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).
Bagels!
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.)
- 350 g water
- 250 g + 400 g bread flour
- 3 g yeast
- 25 g sugar
- 25 g malt powder
- 10 g salt
- 25 g malt syrup or honey
- 10 g baking soda
- Make the sponge: Combine water, 250 g flour, and yeast. Let proof until doubled in size (about 2-3 hours).
- Combine remaining flour, sugar, malt powder, and salt. Add the sponge. Knead until the dough is stretchy and smooth, and holds together. Divide into bagel-size pieces of dough (~65 g for 4″ bagels).
- Form the dough portions into bagels. There are various methods. Proof for about half an hour. Cover and put in the fridge overnight (optional).
- Boil some water with the malt syrup and baking soda. Boil each bagel for 60 sec on each side. Put toppings, if using, on bagels. Bake at 425°F for 14 min.
Improvements to the recipe:
- Put flour or cornmeal on the bagel bottoms. They stick really badly!
- Oil the tops before covering with plastic wrap. They stick moderately badly…
- Try the rope + roll method of shaping.
New yarn projects
In my new-spinner‘s excitement, I made a big batch of handspun yarn before realizing that it was waaay too loosely spun to wear well. It might’ve made a good hat, but certainly not the sweater I was aiming for. Sweaters and other items that get a lot of friction need tightly spun or lightly felted yarn to last a long time.
Sooo, I’ve been respinning the batch! The aim, of course, is to make the yarn more durable by spinning it more tightly. To do so, I had to un-ply the yarn, spin the singles more, then re-ply everything. The whole process for about 600 yards of yarn only took a few years.
I’m now unsure what to use the yarn for. I’ve been considering:
- A hat for J (see draft below!), potentially with a matching scarf or cowl
- A sweater vest for me
- A sweater with a contrasting color for the sleeves or the bottom, color-block style.
Let me know what you think would be best!
White wine mushroom cream sauce
Recipe
- 3 cups sliced mushrooms
- 1 yellow onion, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 2 Tablespoons butter
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
- Parsley to taste
- Cook onion and garlic in butter until translucent.
- Add mushrooms and cook until they release liquid. Add salt and spices.
- Add white wine and cream, and reduce by half.
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.
Fondue
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~
Fondue
- 40% by weight Gruyère
- 40% by weight Emmental (can substitute with Jarlsberg or similar American “Swiss” cheese)
- 20% by weight Appenzeller (can substitute with havarti)
- 50% of the total weight of the cheese of dry white wine (e.g. Sauvignon blanc) (1 cup ≈ 0.5 lb)
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 tsp cornstarch
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- Pepper
- Nutmeg
- 1/4 cup kirsch or water
- Rub pot with cut side of garlic clove.
- Add grated cheese and wine to pot on low heat.
- When melted and bubbling, add cornstarch dissolved in kirsch, lemon juice, and spices to taste.
- Simmer for 2 minutes to thicken.
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.
American, Korean, Chinese…
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!
Pizza at home
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.
Tender cookies!
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).
Mexican wedding cakes/Russian teacakes
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 1/4 cups flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup finely chopped nuts
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.
I gave up a while ago on my gray linen shirt, after extensive patching failed to halt its rate of degradation. I still really like it, though, and I’d like to recreate it in the future, so I’m trying to trace its pieces to make a pattern!
Cutting the garment apart wasn’t as easy or as clean as I would have hoped, so a copy-cat shirt might end up a little wonky… We’ll have to see. I also tore the sleeves into strips before deciding to make a pattern, so… I’ll have to wing those when the time comes.
Decluttering art supplies!
Here are some old projects I found. I think I made them in middle school – I was really into beading and jewelry then.
Both of my siblings are strangely attached to crayons. Although they allowed many of our crayons to be given away, the compromise was that we had to keep the 96-color set. As sibling C said, “Who knows when the world will end and we realize we need crayons”.