingredients on hand both signal that all is a go.

Lemon Bars

The Crust:

1 C butter
3/4 C sugar
1 ts salt

Cream together in stand mixer using paddle attachment.

Stir in:

2 1/3 C of flour & zest from 2 lemons (first zest these lemons, then juice them for filling.  You'll need 1 C of juice for filling--5 lemons or so).

Gather dough into a ball and press into the bottom of a 9x13 inch pan.  Bake at 350° for 15-20 minutes (light-light golden color).

Remove.

Lemon filling (mostly how Ina Garten does it)

Whisk together:

1 C of flour
6 eggs
3 C of sugar
1 C of lemon juice

Pour on top of cooled crust and bake at 350° for 30 minutes or so.

Let cool, sprinkle with powdered sugar if you want to go the extra mile, and serve with coffee.  Or bourbon.