Pic-less In Denile

Believe it or not, I've been doing stuff when whilst neglecting my favorite blog. The truth is, I've discovered a hatred for uploading picture. I cant keep them organized. Its a terrible hassle to resize them (because I take them COLOSSAL!). Its a pain to keep edited ones and originals separate and safe. An increasing worry over digital storage, and a lack of editing software. And there's an inescapable fact, food blogs, like cook books SURVIVE ON PICTURES.

Very few people want to read a blog about food with no pictures. And heck, even if you DO post pictures regularly, without the amazing skill of the great food photog-blogs out there, you twont get linked. Its very distressing.

So while I could tell you about my cheesey rolled rustic bread, and my still singing a chorus of crackles fresh from the smoking hot oven blue cheese walnut sour dough... I wont without pictures. Nor will the Girl Scout style Samoas get posted. And those all HAVE pictures taken. Crappy, thoughtless and easy pictures... but at least some sort of photographic evidence of their conception. The angel food cake I baked (that fell because apparently letting it cool UPSIDE DOWN is really really crucial to structural integrity), and the egg nog that resulted to clean up those egg yolks. The carmels I made. The biscottie I whipped together, or the Dorrie's disagreeable cookie recipe I tried(think chocolate chip cookies, shaped like paper disks)

None of it. And if I did, I probably wouldn't give you recipes. Cuz I'm lazy like that. Word.

Tossing You A Bone Bean Soup

I'll throw you some scraps here. This was my attempt at a bean soup. Five beans to be exact. Canned beans. I was hungry quick like, wanted vegges, beans, loads of flavor, and some crunchy spicy sprouts to top it off. And so it became.

Bean Soup

1 can black beans
1 can navy beans
1 can pinto beans
1 can kidney beans
1 can white kidney beans
1 red pepper chopped
1 crown of brocolli chopped into small flouretts
fresh chopped up tomatoes
some beef and chicken bollioun to get me started
some turkey sausage stuff
spicy sprouts for topping
Probably some onion/shallots all sauteed up, but I cant remember

I tossed everything but the beans(and sprouts) into a crock pot to get all cooked up and flavorful . The brocolli and red pepper smelled sooo good cooking. When things were cooked I added the beans, not wanting them to get mashed up during cooking. And we ate it, and it was warm and tasty and thats the soup.

Go Komen!

My mother and I were flipping through channels the other day. We only have four channels, coming from the bunny ears on our roof. Yes, over the air. And yes... we need a stupid converter box.... That aside, we were shocked to stumble upon the broadcast of a nude photo shoot...

Woah! Wait?! Was she topless? We flip back through the couple channels our momentum sent us through. And there it was. A topless photo shoot with no lil censor bars or strategically placed muffins... OPB?! Good heavens! Of course its OPB... The only channel to broadcast nudity. Under the banner of education of course. This one we learned was about breast cancer. It is, after all,National Breast Cancer Awareness month. Apparently its also adopt-a-dog, vegetarian awareness, and national sausage month, but those have nothing to do with my cake.
I was practicing the sponge cake that goes to a Boston Cream Pie recipe. I've had the darndest time with it in the past. It should have nice big bubble pockets to soak up the creamy filling, but instead it has come out as a sweetened hockey puck of baked egg, replete with flour globes suspended throughout. As I'm using this recipe as a base for experimentation, I needed to perfect it. And so using what I had, a sponge cake, raspberry jam, cook and serve custard, and some "white chips", This lovey Raspberry Boston Cream Pie came into existence. Its even pink for the month!

Raspberry Boston Cream Pie
(Mine was actually scaled down to 3/4)

1 C Cake flour
1/4 tsp salt
4 large eggs
1 C sugar
1/4 C milk + 2 tbs
almond extract (or vanilla or raspberry flavoring)

Preheat the oven to 350 F
Butter and flour a 9 inch cake pan.

Sift together salt and flour 3x. (I skimped)

Warm eggs and sugar to about 110F till sugar dissolves. Whip 6 minutes till pale. (I whipped two of the egg whites separately to give more lift to the cake)

Warm milk (original recipe had a vanilla bean to steep here) but do not boil. Add to eggs while whipping.

Fold in flour and bake 30 minutes.

Filling - I used a raspberry flavored Jello cook and serve custard mix, but a pastry cream would work better.

Topping - I have no clue how it went together... It had sieved melted raspberry jam. Cream. Powdered sugar. Some melted 'white chips. A lil butter... and I melted it slightly before putting it on. It was grainy from the sugar and white chips...

Topping Ideal - Heat some cream. Add some white chocolate. Add some raspberry jam, seedless. Maybe try butter instead of cream if it had trouble setting up...

It came out a little less than picture perfect... I blame it on my own laziness. Had I made the pastry creme from scratch, and had white chocolate for the glaze... Ghirardelli doesn't sell white chocolate chips! They sell 'white chips' whatever the heck that means. Albertson's brand are better! They don't melt well, taste like powdered milk and wax, and really shouldn't exist. Anyway... If I did it again I'd make the glaze a white chocolate raspberry ganache glaze. And probably some real raspberries in the pudding.

I Did a Gig

Now for the 'I did a gig' jig! Sorry everyone. Really, sorry. That was painful. I couldn't resist. But I should have anyway.

Putting that behind us now, I did a catering gig the other day. I love working with Kristen for a number of reasons. She plans its all, I just show up and chop stuff. Not super glamorous, but its relatively risk free for me. She knows everyone in town, so I'm constantly meeting people when I'm working for her.

I get to see all the kitchens of Baker! This one has all the gadgets, but no counter space. A walk in fridge and freezer, lockers to dump your stuff when you come in, and a whole ton of massive stainless steel machinery I cant name. The kitchen before didn't even have hand soap. The one before that belongs to this cute cafe I've always admired from afar. Almost no fridge space, and the sun was baking me through the eastern windows, but it was still cute. Another cute kitchen kitchen was a residential one, pretty but by large unused. And the one before a well rounded small professional kitchen. It was possibly the easiest to work in. But it could use a walk in fridge too.

Cooking breakfast, lunch and tea on Saturday we were at a slow point, and I paused to taste one of our creations. A broken hazelnut scone, I'd been wanting to taste. Terri walks past and seeing me munching, I compliment her (she made them) and admit that 'really, its all about the food'. She chuckles and continues to get something or other done. I taste some of the berries with creme fresh, and a piece of her bacon quiche. Two things I'd never taste living in Baker that I hadn't yet made myself. She sees me again... and again. About the forth time she walks past me in some nook noshing, I reassure her "I really do work! I mean... some of the time I'm not eating! Really!". I do...

It really amazes me how she can come up with the menus she does. There nothing unheard of. Most of them are simple and easy to throw together en mass, as they need to be. It may be the simplicity that baffles me. They taste great, they're simple to prepare, and they compliment each other shockingly well. And its so simple... yet I can't even conceive them till she points it out.

Potato wedges with Romano, butter, salt and pepper. Basically cheese and potatoes... I can do that. I always have some sort of cheese and potato on hand. Yet this is the first time I thought to do it.

Potatoes from the garden. Yes. Purple potatoes from the garden. And cheddar, cuz we always have some cheddar. And some onions because everything's better with onions.

Honey Get The Pryin' Bar!

I'm getting out of this rut, says I. I have not posted here - anything of note- in ages! To be perfectly candid, I haven't been doing anything I deemed post-able. The moments where I have created, I disowned them from their start. Not taking the time to photograph anything. Not bothering to check the lighting, or even tidy up the island.

Well, I'm up. I may be catching a cold... but dang it, I'll be darned if that will stop me from doing something pretty in the kitchen. And when some unsuspecting fool devours my creation they will feel the sheer will and perseverance I exemplified in my efforts to complete it! Ok fine... I'll wash my hands and try not to infect anyone...

I've been so jealous of all other foodie blogger's and their creativity. And a bit mad at myself for always trying the same basic un-garnished recipes. So... I'm going to do a bit of experimenting.

Wish me luck!

Missed It Miffed

Have you ever seen Nim's Island? Its a fine show about a girl and her father, a scientist, who on a secluded tropical island, and a muti-phobic author who comes to their rescue. Rescue? You may ask. From what? Well a group of pirates has discovered the island while Nim's father was away. Now these pirates have the dastardly plan of making Nim's island a tourist cruise destination.

And there Nim is, trying desperately to fend off the interlopers. To keep her island fresh and pristine and unique, and not homogenized like the tourists and pirates wish it to be (the tourists is very cliche/homogenized).

This is the best analogy I can come up with at the moment for my current quandary. TasteSpotting is such a wonderful site. It really does inspire me(as much as it intimidates me). It always has new new new cutting edge food ideas. Like the honey drops for tea. Little packets of honey gone hard candy for tea on the go. And some great insights on what to do with whats in season. Sometimes there's a prevaling theme... like cup cakes. There's always a lot of cup cakes.... but they're all different.

But once each month a tidal wave hits TasteSpotting. A huge massive two-page-or-so wave, of sameness. A different color different shape different presentation... but all the same. Like the wave of tourists flocking in like they own the place, blasting away the uniquity, the mood, the moment, of TasteSpotting.

I'm being a bit dramatic... but really, I feel it to be incredibly brash. We all have a place in TasteSpotting. Its in our lives, our hearts, our blogs (and generally also in our stomachs). But bakers.... we're to big of a group to fit into TasteSpotting. We have our own site. We have our own blogs. And we have our own following. We don't need to all of us at once go out and hostile take over the mainstream food blogging epicenters and strut our stuff at them.

I love it all, but everything has its place.

Promised Puffs

About a month ago I told my mother I should bake some cream puffs for her office. She too thought it was an excellent idea, but then life interfered. I can make them Monday night and fill them for you in the morning! Or so I thought. Well, this being the same week I'm baking cakes for intermission at the play I'm also acting in... I didn't get around to it. So then next week. Nope. Week after? Maybe Monday and even Tuesday too are bad days to do it, I realize.

All of a sudden, I decide that asking what day would work best for them would... well... work best. So Friday I decide. Sadly when this was decided we left for Utah to visit family for a week. Sometime around then it occurs to me, I have no clue what the Daring Bakers challenge is this month. AND ITS ALMOST OVER! Eep! Less then a week, and I'm not even in my own kitchen till 4 days before it goes up! AND I'm leaving for Portland 2 days after I get back! And one of those is spent going to Idaho for a dentist appointment! And then I decide its also my only chance to bake some apricots fresh of my grandmother's tree.

Good thing it turns out to be Eclairs! I made them before I packed, the day I was leaving. I filled some with a caramel laced filling, and some with Splenda sweetened whipped cream for Val, who's diabetic.

And a chocolate glaze. (I mean look at it! Shiny Chocolate Deliciousness!)

Oh... and the folks we were staying with didn't have internet so I ended up not being able to post anyway.
-_- Forgive my repeated procrastination and lateness....