We will make cookies to give out, tonight, and I’m going to make curry/potato wraps to take to eat, as I’m sure there will not be good food at the show.

So, when we get back, I am hoping to resume writing, and cooking, and hopefully life will go back to reasonably normal.

We have collected the cartoons that Cartoonist did for this site, and are putting them into a mini-comic, and we’ll see if those sell or not.

But, and this is often the case, unfortunately, having guests takes up the time I would normally be writing this blog, so I expect I won’t get back to it until Saturday when they have left.

So, the books, quickly are DYI Delicious and Cooking for Geeks. I’m already getting ideas.

Plus, the  New England cheese makers are having a sale on cheese kits. Oh, I’m going to be so busy.

But, as I have said before, and as Michael Pollan has said, if you are going to eat something, eat something make by other people, which is what we did. We went to Jia Tella‘s.

Now, normally, I wouldn’t link to a restaurant, but this one is fantastic, and everything is made fresh on site.  And although I have gone almost wholey vegitarian, of late, I didn’t mind having a little shrimp with my spring wrap.

Even my mother enjoyed it, so that is a good sign.

For me, I have been having eggs for the longest time for breakfast, in all different forms, but eggs just the same.

So, it was a bit of a jolt to consider something else.  For a while, I used to eat Turkey Bacon, but that is processed,a nd of course I am trying to avoid those things. For a while I was eating granola with yogurt, but I burned out on that. Cartoonist likes pancakes, but I do not. So what is there left?

Veggies.

I have been making a mini-stir fry for breakfast every morning for the past two weeks. I cut up onions, and then whatever other veggie I think might be good. This morning it was red peppers, and fingerling potatoes with my onions.

Very good, and very filling.

Mixing wet and dry

The recipe was another one from the Yogurt  cookbook, so of course it called for yogurt.

Cartoonist mixed the wet ingredients, and I mixed the dry. Here is what it called for, to make 3 dozen (thought of course we didn’t manage to make that many)

• 4 1/3 cups of flour (we used white rice flour)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/4 cup of sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 cup of yogurt

forming the donuts

Once the wet was mixed, and the dry was mixed, we were supposed to mix them together and then put them in the fridge to chill for a hour.

But, then , this is when it didn’t work. We were supposed to roll them out and use a donut cutter.

This was not somehting that we owned. We kind of looked at the dough, and Cartoonist said, now what?

Well, I said, what are donuts but balls with wholes in them, so we made balls, and then poked holes in them, and dropped them into the hot oil to fry.

posed finished product

They turned out quite well, and tasted even better with powdered sugar on them. We were quite pleased with them, and now Cartoonist is sure she wants to make these to give to her friends.

But Cartoonist wasn’t thinking that way. She wanted to make them to give to her friends. Se wanted something sweet, but unusual.  She has made cookies by the ton for them, but never donuts, so I said, finally, ok, the next thing we will make is donuts, but we have to have the time, and I have to do the frying, because it gets very hot.

I still didn’t see what we were going to do with all the donuts, but then she reminded me that my sweetie and my mother were coming to visit, and that would be a good welcome.

She won the argument.

So, we ended up making donuts, which I will talk more about tomorrow.

That was the conclusion on the raspberry muffins.

I tried eating them after they had cooled. I tried eating them the next day, but each time, it just wasn’t quite right.

So, I turned to Cartoonist, “Put it in the compost? I asked.

“Compost it,” she said, so that is what I did.

We have two big composts outside, in the front yard, with lids on them. Last time I put muffins that didn’t turn out, the raccoons got into them, tasted them, and left the rest. I will find out if they do the same with these, although I covered them with straw.

It seems so odd to throw things in that haven’t gone bad, and I suppose, if I was really living by my convictions, I would eat the damn things, no matter what the taste.

Frying the bread

One of the things I miss eating is Naan. I used to get it when I went to the farmer’s market, where I would watch them fry up the batter right there. But of course, they make it with wheat, so i wanted to make my own without, and when I saw a recipe for it in the yogurt book, I thought I would give it a try.

Here is what it entailed:

• 2 cups of flour (I used brown rice flour)
• 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 3/4 of a cup of yogurt.

The whole thing is mixed up, and then kneaded, but it wouldn’t knead. It was too soft. I kept adding flour until I could sort of knead it,b ut that part was a total failure. When I fried it up, it more resembled pancakes, and tasted as such to me.

I fried up the whole batch that I made, and then put them aside, thinking it was a total failure.

But Cartoonist has been using the naan bread for wraps with her rice, and eggs, and says that although it doesn’t take like the naan that we get at the farmer’s market, it tastes good enough for her.

And that is good enough for me, for now.

eggs whites

The last muffins I made ere good, but flat, so one of my friends suggested using egg whites to make it lighter and fluffier, so I decded to try that. Seemed like a good idea at the time. What wasn’t a good idea was thinking that raspberries would be a good filling.

I thought, at the time, that the reason that it wasn’t listed was because no one had thought of it. The cook book called for Blueberries, Apples, Bananas, Cheese or Cranberries. I figured they could all be interchanged. Silly me.

with rasberries

Mostly I did it because the rasberries were about to go off, and I hated the idea of throwing them out, as they taste so good.

I have had bad luck with them, of late. Twice now, they have fallen over as I drove them home, and spilled all over the floor of my car, which is not a good place for any kind of food.

Mixing it all together

I mixed the stuff together with the raspberries, which were already soft, and sort of melted into the mix. I tried folding in the egg white, but after a while, as often happens when I am folding, it is hard to tell if it is working or not.

finished product

The finished muffins looked about the same as the other ones had, but had a very bland taste. Not sweet, or sour, just bland. I kept thinking that at some point they would start tasting better, so I packed them into a plastic bag to try later, but I pretty much know that this is a failed recipe, when done with raspeberries.

I bought about six or seven oranges, not knowing how much juice I would get out of them, and that was about right. I followed the recipe again, using the juice, and when I tasted the finished product, I was amazed. This worked a treat. The orange juice made the hotness of the pepper less hot, but still spicy.

So, this was going to be one of the meals I made for my sweetie and my mother when they came to town.

I ended up eating it the full week, for both lunch and dinner. I ran out of brown rice, and found that sushi rice worked just as well.

It was good both cold and hot.