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Our Wedding Day


(Photo by Todd Sumlin)

I saw Mike’s car turning onto Kings Street as I blew past in my little red Nissan. I hoped he hadn’t caught a glimpse of me — I wanted to see his face when he had a real “first look.” I jumped out of my car at Mama Ricotta’s, an iconic and well-loved Italian restaurant in Charlotte. The best photographer in the universe (Charlotte Observer photojournalist and a great family friend Todd Sumlin) met me with a big hug and an even bigger camera. I told him Mike was just about to pull in and then, sure enough, his black car pulled into the parking lot. I hid (and did considerable hair-floofing, dress smoothing, and smile-adjusting) until Mike got out of the car, whereupon he turned and there it was — the moment I’d imagined a million times: our first sight of each other, complete with him (absolutely killing it in his blue suit) walking quickly over to me with a broad smile, saying, “Julie, you look beautiful.”



The first look (Photo by Todd Sumlin)

Our wedding was picture perfect for me, from proposal to the last goodnight. One of my favorite details was the beautiful custom invitation that illustrator Lana Frankel created. I have to brag on Lana for a bit, because this girl worked tirelessly to make sure these were perfect: she included our special fountain, hand addressed our envelopes, and even lined them with metallic art deco inspired paper (to match my vintage ring)! She went above and beyond — and that’s what I love about working with a small, passion-driven business like hers. We were so tickled with the invitations and they’re now one of our most special wedding mementos.

Another perfect detail was our ceremony. I wanted to retain a few wedding traditions that were meaningful to us and ditch the many that weren’t. Mike and I opted for a small exchange of vows at the restaurant itself followed by a big feast — the food was a very important detail for me, of course! No aisle, no long ceremony, no separate dancing reception. I love those things at others’ weddings, but for us, it really fit to do a big family dinner instead. That’s more who we are.

Mama Ricotta’s seated us in the back of the restaurant with a heavy red/gold metallic curtain drawn behind us. My mom worked magic with $20 worth of hot pink baby roses I’d picked up at Trader Joe’s the day before, making it look like we’d actually planned some décor. After fretting for a week or so about who would officiate our ceremony (we wanted someone special to us who knew a bit about us personally), Mike and I convinced my dad to get ordained and do the job! It was the most wonderful twist I could’ve imagined: I’ll never forget that my dad not only “gave me away,” but actually led us through our vows on my wedding day.

After our vows — which we giggled and sniffled our way through — the servers brought us tray after tray overflowing with amazing food (some of which is pictured in our wedding album, below). Here’s the menu we enjoyed surrounded by our close family:

My lovely new in-laws (who have really felt like family for years) jokingly asked whether we’d also paid for the servers to roll us all out with handtrucks after the meal. Despite having just eaten a huge amount of food, Mike and I happily cut the cake: a huge sheet cake from Sam’s Club with fluffy whipped icing. Perhaps that doesn’t sound too fancy, but to me, there’s nothing more decadent than a ton of fluffy icing that I didn’t mix up myself! I had a hard decision to make, though, as I tried to determine which piece had the maximum amount of icing.


Mike helps me decide which piece of cake I want. Pretty sure this is important practice for being my husband. (Photo by Todd Sumlin)

At the end of the night, the marriage license was signed and hugs and kisses given all around. Mike and I found ourselves buckled into his car, husband and wife. I read him the cards we’d received from our family as he drove us through the streets of Charlotte. Three days later, we still turn to each other every now and then and laugh, realizing again how surreal it is that we’re married. I don’t know how long it’ll take for that to wear off, but I’m in no hurry. It has been a truly lovely union so far.

I thought I’d share a few photos from our wedding album with you. Thank you so much, again, to our wonderful photographer and friend, Todd Sumlin, for taking these photos. If you’re in Charlotte and need a photographer, I can’t recommend him enough! (You can click the “full screen” button to make the slideshow larger.)



layers_of_eli's weddingphotosubset album on Photobucket

Just like that, on August 4, 2013, all my dreams came true. Thank you all for your love, congratulations, and support!

* * *

Disclosure: Lana and Todd both generously gifted portions or the entirety of their services to me for my wedding; however, I value my readers such that all opinions expressed on Willow Bird are always my own. I share these lovely folks and their businesses with you because they are absolute gems and I know you’ll appreciate the quality of their work as much as I do.

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Fruity Pebble Strawberry Ice Cream Sundaes

My chubby hands guided my pen as best they could, but I was frustrated that the lines on paper didn’t look like the lines in my imagination. I could picture the room I was drawing so vividly — sophisticated colors, plush furniture, regal lamps . . . and a huge maze of floor-to-ceiling carpeted cat trees built into the wall itself. I unconsciously chewed my tongue firmly between my teeth, absorbed in concentration. These were the plans for the (aptly-named) cat room of my future home.

I was only about 9, but I already had very particular taste. My future home was going to be a sprawling, named estate — Avalon, I called it — with dozens of themed rooms; secret passageways; and a romantic, rolling wood surrounding it. I knew detailed plans would be required for the contractors set to build such a home, so I often sat in my room drawing and redrawing the details on notebook paper — everything from the floor layout to the accessories.

Apart from the cat room, I planned a huge library à la Beast’s and, because I was running out of themes and enjoyed watching football, a sports room. I hadn’t gotten excited about baking yet, and what a shame. I’m sure I would’ve designed a lovely kitchen. As it was, though, I barely gave it a thought.

I had my estate all planned out, but whenever I tried to imagine who I would live there with (other than a plethora of cats of course), I drew a blank. Of course I would get married. Right? It was hard to imagine, since even at 9, I was fiercely independent and mostly lived inside of my own imagination. Of course my husband would be handsome, right? That was just the way it was supposed to be. But what did handsome mean?

I drew upon my limited knowledge of “husbands,” stocked mostly with images from Disney films (it didn’t occur to me that my own dad was a husband in addition to being a dad), and decided that handsome meant “very tall with a lot of dark brown hair.” My future husband, therefore, became a personality-less paper doll in my mind — tall and brown-haired and otherwise quite foggy.

As I got older, I wasn’t too protective of my plans. Toyota stole my estate’s name for a line of cars (I maintain this is what happened), and my carefully drawn diagrams got thrown out at some point. I’m a touch sad now that I’m a grown-up who realizes giant mansions with giant libraries and secret passages come with a price tag that teacher salaries cannot pay.

There are other plans, though, that I didn’t mind leaving behind. Far from my vague, brown-haired Disney-husband, Mike is blonde, with short-cropped hair. He also, thankfully, has much more of a personality than the nebulous husband I’d dreamed up.

Today would be quite a surprise to my 9-year-old self. It’s my wedding day. I know folks always say that little girls dream of their wedding day forever, but I was so busy dreaming of my career (a lawyer — I had my parents buy my a briefcase to prepare) and my house that I never really got to that part. If I would’ve thought much about it, I’m sure I would’ve inserted another canned Disney image: white veil, poofy sleeves, church on a mountainside.

Today we’re getting married at one of my favorite Italian restaurants, instead. My dress is cocktail length. We ordered a sheet cake from Sam’s for dessert. I couldn’t be happier. What’s the lesson I’m learning here? Maybe I’m realizing (again) something about letting go of my preconceived life, and especially the stock images pop culture has fed me of what Husband or House or Wedding (or Kids or Car or Career, even?) look like.

Mostly, I think I’m just feeling very grateful for a change of plans.

* * *

My wedding day gift to you is some ice cream! This strawberry ice cream — complete with a very whimsical, fruity mix-in of my favorite kids’ cereal — is one of the first I made in my new ice cream maker (I use this one, except mine is bright red). The ice cream is surprisingly delicious and super fun to eat! I hope you enjoy it.

One year ago: No-Bake Fruity Cereal Treat Cupfakes
Two years ago: Strawberry & Cream Cupcakes and Cake Pops
Three years ago: Black and White Croquembouche
Four years ago: Mango Raspberry Rosecakes

Fruity Pebble Strawberry Ice Cream Sundaes


Recipe by: Adapted from Cuisinart
Yield: 5 cups, or 10 servings

Strawberry ice cream is already an amazing summertime treat, but this ice cream mixes in fruity, fun kid cereals. It makes a surprisingly delicious ice cream sundae!

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen strawberries, hulled
3/4 cups whole milk
2/3 cup sugar
pinch salt
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup Fruity Pebbles (or similar cereal)
1 cup Cap’n Crunch Oops! All Berries (or similar cereal)

Directions:
Make sure your ice cream maker’s bowl is frozen per manufacturer’s instructions. Process the strawberries in a food processor until they’re finely chopped. In a separate medium bowl, blend together the milk, sugar, and salt until the sugar is dissolved. Mix in the heavy cream and vanilla. Stir in the strawberries (with juice). Cover this mixture and chill it overnight.

Turn on your ice cream maker and pour the mixture into its frozen bowl. Let the ice cream churn until thickened (mine takes about 20 minutes but it depends on your ice cream maker’s instructions). Pour in the Fruity Pebbles and Oops! All Berries cereal and let the mixture continue churning until mixed. Spoon the ice cream out into an airtight resealable container and freeze until firm according to your preference. Serve with extra cereal sprinkled over top, whipped cream, and strawberries.

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Homemade S’mores Marshmallows

$10 late last night for an impulse buy: a cookie-butter waffle purchased from a tiny restaurant on South Boulevard, eaten hastily in Mike’s car (using fingers instead of forks) as we talked about our big plans.

$5 this morning to park Mike’s car in a dusty gravel lot before walking a few city blocks hand in hand, dodging construction tape and ducking into the wrong building before finally finding our way.

$60 passed to a woman wearing a rhinestone heart ring and gold eye shadow, who typed a few things into the computer before printing, signing, and handing over our marriage license in a clear cellophane bag.

$30 for a celebratory lunch — orecchiette with sausage for me, pan-fried trout for Mike — at a little Italian restaurant buzzing with businesspeople at business lunch meetings.

$1.89 for a fountain Coke Zero from Chick-fil-a on the way home after baking our way through the city all afternoon.

The costs added up this weekend, but the total doesn’t come close to what I received in return: the memory of spending the-weekend-before-our-wedding with my fiancé, getting our marriage license and realizing together that this is really happening. What a crazy, surreal, tricky, scary, wonderful life.

* * *

Have a little celebration of your own with these indulgent homemade S’mores Marshmallows. The marshmallows are marbled with melted chocolate, rolled in graham cracker crumbs, and topped with a hot fudge drizzle. If you’re thinking that homemade marshmallows sound difficult, by the way, think again. If you can heat something on the stove and turn on your mixer, you got this — just use a candy thermometer and be careful with the hot sugar.

One year ago: Anthony’s Cinnamon & Walnut Zucchini Bread (gluten-free adaptation included)
Two years ago: Fig, Prosciutto, and Arugula Pizza
Three years ago: Chocolate Mousse Pie
Four years ago: Mango Raspberry Rosecakes

Homemade S’mores Marshmallows


Recipe by: Willow Bird Baking
Yield: 100+ 1-inch marshmallows!

These S’mores Marshmallows are homemade marshmallows marbled with chocolate and rolled in graham cracker crumbs. For a cute party treat, cut them into 1-inch cubes, drizzle them with hot fudge, and stick a toothpick in each one.

Ingredients:
3 packages unflavored gelatin
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup Hershey’s Baking Melts*, chopped
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips, melted and cooled (I used 1 cup semisweet and 1/2 cup 60% cacao Ghirardelli chips)
graham cracker crumbs, for dusting
hot fudge, for topping
*Karly turned me on to these and they’re perfect for this application, but you can use chocolate chips or even chocolate kisses if you need to.

Directions:
NOTE: Homemade marshmallows are easy if you do a few things. First, spray any measuring cups or tools you’ll be using with cooking spray. Greased measuring cups are great for easily measuring sticky corn syrup, and greased spatulas make working with the marshmallow mixture a lot easier. Second, get all your ingredients and pans measured and prepared before you start. Finally, once the marshmallows are all whipped up and you’re ready to swirl in the melted chocolate and pour the mixture in the pan, work quickly — if you wait too long, they are harder to work with.

Prepare a 9 x 12 inch glass baking dish by sprinkling in a layer of graham cracker crumbs (don’t be skimpy — this will prevent the marshmallows from sticking). Sprinkle the chopped baking melts over this layer and set the dish aside.

Place 1/2 cup cold water into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment (marshmallows are a ton easier with a stand mixer) and sprinkle all the gelatin over top to soften it. Let this sit while you make your syrup.

In a heavy medium saucepan, combine corn syrup, sugar, salt, and 1/2 cup water. Cook this over medium-high heat until the sugar dissolves, swirling periodically, and then turn the heat up to high. Cook it until it reaches 240 degrees on a candy thermometer (softball stage). Turn your mixer onto low and drizzle the hot syrup into your softened gelatin. When it’s all poured in, turn the mixer up to high and whip it until the mixture is thick and cooled, about 15 minutes. Then mix in the vanilla well.

Quickly remove the mixing bowl and using a greased spatula, fold in the melted and cooled chocolate. Don’t mix it in all the way — I think it looks pretty if it stays “marbled.” Then quickly scrape all the marshmallow mixture out into your prepared pan and smooth the top. Sprinkle on another solid layer of graham cracker crumbs (again, no skimping!). Let your marshmallows dry, uncovered, overnight. Run a knife around the edges and turn them out onto a cutting board, slicing them as desired (mine pictured above are probably too big — they are super rich and sweet! I recommend 1-inch squares). Then dip the sides into graham cracker crumbs to coat.

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Easy Taco Grilled Mini Pizzas

Mike and I have been doing a lot of talking about married life. How will we manage money? Do we want kids? Who vacuums?

Some of the answers are obvious (for instance, he will be folding all of the laundry. Don’t tell him I said that. But mark my words.) Others are a little trickier.

One of the tricky parts is dinner. I gotta be honest with you all: I don’t usually cook for myself during the week. I either make a big batch of something on Sunday and eat it all week (Naked Vegan Tacos or Roasted Tomato and Onion Bread Soup, anyone?) or I’ll microwave one of those frozen meals. Many nights, as my close friends know, find me at my local deli ordering a half sandwich and a cup of soup and working through dinner.

Cooking every single day is just too hard for me. I can cook a 20-hour dessert on the weekend without flinching, but don’t make me chop a vegetable.

Mike on the other hand is a very clean eater. He usually has broiled steak, chicken, or fish; some veggies; maybe some scrambled eggs. His meals are filled with healthy but plain food. I always tease him about choosing super simple recipes when I’m baking huge desserts, but really, he’s the one who takes the time to cook good meals on a daily basis.

I guess it seems obvious that he should be our go-to dinner person, but then again, I’m bored with his menu already. There are only so many nights I can eat chicken and vegetables.

We need a way to make one dinner customizable to both of our tastes. I’ve always loved Pillsbury crescent rolls for this purpose — they’re so versatile and can be stuffed with any old thing — but recently Pillsbury asked me to try their pizza crust and I enjoyed it, too! It’s perfect for a fun family night since everyone can choose their own toppings.

To try it out, I thought I’d give grilled pizza a go. I’ve wanted to grill pizza since folks around the interwebz first began doing so, but I live in an apartment and don’t have an outdoor grill. I do have a cast iron grill pan, though, so I jumped at the chance to experiment. It turns out that it’s super easy to grill a pizza indoors (and no mosquitoes, hooray). I used the tips from Pillsbury’s How to Grill Pizza website.

The best part about the process, for me, was the power to customize. I chose to cut my Pillsbury pizza crust into mini-pizzas, allowing people to dress their own individual servings. I created a little toppings bar with bowls of tomatoes, avocado, iceberg lettuce, shredded cheddar, sour cream, and tortilla chips. I then grilled the pizzas topped with just salsa, meat, and cheese, leaving the crisp, cold taco salad ingredients for folks to pile on their hot pizzas.


the toppings bar

With summer here, Pillsbury knows you and your family want to enjoy the outdoors as much as possible. So at your next BBQ, why not grill pizza (or mini-pizzas!) for a family fun night? Go see how to grill a pizza on Pillsbury’s website. And please save a slice for me.

One year ago: Elvis Presley Bars (Peanut Butter Banana Bacon Bars – with a vegetarian variation!)
Two years ago: Pretty Italian Pressed Sandwiches
Three years ago: Chocolate Mousse Pie
Four years ago: Baking to Freeze: Mexican and Classic Lasagna and Cookies

Easy Taco Grilled Pizza


Recipe by: Willow Bird Baking
Yield: 6-10 mini pizzas

These mini-pizzas are adorable no matter how you cook them, but grilling pizzas is fast, delicious, and perfect for the summer. Leave the toppings on the side as a topping bar so everyone can create their own perfect pizza.

Ingredients:
1 roll Pillsbury Pizza Crust
1 pound ground beef or turkey
taco seasoning
cheddar cheese
salsa
optional toppings: chopped tomatoes, iceberg lettuce, tortilla chips, sour cream, chopped avocado

Directions:
Review Pillsbury’s easy instructions for How to Grill Pizza before starting out and get all your toppings chopped and ready. Brown the ground beef in a skillet over high heat, drain it well on a paper towel lined plate, and then sauté it with the taco seasoning and a little water until it’s well seasoned. Set this aside with the other prepared ingredients.

Unroll Pillsbury Pizza Crust onto a greased sheet of foil and cut it to desired “mini pizza” sizes.

Preheat a cast iron grill pan (sprayed well with cooking spray) over medium heat (or preheat an oiled outdoor grill to a low heat). Use the foil to flip the mini crusts, one or two at a time, onto the grill. Grill the crust for a minute or two on the first side before flipping it and adding a layer of salsa, seasoned beef, and cheese. Cook another minute or two to melt the cheese, being careful not to burn the bottom crust. If the cheese isn’t fully melted, you can stick the pizza in the microwave for a few seconds post-grilling to finish that job. Take pizzas to the table and let everyone top as they wish. Enjoy!

Disclosure: Compensation was provided by General Mills via Glam Media. The opinions expressed herein, though, are all mine and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of General Mills. You can rest assured that I never share products with you that I’m not personally enthusiastic about.

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Strawberry Lemonade Cheesecake Bars with a Shortbread Crust

I haven’t met my future 8th grade students yet, but I’m pretty certain they are wonderful. Just a hunch. To prepare for our time together this fall, I’m reviewing their summer reading book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, wherein Mark Twain evokes the joy and angst of rural childhood.

One of the scenes in the book finds the spunky young protagonist tragically imprisoned in a church pew as “the minister prayed. A good, generous prayer it was, and went into details: it pleaded for the church, and the little children of the church; for the other churches of the village; for the village itself; for the county; for the state; for the state officers; for the United States; for the churches of the United States; for the President . . . .”

Tom noticed whenever the minister added a new detail to the prayer and “his whole nature resented it; he considered additions unfair, and scoundrelly.”

The prayer sounds mighty familiar to me. During my own childhood, it had not issued forth from a droning minister but from my own hyper-organized and hyper-devout conscience. I had a careful mental list of people and things I needed to pray for, and even sublists of what to pray about each of those people and things. My daily prayers grew to the point of absurdity. I would head into prayer time like a prisoner might trudge into her jail cell, schlepping her heavy chains along behind her. Doesn’t sound quite right, does it?

I didn’t know it, but my prayers were suffering from what I call “keeping the plane up” syndrome. I’m terrified of flying, and on an airplane, I’ll sometimes anxiously concentrate on keeping myself in the air. While I know it’s silly, it feels like my extreme focus gives me some control over the situation, and like breaking it might send the plane spiraling. To snap out of this, I have to very deliberately jar my focus — by reading SkyMall or walking to the restroom, usually — and let myself realize that everything is still okay.

My childhood prayers were the same thing. I was “keeping the plane up” — keeping people alive, keeping the house from burning down, keeping floods and severe weather at bay — all by focusing my tiny 8-year-old attention. While I think the minister in Tom Sawyer probably just enjoyed hearing himself pontificate, my own bloated prayers felt urgent to me. If I left a bit out, perhaps God would leave that bit off of His own list. Maybe that person would go unblessed, unhealed. The situation seemed quite weighty and desperate. When I got older, I realized I had to snap out of this much like I snapped out of keeping the plane up: by purposely upsetting the routine and watching for God’s continued faithfulness.

A few years ago I was reading through Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest and for some reason, something I’d heard over and over again, and indeed read over and over again in the Bible itself, finally clicked for me. It was the idea that God already knows what you need before you ask it. For some reason, it hadn’t really sunk in that the reason to pray was not to inform God what you needed, inform Him what you thought about Him, inform him what you were thankful for. He knew these things. So why tell Him? Radically, Chambers noted that like most things we think of as “serving God” (tithing, worshipping), this task was given to us for us — that is, prayer did more for us than it did for God.

What it does for us is connect us to the source of abundant life, allowing us to commune with God. It’s looking to the Father for a “security check,” abiding in Him, and therefore it replenishes and reassures us. It trains us for the life events that will bring us to our knees, when that communion will become a lifeline that we’re clinging to for survival (I believe this is why Christ encouraged the disciples repeatedly to commune in prayer with Him in the garden of Gethsemane — He knew the spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak, and they needed preparation for what was to come). It also allows us to explicitly do what Christ instructed and love our neighbors by lifting them in prayer.

But the key piece of this puzzle was, for me, He already knows. You can’t mess anything up by forgetting a part of the script. Indeed, I’m reminded that sometimes even when you have no words or are so heartbroken that you can’t remember how to pray, “the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”

Later in Tom Sawyer, a bored Tom rifles through his pocket and finds a box holding his most recent capture, a busy tick, whereupon “his face lit up with a glow of gratitude that was prayer, though he did not know it.”

Thankfully, I’ve experienced that sort of prayer, too. I remember it from the car ride to see my mom after she woke up from a surgery she almost didn’t survive. I remember it from the night Mike proposed to me. I remember it from watching Byrd run to fetch her rubber bone after her double knee surgery and months-long recovery. I remember it from sitting in a church pew with my nephew, Caleb, when he asked what the preacher meant by “committed to God” and after hearing my explanation, declared, “I’m committed to God.” I remember it from the day I received the phone call in my classroom telling me that my dad’s cancer was gone.

* * *

For those of you who pray — and I know there are those of you out there who don’t, and I hope you know you are as welcome here as anyone else — tell me about your prayers. Tell me about how your prayer life has changed over time. And have you felt that glowing moment of gratitude yourself?

In the meantime, let’s share some strawberry lemonade cheesecake. These bars are a version of one of my dad’s favorite desserts, Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Bars, and they are so creamy and delicious. This summery version includes a little extra lemon tang, big fresh strawberries, and a buttery shortbread crust. They’re also super easy to whip up, making them one of my favorite summertime treats. I hope you enjoy them.

One year ago: Lemon Raspberry Squares
Two years ago: Soft Sugar Cookies
Three years ago: Spicy Peach and Cucumber Salsa
Four years ago: Overnight Yeast Rolls

Strawberry Lemonade Cheesecake Bars with a Shortbread Crust


Recipe by: Adapted from King Arthur Flour (crust) and Shared Sugar (cheesecake)
Yields: about 18 bars

These cheesecake bars are the perfect summer treat: sweet, creamy, tangy, buttery, and easy to prepare!

Crust Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar

Cheesecake Layer Ingredients:
32 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
4 eggs
5-6 tablespoons lemon juice, depending on how tart you usually like your lemonade!
lemon zest from one lemon (reserve a little to sprinkle on top)
1 cup sugar
strawberries, quartered*
powdered sugar for topping
*Note: I probably bought 2 pints of strawberries but didn’t quite use them all. I didn’t quarter mine because I thought they’d be pretty whole, but they were a bit hard to eat and I’ll quarter them next time I make this recipe!

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350°F. Prepare a 9 x 13 in. baking dish with a parchment paper sling. Cut the butter into the flour and confectioners’ sugar and press into the baking dish (I used a food processor to cut the fat into the flour, and then the bottom of a dish to press the mixture into the pan). Bake 20 minutes or until light brown. Let cool on wire rack.

In a bowl with an electric mixer, add the cream cheese, eggs, lemon juice, lemon zest, and sugar. Mix until the ingredients are creamy and the cream cheese is fully incorporated. Pour into the pan with the cooled crust. Then evenly distribute the strawberries.

Bake 30-35 minutes or until filling is set. Remove from the oven and cool completely. Then refrigerate for at least 3 hours. Remove the cheesecake from the pan using the parchment paper. Cut into bars and sprinkle with powdered sugar and/or lemon zest.

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