More Entertainment

When it rains, it pours (not really - we had some rain yesterday but it was just a bit - I wish it had poured!). But some days we have both a ninety-year-old running past our house AND a cooking webinar on the same day!

In the old days we would walk or ride over to campus to see an event (recording of a local radio show, interview with Michael Barbaro, discussion with an author), but now the events are online. I get emails about them all the time and decided if I signed up for them I would go and be glad I did. I was right.

The first one was a brunch with Yotam Ottolenghi.

I had never heard of him but when I mentioned to a friend she said she had used cookbooks he wrote. When I mentioned it to my older sister she said she had been to some of his restaurants in London.

We bought the supplement that came with the ingredients (some shown)
 and recipe. I did not cook while we watched.

It was great to see him in his kitchen. Also on screen were an ASL interpreter
and Rico Gagliano from the Dinner Party Download podcast. 

The entire event was much more captivating than I imagined. I appreciated Ottolenghi's ability to make cooking seem possible for all and I thought Gagliano did a good job of feeding questions and keeping it entertaining. We signed up for the next brunch event, but without the ingredients.

I did make the dish for dinner, but forgot to take a picture. Here is one of the last of the leftovers.

And if that weren't enough for one day, the Superbowl was the same day.
I am glad the people in our neighborhood had good weather for their party.

January Leftovers

Happy new year!

Æbleskiver, also known as Danish pancakes
It helps to have an æbleskiver pan!

 

New little library in the neighborhood

Some people find pennies on the ground.
I found a smushed penny!

September leftovers

A member-supported radio station in Pasadena hosted a storytelling event in town.
It was entertaining, free, and within cycling distance - ideal!

Did I mention I have a new job?

Not as fun as our old analog odometer, but this is still pretty satisfying.

After and before of a round braided loaf.

Recipes

Even though there seem to be limitless recipes online and I have files on my computer, I prefer to look at paper while I cook, either in a cookbook or a recipe I clipped or printed. I limit my cookbooks to one shelf

but I have a folder (which was a wedding shower gift from my childhood neighbors) of recipes that I decided needing thinning out.

The folder now has recipes I actually use. I have a pile of recipes that I am emotionally attached to (mostly hand-written by family and friends) and a pile of recipes I am willing to let go of. I know I should recycle the second pile because anyone who actually wants them probably has their own collection already.

The saved recipes will go into this wooden box tucked in the back of the cabinet. Also in that box are recipe cards that say, "From the kitchen of J.", which were a gift from my mom, along with little protective plastic sleeves to put recipe cards in, which were also a gift from my mom.

Some people who read this blog would say I should simply recycle the entire contents of this folder of recipes that caught my eye but I haven't tried yet, but I am not ready to do that. I will go through it and save recipes that still catch my eye and try to use one a week. Poco a poco, bit by bit.

Blog post

Sigh. When not-so-great things happen I tend to think, "At least I can get a blog post out of this." Not much of a silver lining!

A few years ago we missed a flight because we were at the wrong gate and nicest thing I heard that evening was, "It happens all day long." I had that same feeling after today's disaster. Searching for solutions I found 293,000 results.

I had bought steel-cut oats and had a recipe. The first step was to spray the liner with a non-stick spray. I didn't want it to get on the pot itself so I removed the liner to do it. I measured and added the first ingredient. I measured the second ingredient and poured into the pot. But why was it all pouring out?? Aaagh, because I had removed the liner. So sad.

I did my best to clean it and knew not to plug it in and turn it on to see if it worked (learning from a different wet electronic device experience). I did read about what other people did. We don't have a hair-dryer and I was a bit concerned about removing the bottom.

I so lucky to be married to someone who happily futzes with electronic devices! He removed the bottom, cleaned it up a bit, and we are letting it dry out. Other people have said their pots worked fine afterward and I am hoping for the same. Just like we learned the hard way to put the garage remote in the glove box when there is a bike on the room, now I will put the lid on the pot if I remove the liner. Life is a good teacher.

Needs and Wants

I didn't even know I wanted a 12" tempered glass lid for my cast iron skillet until I saw a brief mention of it in a cooking magazine.  At that moment I knew my life would be complete if I had one.  Sometimes I had to use my stainless steel skillet because it had a great lid even when I would have preferred my cast iron skillet.  Sometimes I used a wok lid even though it didn't fit and would fall with an enormous clatter.  This was the perfect solution and I found it on sale and had a coupon.

I have not idea what made me think to measure my skillet, but I didn't even need to since the size was stamped on the bottom.  Tragedy!  The person at Lodge encouraged me to give it a try so I took my skillet with me to the store.  The lid did not fit.  It sat on top, but I could easily imagine it also clattering to the floor.

Should I buy it anyway?  Should I buy a new 12" skillet, which was on sale and was a perfect fit with the lid?  Should I continue to muddle through?  I came home and looked for 11 3/4" lids that were not cast iron and not $225 (who pays that for a lid?).

Finally I shared my dilemma with D. and he went straight to our camping gear and found two potential lids.

It is not as beautiful as the glass lid, but it is significantly better than what I had been using.  I am content again.  Except for the perfect glass shade to replace one that broke.  If I had that then I would be content.

surprise

My meeting was about an hour shorter than expected and I came home to cookies in the oven.  That was great but I was surprised when A. told me they were a little experimental since there wasn't enough flour.  I was so sure there I had enough.

Looking the recipe again I can see why he thought he needed 5.5 cups of flour.

They still tasted good enough to take the school's teacher appreciation lunch.

Buttermilk biscuits

Cue the Twilight Zone music!

The roasted vegetable soup was almost done and I was ready to make biscuits.  I wasted a lot of time looking for the recipe I have used since I clipped it out of the Boulder Daily Camera in the mid-1990's.  No luck.

I knew I could find a recipe online and when 1,330,000 results came up I chose the eighth one.  The author of the blog said this recipe was adapted from Dot’s Diner in Boulder via Bon Appetit!  Amazing!!

Mmm - recipe is here.

The Way of the World

I have a couple sets of these measuring spoons, maybe received as a wedding gift.

At some point I acquired these, which aren't as nice, but fit well into little jars.
I let the baby play with them and when I couldn't find them
I was sure she had tucked them away in a secret place.

Months and months after losing them I finally bought this set when I was in Denmark.
Guess what I found one week later?
They were in the wrapping paper drawer
and probably fell out the back of their regular drawer.

Recipes

The newspaper had an article comparing apps that sort recipes and I was mildly interested since I have a stash of recipes on my computer, some as word documents and some as .pdf.  I prefer paper because it doesn't go to sleep and it doesn't distract me with other things.  Some recipes I use are in cookbooks, which I have a shelf of despite the fact that I use just a few of the same ones repeatedly.

My favorite recipes have been collected from magazines,

copied from Parents magazine in 1990, which I read at a library in Austin

copied by hand from a cookbook,

from an international cookbook at a Boulder school library where I volunteered

 or cut from the newspaper.

from the Boulder Daily Camera

I was given this recipe at a wedding shower

Every Thanksgiving I make this recipe from Mrs. McKeever.

 Of course my favorites are the recipes in my mom's handwriting!

Seasoning

I was given some birthday money to spend and wanted to wander around the cooking store in Glendora, but it is closed on Sundays and Saturdays seemed to fill up.  We finally forced it onto our family calendar and headed off for adventure.  In addition to a new metal spatula, rubber spatula, and zester I replaced a small skillet I had bought ten or fifteen years ago because it had been highly recommended and was deeply discounted.

It says on the bottom that it is a Look skillet, but I can't find that company anymore.

It was our only non-stick skillet (safety concerns, but this was a new type at the time),
but it is no longer non-stick.

My new skillet is not the beautiful $125 enameled cast iron, but just plain cast iron.

What is different about this one is that I didn't do the traditional seasoning, but tried the Cook's Illustrated ultimate way to season.  This involved flaxseed oil, multiple rounds of opening pores, and a 550ºF oven.  I finally finished and haven't noticed the difference, but I hope time will tell.