photo friday

So, dear reader, I've been taking a lot of photos lately. (I've also been using that Jane Eyre "dear reader" bit a lot lately, which is funny, considering how I feel about Jane Eyre.) Because of that, I've decided to introduce a new piece to the jekyllian puzzle: photo Friday. I'm not sure if it'll stick around, but we'll see!

These are for the autumn color week over at poppytalk. Enjoy!

Monday: yellow


Tuesday: green


Wednesday: orange


Thursday: brown


Friday: red

balancing the scales

Tomorrow I turn 23.

I turn 23 and all I can think about is balancing the scales. Balancing what pays the bills with what I love, balancing solitude with being social. It's the latter that really gets me. You see, I love time spent alone and doing things simply because they are what I want to do. As I've mentioned before, though, too much time spent alone drives me a little mad.


This weekend wound up being pretty well-balanced, though Saturday was the unfortunate witness to the first hangover I've had in a long while. Other than that, it broke down nicely, with a dance party celebrating my dear friend Andy's 23rd birthday - plus, uh, lots of Doctor Who beforehand and also the next day (we really can't get enough). And then Sunday was for me. I just woke up Sunday morning and it felt right to have the day stretching out in front of me with no one but myself.

I've been planning this post for a while, actually, even though I had no idea what I'd put into it. Sunday, I decided, was the day to figure it out. I had eggs to use, so I made a cake, one I've made before and liked a lot. After all, it's my birthday! And you can't have a birthday without cake. While I made the cake - literally in between mixing eggs in - I made an apron out of a t-shirt. This still left me without a recipe for you, dear reader.

Let me tell you: I couldn't get bread out of my head. I had been about to trot over to the grocery store for the second time in one day to get olive oil and yeast to make said bread, but then it was raining. I decided against it; surely I would find something else to make.


Dear reader, I did not. The weather cleared up and, unable to stop thinking about bread, I headed out. Luckily I bought two packets of yeast, because I had to throw the first batch out and start again. (I always seem to be starting again.) All my mistakes turned out auspicious - ain't that always the way - because let me tell you, this bread is just hands-down delicious. I have had to stop myself from eating all of it in less than 24 hours. Plus, it photographs quite well, don't you think?


Olive Oil Focaccia
Adapted from Joy of Cooking

If, for some reason, you do not like olive oil that much, feel free to cut the amount of olive oil down to 1 tablespoon. This is a pretty forgiving recipe - I thought I was screwing something up every step of the way and wound up with a fantastically delicious bread, so don't worry if it seems like your dough is too sticky, or not rising high enough, or any of that. I thought all of this and, again, the bread turned out great.

3/4 cup warm water
1/2 pack active-dry yeast
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp oregano

Combine the yeast and water in a large bowl. Let sit while the yeast dissolves, should be about five minutes. (If you've never watched yeast work, check this out. It's pretty neat! Chemistry-art, if you will.)

Mix in flour, olive oil, salt, and sugar for about a minute - I used a wooden spoon, but do whatever feels best to you. (If you're using a mixer, it'd be best to use low speed.) Then knead by hand (or use a dough hook) for just about 10 minutes.

Lightly oil a bowl and transfer dough, making sure the oil covers all of the dough. Cover with cloth and let rise for 1 and 1/2 hours.

Preheat oven to 400°F.

When the dough has risen, transfer to baking sheet, shaping it into a round. Top with oregano (or other dried herb). Bake for 25 minutes. Let cool for 20 minutes. Enjoy!

eleventh hour

It was another one of those weekends where I had a lot of time to myself, where mostly my company were some kittens and Doctor Who (why yes, I am kind of in love with David Tennant, ok). Naturally, you would think I would be baking, right? I mean, this is what I thought, at least. After all, my hiatus is over, it is high time to get myself back in the kitchen and making things.



I didn't bake a thing all weekend.

To be fair, my meals weren't especially complicated, either. And, uh, there was a fair amount of eating out (I can never refuse Amsterdam Falafel - it really is the best, you should go eat there now, if you can). What I am saying to you is that last night I wound up nervously awaiting the ding of the kitchen timer, hoping my little experiment would turn out.



I am happy to report it did.

Which is lucky, because I need to stock up on kitchen essentials (like flour), so there wasn't really a second chance option. And heaven forbid I don't bring anything to the blog on Tuesday! Let me tell you, dear reader, in this post-collegiate world of mine, I have come to appreciate deadlines more. So even though this deadline is my own creation, it's still helpful.

And this experiment of mine? Well, let me just show you...



Lemon-Sugar Cookies
Adapted from Joy of Cooking

I tried to come up with a name for these delicately lemon-flavored cookies, but nothing came. Well, that's not entirely true, but after my brain suggested "lemon drop" I decided to just give up. Simpler is better, right?

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder (generous)
1/2 tsp salt
3 dashes ground cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
just under 1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
lemon zest

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Add in the sugar and the vegetable oil, mix to combine. Beat in the egg and add vanilla. Start with about 1/2 tbsp lemon zest. Stir in well. Add more to taste (I added a lot, but I really wanted that lemon flavor).

Shape dough into balls and roll in sugar. Place on cookie sheet and bake for about 10 minutes. Let cool. Enjoy!

returned

Well, dear reader, I am back.

I'm not sure I would even be back now if not for my dear friend Daniel, who said to me last week, "Let's make dinner together sometime this weekend!" So we tossed around a couple ideas, like pasta with pesto and sun-dried tomatoes, except I dismissed it as not quite complicated enough. I know, I know, I haven't cooked anything more complicated than boxed macaroni in the past two weeks, and I'm complaining that making pesto isn't complicated enough. Humans are funny creatures, what can I say?


We decided on Alex and Lindsey's honey broasted tofu, with red bell pepper and onion. You should probably go make this meal right now, actually, because it is that good. We pretty much followed the recipe there, except we let it marinate for a little bit while the potatoes were baking (and we used white wine instead of sherry). And the potatoes are actually what I'm here to tell you about, but I really can't pass up an opportunity to talk about how good that tofu was. It was amazing. I was tempted to go back for thirds, which never happens.


So, anyway, the potatoes. Daniel, you may remember, was one of the reasons I even started experimenting in cooking, and has himself been cooking for quite some time now. This is pretty beneficial to me, as I get to eat a lot of this food, but it also means he's really into experimenting with different combinations of food. And so, without further ado...


Daniel's Identity Crisis Potatoes

These came entirely from Daniel's brain box, though let me tell you, the name seems pretty fitting for my mental state the past few weeks. But that's neither here nor there. These potatoes are fairly simple to make, and maybe the most delicious way to eat potatoes I've tried yet.

1 Russet potato
1 sweet potato
brown sugar
garlic
parmesan cheese
butter
olive oil

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Roll the Russet potato in olive oil and salt, and the sweet potato in olive oil and brown sugar. Bake for about an hour and fifteen minutes, or until the skins start to be crispy* and a fork passes through cleanly. Take them out of the oven and turn the heat up to 450°F.

Scoop out the insides of each potato into separate bowls, leaving the skins as intact as possible. Mash the Russet potato with garlic, parmesan, and butter (to your taste), and the sweet potato with butter and brown sugar (again, to your taste). Here is where the "identity crisis" part of these potatoes comes in: scoop the Russet potato mash into the sweet potato skin, and the sweet potato mash into the Russet skin. I know, it sounds crazy.

Put the potatoes back in the oven for about twenty minutes. Serve!

* Daniel tells me the sweet potato skin was not as crispy as he would have liked, but I can assure you this does not affect how delicious it was.

hiatus

Just for a little bit, while I recuperate. I'm not sure when exactly I'll be back in this space, but for now, I'll leave you with a little last piece of summer. Enjoy.

determination

I realized Sunday night that I had no idea what to write for today - I didn't do a whole lot of cooking this past week. I did, however, get the first results of my Holga 110 experiments back, maybe a post on that? I know, I know, I pretty much just declared this solely a food blog, and yet...


That won't do.

So, Monday evening, I looked through my kitchen and found a lot of disparate ingredients leftover from other cooking endeavors. I thought, ah, maybe I'll try and do some sort of salsa with the jalapenos I have - but alas! they are no good. My next idea: well, I'll just make dinner. Peanut sauce and rice noodles, snapped some pictures, ate my dinner, and kept looking at the cake recipe sitting in one of my firefox tabs. Oh, boy.


Last Tuesday, after yoga, I was determined to make a cake. Molly's winning-hearts-and-minds cake, to be precise. There were a whole slew birthdays coming up, and I decided this cake would be perfect for these events. The only problem is, I get back from yoga at eleven at night, which doesn't exactly make for a prime baking situation, as it turns out. It was nearing one when I let the cake cool and discovered - while turning it out of the pan to freeze - it was still a little too gooey in the middle. I sighed, wrapped it in tin foil, and threw it in my freezer anyway. It's still there.


But a cake called to me. I knew I wanted to make a cake - maybe to prove to myself that I could. I knew I wouldn't be satisfied unless I made the cake. Even though I failed before, even though I had no need for a cake in my apartment, what with the batch of cookies I had made on Sunday. Still. Cake. So I trucked over to the Safeway, picked up butter, and set to making a cake, thinking how much my feminism has changed over the years. I used to think that domesticity was the antithesis of feminism - and even though I (thankfully) grew out of that mindset, even a year ago I would have told you Cooking Is Not For Me.

Clearly, a lot has changed.


There's no recipe here, because I pretty much followed this one to the tee. The only adaptation I made was using a pinch or two of cinnamon instead of nutmeg, because that's what I had in my cupboard. I also, uh, hand-mixed with a wooden spoon. Definitely a shoulder workout, definitely therapeutic. (More and more I am choosing the old ways. More than ever I understand that feminism is about choice.)

birthday special: chemistry-art

(A special Thursday post, for a special birthday.)

A few weekends ago, walking home well past midnight, C.T. said to me, "We should make pretzels!" So when we got back, we pulled out Joy of Cooking and checked the ingredients. We had all of them except yeast, so the project was set aside without another thought. (Did I mention it was well past midnight? Yeah.) Until this weekend - I suggested, why don't we make pretzels, because what is better than a fresh hot soft pretzel? (Answer: nothing.) So we stopped by the market, grabbed some yeast and beer and cheese for a dip, and headed back to the kitchen.


C.T. has had most of the food that I have posted about here foisted upon him, but this was the first time we had ever made something together and it turned out brilliantly. We talked about how fun cooking is, especially with yeast and baking powder and what seems like, well, science. I say, yeah, it's like chemistry, and C.T. one-ups me by replying, "It's like chemistry-art." Which is pretty much it, when you think about it. It was also the first time I'd made anything with yeast, so it was a relief to find that everything worked out. The only thing we didn't count on was how much time it would take to make these - hours, between all the times the dough needed to rise. So we watched some episodes of 30 Rock, jumping up every so often to check on the rising dough.

So we didn't wind up eating until around midnight, a fabulous dinner of homemade pretzels and beer cheese dip, because we are Grown Ups and can Do What We Please. I also took a lot of pictures of the process because, well, it'd be silly to have both of us kneading and also because, as C.T. noted, "you should put this in your blog." Oh, what a time to be alive! Anyway, instead of trying to cram all the pictures in this post, I'm just going to link key parts to the flickr pages.


Pretzels
Adapted from Joy of Cooking

Remember, these take hours to make, so you've got to be dedicated to the process. That said, the process is so totally worth it. These pretzels are magnificent. You'll probably feel that way, too, after you've made and eaten them. I know we did.

1 pkg active dry yeast
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp butter, melted
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbsp baking powder

Combine the yeast with 1/2 cup warm water and let sit for about five minutes, until the yeast has dissolved. When it has, add the flour, butter, sugar and salt and mix while slowly adding another 1/2 cup of warm water. Mix for about a minute - the dough should be moist but not sticky. You may have to add some more flour or water (we had to add a couple dashes of flour). Knead the dough for about ten minutes until it smoothes out. Transfer to an oiled bowl and make sure to turn it to completely coat the dough. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit and rise for about an hour, or until it's doubled in volume.

Punch down the dough (this was one of our favorite parts) and separate it into twelve dough balls. Cover these with plastic wrap (lightly oiled) and let them rise for ten minutes. While they're doing that, grease two baking sheets. Now comes the fun part: make each ball into a rope, like you may have done in art class with clay as a kid, and make the pretzels. Don't forget to twist the middles! Put the newly-made pretzels on the baking sheets and let them rise again for about 35 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Combine 8 cups of water with the baking powder in a pot and bring to a boil. Don't worry if it seems like a chemistry experiment. Reduce the heat to a simmer. When the pretzels have finished rising, slide a few at a time (we did four) into the pot. Leave them for 30 seconds, then flip and let them simmer until they puff up. Sometimes this happens right away, sometimes it takes 30 seconds. Place them back on the baking sheets.

Sprinkle with some course sea salt, if you'd like, and put them in the oven. Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes, until they are golden brown.

Makes 12 pretzels. Store in an airtight container.