Trying to be normal

In the face of every news item being worse than the last, what is there to do but carry on trying to be normal? Which for me of course is cooking. 

And going for walks, sometimes to one of my HMO’s clinics to get a shot, like I did on Tuesday morning.

After getting back from getting the shot, I prepped for my cooking class that evening. The class was supposed to happen February 4th, but had to be postponed because of my broken wrist. That was during king cake season, so king cake was one of the sweet breads, along with strawberry cream cheese and chocolate babka’s, and a cinnamon filled braid. I made one of each for them to taste at the beginning of the class. I made a big batch of the sweet roll dough and everyone got a hunk and made their own choice of bread. Filled with their choice of cinnamon date filling, chocolate filling, almond king cake filling, or strawberry cream cheese. Since we’re out of king cake season now, I made the king cake with green sprinkles instead of green sugar.

Here’re the recipes. 

Wednesday last week Jasper came over & we played outside. The weather was different than the Wednesday before – sloppy wet snow – and today – thunderstorms, which they’re saying will turn into sloppy wet snow later. We shall see.

Thursday was one of my regular 2 volunteer jobs days, food pantry and UW Libraries Friends book sale book sorting, then I came home and made some thick sausage pasta sauce I’d made a few days prior into lasagna. With spinach. I bought a pound of Snug Haven’s spinach at the indoor farmers market and that stuff’s so expensive I wasn’t going to waste any of it. Mary White of Honey Bee Bakery says. She barters with Bill from Snug Haven; baked goods for spinach. I think I’m gonna try that. I used fresh lasagna, a local brand, (I mean really local, I know the owner) and it stuck together & tore when I dumped it out of the boiling water. I should probably have removed each strip individually. But I pieced it back together and you couldn’t tell in the finished lasagna. Anyways, no pics.

Then Friday we went to Chicago for a symphony. I kinda wanted to go to either this place, where we’ve never been, or maybe Schneider’s Deli again, because this month’s sandwich, a chicken cutlet with spicy coleslaw, sounds really good.   

But in the end we went Gotham, the one off Michigan. I think Mark wanted that lighter lunch – he had a bagel with cream cheese & tomato, and I had a cinnamon raisin bagel also with cream cheese – plus it’s a nice walk. Schneider’s would’ve been more food, and the cafe would’ve meant L’ing to and from. Again no pics.

Over the weekend, more cooking experimentation began. With mixed results. I tried these King Arthur rhubarb streusel muffins, that have a layer of rhubarb cream cheese filling. I was trying to use up my excess cream cheese, leftover from the cooking class (see above), and also some thickened rhubarb puree I had in the freezer. The recipe said you’d get 14; I got 11 muffins and a lot of extra streusel. I thought they were dry; Mark liked them, although the first one he tried he said, “I see no rhubarb whatsoever in this muffin”. I made them again today (Wednesday) and they’re smaller and I think less dry, but I still only got 12 and still had leftover streusel, but little enough that I could rinse it down the drain when I washed the dishes. By the time they were done it was a little too dark for pictures, but the do-over may appear in a near-future post.  

I also tried another King Arthur, their Big and Bubbly Focaccia, and I followed their instructions to make a strip of parchment dough lifter so I could lift the focaccia out of the pan and put it back in the oven so that the bottom and sides could get crispy, but I did not see that I was supposed to turn the oven off for that part, so it burned. I re-made the focaccia today, too, skipping the dough lifter and putting it back in the oven. It’s much easier to oil the dough by turning it in the pan without the strip of parchment in there. This batch is better, not burned, but the bottom is a little soft.

I also made a rhubarb bakewell tart. That was much more successful.

Later on Sunday, this guy came to my door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Debra Shapiro (@debslunch)

This week the kids are off skiing so instead of taking care of Jasper, I’m going over to Al & Emma’s and looking in on the cat. On Monday she sat on the couch with me and we watched Ainsley DuRose make green macaroons for St. Patrick’s Day. I went over today, too, and we just sat.