2014-02-17: Willowdale Lembas Bread

There are tons of Lembas Bread recipes online.  Here is another, in its first, unrefined version.

Actually, this was originally supposed to be a tortilla recipe, but I messed it up royally.  The tortillas were bland, tasted funny and also fell apart.  So I ended up mixing together half of the tortilla recipe and other things I found in the kitchen, inspired by looking at about half-a-dozen Johnny Cake recipes.  It's amazing how half the things thrown together in this manner are still edible!  On a side note, the maseca used in the recipe ended up in my kitchen due to inspiration from this book:

It is a fascinating read, and members of this particular tribe can be sustained for a day on some maseca.

Willowdale Lembas Bread
version 1.0

1/2 cup of Maseca (this is a special type of Corn Flour)
about 1 cup of water
1 egg
About 1/2 cup of whipping cream (will try regular milk for future renditions)
About 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup sugar

Mix all the ingredients together. Bake in greased loaf pan in a preheated 350 degree Celsius oven.

I think I baked it for about 40 minutes. It smelled burnt.  And yes, when I opened the oven, the crust had burnt.  It was on the top tray, too close to the element.  So this bread would be better served by baking in the middle rack.  I sliced off the cooked and the burnt bits, and stuck the rest back into the oven.  Perhaps I should have baked it in separate loaf pans instead of using only 1.  Anyways, the cooked and burnt bits had a nice, light and crisp texture.  The remaining stuff that got put back into the oven was dense and heavy.

2014-02-15: Tuna Balls

I threw this together when I got home one night, using things I found in the cupboards.  It would have been nice to write down the amounts, but I was hungry.  This dish also turned out too salty, so perhaps I should have drained the tuna before use or omitted the soy sauce.

1 slice of onion, diced
1 can of tune + liquid (maybe eliminate this next time)
Splash of soy sauce (maybe eliminate this next time)
Some dried oregano
Some black pepper
Some dried basil
1 egg
Some maseca (corn flour)
panko
1Tbsp garlic butter
Olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Drizzle some olive oil on the bottom of an oven-proof dish.  Put panko on separate plate and set aside.  In bowl, mix all ingredients together. Form mixture into balls and roll in panko.  Place on greased dish and bake about 30-45 minutes until done.  The panko and outside will be golden brown.

Ate these with some pasta.

2014-01-19: Coconut Banana Chocolate Chip Pancake with Blueberry Sauce

The following experiment occurred when I found a bunch of things in the back of the fridge and another bunch of things at the back of the cabinet, plus a banana starting to go brown.  So the following recipe requires much adjustment.  The coconut in the pancake gave a very odd texture - gritty, chewy, dry.  Maybe it had an odd texture because the coconut was sitting at the back of the cabinet for way too long.  Perhaps fresh coconut might be better.  Alternately, omit the coconut.

Also, I wanted to use up the semi-sweet chocolate chips.  This resulted in a too-sweet pancake.  Next time use much much less chocolate chips.

The blueberry sauce on its own was tasty.  Unfortunately, mixed with the chocolate chips and the banana in the pancake, it all became way too sweet.  Maybe blueberry sauce on plain pancakes would work better.

Here is the raw, first draft version of the recipe (version 1.0):

Pancake:

1 banana
3/4 cup water
1 cup Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix
3/4 cup chocolate chips, semi-sweet  (adjust down to 1/3 cup for next experiment)
3/4 cup dried, unsweetened coconut (omit, or adjust to 1/3 cup, or use fresh for next experiment)

Mash banana. Mix all ingredients together.  Fry up pancakes.  Try not to use too much butter in the pan.

Blueberry Sauce: (may wish to omit in favour of using maple syrup)

1 cup water
1 cup blueberries (used frozen)
2 Tbsp sugar (too sweet? omit for next experiment)

Mix ingredients together in a small saucepan. Boil and reduce to the desired consistency.

Repeating for added emphasis: this iteration of the experiment was way too sweet and resulted in reduced amounts eaten in one sitting. It was also very heavy in the stomach.  Not certain if or when I will repeat this experiment.

2012-03-17 Whoops-I-Should-Have-Written-the-Recipe-Somewhere

So one day, I woke up a little hungry and decided to throw a few things together from the fridge.  It actually tasted ok for something with randomized ingredients.  Unfortunately, I didn't write the recipe down.  There were eggs, cream, flour and chunks of cheddar cheese. Mmm.  I call it Cheese Puff Thing, because it is descriptive and for lack of a better name.

On another note, both bowls of Sourdough Starter did not survive. :(
It was an interesting experiment in bread-making, and I think I'll stick to less finicky kinds of  bread from now on.

2012-02-04: A Free-Form Day

It finally happened - I needed a day to depart from cooking from the recipes because: a) my fridge is already full of food and I need to finish it before it goes bad, b) I fell asleep from a nap and by the time I awoke, it was too late to start the pot roast, and c) I really felt the need to cook something from a creative stance, instead of from a recipe. 

So I finished drying the dill and bottled it.  I started it off by baking it on a cookie sheet at around 200 degrees farenheit for gosh-knows-how-long, then I shut off the oven and let it sit in the oven overnight. Then I left it on the kitchen table.  Then I had to bottle it to protect it from my cat, who may or may not have thought it was catnip. (Who knows what a cat is thinking?)  I'm not certain if this is how dill is supposed to be dried, but it seems to have worked.

Also, after finishing off the Tri-Melon Salad for dinner, I was hankering for something a little sweet.  So I put together a berry sauce from a few random things in my kitchen.

1 cup mixed frozen berries
1 Tbsp Fragoli
1 Tbsp Raspberry Vinegar
1 tsp honey
1 cup water

Everything got boiled in a pot and simmered for about half an hour before getting strained through a sieve and cooled.  Then into a bowl it went with the last of my vanilla ice cream.  Yum.  There was enough sauce in that bowl for maybe four or five bowls of ice cream, however I had no more vanilla ice cream.  And I shouldn't eat that much ice cream in one sitting ;)

Neck stretches - done.