Food, sustainablity, and some other stuff
Made using Bloody Butcher cornmeal from Castle Valley Mill, and a previously-posted cornbread recipe.
This batch was particularly soft and moist! It might not be repeatable, but I’ll list the modifications I made:
What with the yeast shortage, I decided to attempt sourdough again! The last time J and I tried, we managed to make an acceptable loaf of bread, but we baked all of the starter into it D’:
Cook’s Illustrated has starter instructions, and we used this sourdough recipe.
We’ve made 2 loaves and 2 pizzas with this recipe so far with local, mostly-whole wheat flour! In a fit of emergency food-buying, we got a bunch of flour from Castle Valley Mill, a local historical flour mill (located in Pennsylvania, about 100 miles from NYC). Their bolted (big pieces of bran sifted out) hard wheat flour is amazing for making bread – lots of gluten!
Cook’s Illustrated released some free recipes on their website!
And some recipes from my mom (crepes, chicken marsala, chicken salad, deviled eggs, macaroni and cheese, scalloped potatoes).
During social isolation, J and I have been cooking a lot. We’ve been trying to make more unusual dishes, since we can’t get cravings satisfied at restaurants or work.
J’s been eating bagels for breakfast, but we forgot to get them last grocery order, so we made them! We have a ton of cream cheese and lox, so it was either this or cheesecake (that might still happen We used the bagel recipe from ChefSteps.com (which seems to be a teach-you-to-cook website). (The bagel recipe got paywalled; this other site has a copy with more detail.)
Improvements to the recipe:
We didn’t have cream on hand, so we substituted macadamia nut butter mixed with water, which worked quite well! Macadamia nuts are super oily, so the richness was a good replacement for the cream.
I’ve been trying to use up some white wine (originally found on the sidewalk when walking back from the train station). Thanks to Reddit, I made a couple of really good and quite novel (for us) dishes in the last few days. The first was Swiss fondue, recipe courtesy of half-Swiss friend S! Thanks~
Exact measurements for garlic, cornstarch, and lemon juice are meant to serve 4 people. Adjust to taste/number of people/amount of cheese. The experts tell me Trader Joe’s has most of the requisite cheeses for cheap.
As so often happens, J and I had nothing in the fridge to eat. No greens, no leftovers, no beans soaked and ready for boiling. Fortunately, we were able to scrape together some lingering and more robust ingredients to cook.
Aaaaand we got our produce delivery today, so we’re back to having fruit and leafy greens!
Although I’ve been buying (second-hand!) accessories for our stand mixer, we don’t have a dough hook yet and haven’t been able to make pizza dough. As a substitute, Imperfect Produce recently had “imperfect” pre-made pizza crusts. Maybe they were short-coded? They were some sort of fancy, too, multi-grain with sprouted wheat, I think (although they were essentially big tortillas… Not very fluffy at all).
Imperfect Produce has recently expanded into non-produce items, so we’ve been able to get pasta, cheese, butter, and even goat milk from them. They have a “perfect” line, but I avoid that.
One of my favorite, exceptionally tender cookies! Fatty nuts (pecans) make them even better, but other nuts also work. The recipe is from The Joy of Cooking (my mom said it might be from Betty Crocker).
Thoroughly mix butter, sugar, and vanilla. Add flour, salt, and nuts. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place on ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake 10-12 minutes at 400°F until set but not brown. While warm, roll in powdered sugar. Roll in sugar again once cooled.
My mom’s favorite deviled egg recipe, from the Better Homes and Gardens 1981 cookbook! Perfect for picnics and potlucks.
Halve eggs lengthwise, removing yolks and mashing with a fork. Stir in mayonnaise, vinegar, mustard, and salt. Fill eggs halves with mixture, garnishing with paprika or parsley.