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November 11, 2007

Chilly Sunday Cooking Projects

Sorry I've been AWOL. Marriage is lovely, and things are nearly back to normal, which is nice. If you haven't seen them, there are wedding photos on Flickr (email me for more URLs, but here's one link), but I don't have the photographer's set yet.

As expected, I've reverted to spending my Sunday entirely in the kitchen, and the blog, as of this post, will revert to the subject of food. It's cold outside, and I'm not ready for the cold, so baking and cooking seem like the best coping strategy. We also have some swank new kitchen things, which are making cooking a little more fun.

I recently saw quince for sale both at the greenmarket and the co-op, and Elise of Simply Recipes happened to post an article about making membrillo (quince paste) at nearly the same time, so I thought I'd have a go at it.

It took over four hours to finish, but came out beautifully. I thought about taking pictures, but Elise has some nice ones, so go there for a look. The fruit smelled wonderful while it was simmering in water, so when the recipe called for draining the fruit, I saved the water it was cooking in and made that into a syrup. It has a lovely flavor and I made it less sweet than the membrillo. It's tempting to drink the stuff straight out of a mug. I'm not exactly sure what to use it for, but it went great with futsu squash we had for dinner.

I also made muffins, which will probably become a weekly event until I gain my winter weight and go back to yogurt in the morning. I wanted to make banana muffins, and thought about using our usual banana bread recipe, but settled on adding some oats and chocolate and trying this recipe with chocolate chips, butter instead of oil, and yogurt instead of milk.

I LOVE how recipes on the Internet include both a rating and comments about substitutions. Yesterday, I had a craving for oatmeal cookie batter dough. I had seen a recipe on Chocolate and Zucchini, so I forged ahead with that. The batter wasn't good, though -- wheat flour doesn't make for the kind of cookie dough that you can snack on very well, and I might have done something wrong with the recipe. I decided to alter the batter myself by adding an egg and some all purpose flour, knowing all along that this was not a good idea, and the results were disastrous (I hadn't had my coffee yet).

Today, I read a bunch of the comments on the muffin recipe before attempting anything to make sure that the recipe was tried and true and to understand acceptable substitutions. Having 210 comments is somewhat like having an entire squadron of church ladies helping you understand a recipe. The resulting muffins are wonderful. I've also been able to share my quince syrup brainstorm with people through comments on Simply Recipes. Web 2.0 is doing wonders for my culinary education.

Since it's fall and D's always reminding me to cook more than one thing in the oven if I'm going to go to the trouble to heat the thing up, I usually throw in whatever colorful and interesting squash I find at the co-op (halved, brushed with olive oil, and upside down on a cookie sheet). I should have taken a picture of the futsu squash we made today -- it reminded me of the New Yorker cartoonist with the very wrinkled characters. Lately, I've been saving the seeds of each squash and toasting those in the oven at the same time -- it makes a great snack.

Posted by csageday at 06:06 PM | Comments (0)