Yummy Tummy Tuesdays – Raspberry Bars

This recipe and the photo are both courtesy of my friends. I have to yet make this recipe myself but I can definitely vouch for the taste – yummmmm.. – and that  two different people made it with the same wonderful, mouth-watering results!

• 1.5 cups plus 2 TBSP unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 lb (or 3.5 cups) all purpose flour (unbleached preferred)
• 7.5 oz.(1 2/3 cups)  hazelnut, chopped and toasted (or dry roasted pecan will also do)
• 2 cups raspberry preserves / jam

1. Heat the oven to 350 degree F.
2. Butter a 9×13 inch baking pan.
3. Using a hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar on medium speed until fluffy.
4. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition
5. Add the flour and mix just enough to incorporate
6. Add the hazlenuts and mix until just blended
7. Press about 2/3 of the mixture in to the preparation pan.
8. Spread with raspberry jam and then crumble the remaining dough on top.
9. Bake until the top is lightly browned about 50 – 60 minutes.
10. Put the pan on a rack and cool
11. Cut the bars into even 1 inches squares once it cools dwon (~ 1-2 hours after taking it out from the oven)
NOTE: Trader Joes has excellent dry roasted pecans you can use for this recipe in place of the hazelnuts..

Tuesday Memes

Top Ten Tuesday

The theme this week at The Broke and the Bookish is Top Ten Books You’d Hand To Someone Who Says
They Don’t Like To Read. “You don’t like to read!! Well, that is just terrible.. and needs to be corrected right away”…My list of books (you can see I cheated a little, well, a lot actually) is here:

1. The Book Thief – What can I say? I read this book just last year and now I tell everyone that they need to read the book. I am sure at some point, the non-readers in my life will read it, just to not hear me say that anymoreJ
2. Short stories – especially ones by O.Henry (The Last Leaf), H.H.Munro/Saki(Open Window), Edgar Allen
   Poe(The Tell Tale Heart), Oscar Wilde(The Rose and the Nightingale), and also by Rabindranath Tagore (Kabuliwala is one I love a lot), R.K.Narayan(An Astrologer’s Day), Roald Dahl (all of his short stories for adults and kids are gems)
3. Harry Potter series – Well, this series made readers of so many people I know – kids and adults alike – that this definitely had to appear on my list here.
4. Twilight series – I know there are enough people out there who have varied opinions on this series but no matter what is said about the books (and the movies!), this series, like the Harry Potter series, got people reading and that is what this list is about.
5. The Life of Pi – Again, an amazing book that kept me turning the pages and wanting to read some more after the book had ended – exactly what you want a non-reader to do and feel at the end of one book  keep reading – so hopefully they will move on to another book after this one.
6. Mr.Popper’s Penguins – I read this book last week and reviewed it yesterday – why would I hand this to someone who says they don’t like to read? – because it is a fun, easy read – lots of imagination, lots of reality too and the right size for someone to decide that they will love reading after all
7. Non-fiction books like – Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies and The Cruelest Journey: Six Hundred Miles to Timbuktu
8. Some of my favorite childhood series – Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys/Enid Blyton’s many series including Malory Towers, The Naughtiest Girl in School, Famous Five, Five Find Outers
9. Books made into movies will also always succeed – I already have Harry Potter, Twilight, Mr.Popper’s Penguins on my list and The Book Thief is being made into one as well. I am cheating by including Narnia, The Lord of the Rings and the Percy Jackson series here!
10. And last but not the least – reading book blogs (though not technically books, but reading book blogs will definitely rouse the non-reader’s interest since everyone spends time surfing anyways – to read the books they read about!)

Teaser Tuesdays and More

 Teaser Tuesdays: MizB of Should Be Reading hosts Teaser Tuesdays. Anyone can play along. Just do the following:
*Grab your current read.*Open to a random page. *Share two “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. *BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
You don’t want to ruin the book for others. *Share the title and author too, so other TT participants can add it to their TBR lists if they like your teaser.
This week, again, my teaser is from ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea’“The darkness was then profound, and, however good the Canadian’s eyes were, I asked myself how he had managed to see, and what he had been able to see. My heart beat as if it would break. But Ned Land was not mistaken, and we all perceived the object he pointed to.”Verne, Jules (2009-10-04). Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (pp. 14-15). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition. And a Happy Birthday to Charles Dickens today:)