In my last post I mentioned some of my recent cooking near misses, slimy, smelly broccoli; bitter squash; elderly peppers. I’ve continued having things go awry in the kitchen, not disasters that go straight into compost, more like disappointments.
Like this leek and squash galette I made the other day, where I got the bottom just a little too brown.
Squash and leek galette – looks good from the top
A little too brown on the bottom. But hey, you’d happily eat a pizza with a bottom crust like that, right?
Or the Pierre Franey turkey chili from the NYT that I tried and it’s kinda bland.
But maybe it will improve upon sitting overnight. And I think I’ll add more spices to the leftovers and make it into a cornbread-topped chili casserole
Or another NYT, the giant jam bun. I tried this one because it’s based on the cinnamon roll scones that I tried last summer that were tasty but I thought the dough was way too buttery, and I wanted to try reducing the butter. Of course, I made the over-ambitious mistake of changing two variables. I not only reduced the butter, I increased the flour as well and the result is good, but a little doughy. And it’s a Melissa Clark recipe and despite her popularity and fame, I tend to not get the best results with her recipes, esepcailly baking. (see brown butter maple cornbread) I mean, my normal scone proportions are about 3 cups of flour to about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of butter, while the cinnamon roll scone recipe has 2 1/4 cups of flour to 3/4 cup of butter. That’s the difference between 4-5 tablespoons of butter vs. 12, if you’re counting. And it uses heavy cream where I usually use a lower fat dairy product, like regular milk or buttermilk. Next time I will try keeping the flour the same and only reducing the butter. And I’m telling you this because Mark would have no sympathy – he liked the cinnamon roll scones just fine in the original version, and would have eaten more of them if I hadn’t given them away too quick.
The slightly doughy giant jam bun cut into scone-size servings.
I think most of us who supported Harris are feeling a little faded right now, like these edible kale flowers, bought before the election and still hanging on, although the other flowers from the bunch have gone to the compost.
Or the leftover Halloween decorations on people’s front steps right now, including mine.
Squirrel-nibbled leftover Halloween pumpkin
Yesterday was a Jasper day and he wanted to try a whole apple instead of slices but kind of objected to the skin.
It tasted better when eaten on the kitchen floor.
Jasper with a whole apple
All these pictures are from the morning when we just played inside before going to music class.
He read a book by himself
And played peek-a-boo with the cat
After nap, before we went to the library, he had some bunnys for a snack.
Bunny beep beep
Sunday I made an apple pie, the pre-made apple filling kind that I also tried for Mark’s birthday. This one was quite good, I think better than the September one, the only miss was that I meant to make custard sauce to go with and I never did. I guess the near-miss was back in September when that pie almost got moldy before we could finish it because, just as it’s too warm for November now, it was way too warm for the end of September, too.
