Category Archives: Food

Spent Grain Part I: No Knead Bread

So, Bill is the bread master at our house. I can make it, and it’s good, but it’s his joy and he’s phenomenal at it.

Mostly, he makes the basic recipe in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.1 This year, he’s decided is the year he’s really tackling bread-making.

He’s experimented a bit over the last couple of years with the basic recipe. Amusingly, mostly experiments that his imagination has come up with. I don’t believe we’ve ever made a recipe that’s from the book beyond the basic recipe.

This was no exception. Except that it’s 100% my fault. Mostly because I got into brewing beer again while you guys weren’t looking, and I now have brewer’s spent grain (BSG) around the house. I wanted to save it for baking, but one and only time I’ve brewed so far was right before we went on a work trip.… Continue reading →

I Wish I Had Smoked Pasta Sauce Again.

I haven’t really ever developed a recipe. I don’t know what goes into recipe development. I mean, I assume some research happens if you know you want to make a specific kind of food/recipe, but I know that’s not how amazing recipes always start. Often, I know, they start with throwing some stuff you have on hand together with no real plan and low expectations and it coming out amazingly.

That’s the kind of recipe development I’m looking for help with right now. Because I’ve learned and heard that usually these one-off meals cannot be replicated. Which is frustrating and unfortuante. It also bothers my innate desire for replication as a scientist-type.

But, more immediately, I have a pasta sauce I wish to replicate for here on my blog.… Continue reading →

Travel Kitchens and Cooking Withdrawal.

Every time I eat an apple, I’m reminded how much I enjoy apples and how rarely I eat them. It’s kind of bizarre, honestly.

It occurs to me that the same is often true, for me, of cooking. As I’ve mentioned before, I really hated cooking as a kid & refused to let my mother teach me how. I’m sure that’s the root of this oddball behavior of forgetting how much I enjoy cooking.

Well, let’s be honest, that and the fact that sometimes my house after a cooking binge looks like these photos. Or worse.

And, in further honesty, everything in that post about really tasty food “out.”

But, it turns out, I get antsy with not enough time in the kitchen. I hadn’t really realized that before the last couple of days.… Continue reading →

Taming the Mania

Note: I wrote this post on the 23rd & then had some issues getting it uploaded before I left for Baltimore. So please read it accordingly.

My home smells a bit like lovage today. Very faintly. I, as planned, stripped all the leaves off and chopped them very finely. They’re frozen in ice cube trays now. I put the stems out with hummus to see if they’d be an adequate celery snack substitute. Only Bill was willing to try them (I don’t like celery much), and he said the stems were entirely too woody for that kind of consumption. So, into the stock bag they went.

I also chopped the rhubarb into chunks and froze that on a freezing sheet[1]. I’ll dump that into a baggie today.… Continue reading →

Veggie Mania

The other day, I commented to twitter that it’s time to bring in my plants from outside. For me this includes a thyme plant, a lemon thyme plant (neither of which grew in the slightest, but neither of which died back at all either), and an asparagus fern. There’s also some really cute volunteer flowers and some volunteer chives in pots my landlords left, but those can stay where they are. I’ll harvest the remainder of the chives, chop them up and freeze them.

My friend, Ellen responded, “I stood by my back windows and contemplated the huge task of harvesting the backyard… Too much food.” Assuming she meant that there’s just a lot of work getting all the food from her copious garden into her house, I volunteered to help.… Continue reading →