Easy lemon bars

I wanted something sweet and I had a lot of cake mixes and cream cheese, so I did a search on All Recipes, and found a bunch of recipes for lemon bars. I ended up looking at a few and mixing them into 1 recipe and they turned out really good, so here it is.

What you need:

• lemon cake mix
• egg
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 8 oz cream cheese
• 1/2 cup sugar
• lemon juice
• lemon zest

What you do:

• Mix the cake mix, egg and oil together. It'll be dough like, not cake batter like. I added zest of one lemon and a tablespoon of lemon juice because it didn't smell lemony enough to me. Put aside about a cup of this mix and pat the rest of it into an ungreased 9X13 pan.
• Bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees.
• Let it cool.
• This is very important, let it cool.
• Beat the cream cheese, sugar and a couple tablespoons of lemon juice till smooth. It should be spreadable.
• Make sure the bottom layer is cool before you try spreading the cream cheese mixture on top.
• Spread the cream cheese mixture on top.
• Take the dough you'd put aside and sprinkle evenly on top of the cream cheese mixture.
• Bake for another 15 minutes.

Cut into squares, diamonds, octagons, however you like them best. They are delicious. If cut into squares, they make 24 servings and each serving is a 3 points plus value, for my Weight Watchers friends.

My favorite salsa

Is one I make at home. It's so simple to customize to your own tastes, why would you ever buy a jarred salsa form the store? This is what I used:

• 1 medium onion
• 2 medium tomatoes
• 2 Serrano chilies (I usually use habanero but I didn't have any)
• 1 mango
• a few cilantro leaves
• salt, garlic powder and lemon juice to taste

Peel, chop into small pieces and mix it all together in a bowl. Add the salt, garlic powder and lemon juice to your taste. Enjoy with your favorite chips!

and it looks lovely with all the bright colors of the fresh fruits.

White chicken chili for the winter

When the sun is shining bright, but there's a chill in the air, chili is the food I crave. Jeff found a recipe at our new grocery store, Green Valley Marketplace. I made some changes but it turned out really good. Good enough that there aren't any leftovers.

What you need:

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped (I used a red one and it added a nice color)
1 jalapeño, chopped (I skipped this so Oli could eat it)
1 can creamed corn
1 can green chillies
1 can beans, any white ones (I used great white north, you can use navy)
2 cups milk (recipe called for whole, I only had 2%, it turned out fine)
2 cans cooked, shredded chicken
Your favorite shredded cheese in your favorite quantity
Salt & pepper to taste
I also added garlic

What you do:

Put the olive oil in your favorite deep cooking pan/skillet/wok, heat it. Add onions, bell pepper and jalapeño to the oil. Stir for a few minutes till the onions look opaque.

Add corn, beans and canned chillies to the mix and stir well. Add milk and let it come to a boil.

Add chicken and lower to a simmer. Add salt, pepper and garlic to your taste. Let it simmer for 10 minutes or so to let the favors mix.

Ladle into your favorite chili bowl, sprinkle some shredded cheese and enjoy!

I also added some chopped up serranos into my bowl and it was delicious! The non-spicy version also got two thumbs up from Oli and Jeff.

It makes 6 cups. Serving wise, I'd say that's 4 servings because I had a cup and a half and it was enough for dinner.

Since I'm n Weight Watchers right now, I also calculated the points plus and it's 5 per cup.