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.

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.

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.

All the veggies cut up

I don’t always manage to cook all the veggies I get in my basket from my CSA before the next week comes about. This week, I was bound and determined to do so. I looked at what I had, and found a recipe that would work, and spend the day, every time I went into the kitchen, gathering up the supplies, so they would all be there, and ready when it was time to cook.

The recipe, Indian Ratatouille, is from the Moosewood Restaurant New Classics. I was surprised, and delighted that not only did I have all the veggies, but I had almost all the spices. Now, granted, I didn’t have as much of all the ingredients as were called for, but I felt it was close enough.

Here is what was called for:

• 2 cups diced onions
• 2 tablespoons veggie oil
• 2 large garlic cloves (I usually use much more than that)
• 1 fresh chile (I used dried chile)
• 1 tablespoon fresh ginger root (I used dried)
• 1 tspn ground cumin
• 1 tspn ground coriander
• 1/2 tspn turmeric
• 1/2 tspn ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tspn ground cardamon
• 1 tspn salt
• pinch of saffron (which I didn’t have at all)
• 1 cup of orange juice ( I used water)
• 5 cups cubed eggplant (I had about 2 cups worth)
• 4 cups cubed zucchini, squash, or pattypan (this I had, all of them)
• 1 1/2 cups bell peppers (I had about a cup)
• 3 cups fresh tomatoes
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil

cooking the veggies

As it is with onions, you cook those first, and then add the garlic, chile giner and spices. The eggplant and juice were added last, and then the squash bell peppers, tomatoes and basil.

It was amazing. I served it on rice, I had made earlier. I knew I had to make it again. Not sure how it will turn out with the orange juice, as this was great.  I’m sure the saffron will ad something to it.

And eating it all

This dish has lasted me for a few days now, and it great reheated.

So, now I got curious. What would the more traditional ratatouille taste like. I decided to make the Julia Child version next.

Today, she just said, while looking in the fridge, the heck with it.

And sometimes, I understand. It is hard top plan out meals a week in advance. I never said it was. Often during the week, we don’t have time to cook, although we cooked up a mess of stuff on Monday, which I will write about tomorrow. Two of the three things we cooked turned out, but they were all starches, and that doesn’t make for a good meal.

So, I told her, fine, eat out.

Sometimes you just have to give a little.

And then get back on the path again.

At least, without cooking, the ants have decreased a bit.

I promise to resume tomorrow. I am hoping to have the energy to write and cook by then.

The ants that remain, seem to be going for mundane stuff, such as left over egg, dripped on the counter, that I didn’t wipe up.

Another apple cake, in the oven

On of the first things Cartoonist and I wanted to do was to bake something from the Savor cook book, which we had picked up on the cruise. We looked and looked, remembering how things tasted, and decided ont he Low-Fat Apple cake.

We didn’t have the ingredients for the Coulis sauce, nor for the glaze, but we had most of the stuff for the cake, so decided to go after that.

The recipe called for

• one pastry sheet, but we didn’t want that, so didn’t use it.
• 3 eggs (but we only had two duck eggs left)
• 1 1/2 cups for  brown sugar, but we like raw sugar so used that.
• 1 1/2 cups of canola oil, but we didn’t have that so use olive oil
• 2 cups of whole wheat flour (but we used coconut and brown rice flour
• 1 cup of hazelnut flour (but we used ground almond meal instead)
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda (which we did have)
• 5 granny smith apples peeled, cored and quartered (which we didn’t have, so I just used whatever apples we did have.

and out of the oven

With all that, is it a wonder that when we mixed it up it seemed to not have enough liquid. I should have put apples sauce in it, but didn’t. It went in as hard as it came out. We decided that it tasted like apple flavored sand, and after eating a few of the apples on top, I threw the whole thing in  the trash, without even saving some for the raccoons and the compost bin.