Today’s Fun Fact: You can make diamonds from peanut butter. Because diamonds are made entirely of carbon, scientists have successfully crushed peanut butter under extreme hydraulic pressure to strip away the oxygen and hydrogen, leaving behind pure carbon diamonds. “You” is the key word. That means “me”, not “some person, somewhere”. It doesn’t seem thatContinue reading “Extreme Hydraulic Pressure”
Category Archives: Cooking
Learning 2 Bake From Scratch LXXXVI
Garden Strawberry Cake I made it up. Guess the secret ingredient! It’s the layer cake recipe from the back of the Swan’s Down Cake Flour box, which I’m writing down here so that I can throw the box away. Garden Strawberry Cake 2 sticks butter – room temp2 cups sugar3 cups sifted Swan’s Down CakeContinue reading “Learning 2 Bake From Scratch LXXXVI”
Flammable Water
This really happened last night. I’ve written it as if it were a scene in the book. I need to find something better to do during my lunch breaks. The menu was basic: Rice, meat, and a vegetable. “Asparagus or Corn?” Mark called out. “Asparagus,” The Laird replied. Mark removed a bundle of asparagus andContinue reading “Flammable Water”
Sliced Bread
And Other Lunchtime Miscellany We bought bread. Wednesdays are grocery day. It also happened to be bread day, which is whatever day we’re about to run out of bread and I make more. It was also bake a birthday cake for The Laird day. I didn’t feel like making bread and cake. I asked theContinue reading “Sliced Bread”
Gyros 2
Aside from Roman Numerals being antiqued, although not quite obsolete, I didn’t want anyone to think it was Gyros Eleven. I bought a pound of lamburger at the Farmers’ Market, today. When I explained that I liked their gyro meat, but wanted it a bit more spicy, I was told that they also sold theContinue reading “Gyros 2”
Learning 2 Bake from Scratch – LXXXVII
Cinnamon Rolls The moral of this story: Don’t always believe the recipe. This is my third or fourth time making these from the Joy of Cooking recipe. The previous versions have been fine, but a bit tough. Way back in LXX, I used a different recipe. Following the recipe may (or may not, I haven’tContinue reading “Learning 2 Bake from Scratch – LXXXVII”
Gyros
The lamb folks at the Farmers’ Market were selling “gyro meat”, which was seasoned lamb-burger formed into strips and pre-baked, in this case. I bought some because I like gyros and thought it would make a nice change of pace. I had to go to the store for a tomato and tzatziki sauce. We hadContinue reading “Gyros”
Chicken Curry
First, I am well aware that “curry” is not a single thing. It’s more of a genre. Despite that, I’ve mostly used curry powder when making curry. I haven’t been pleased with the results. Since it was handy, I looked up “chicken curry” in The Joy of Cooking. It uses a Thai curry paste, forContinue reading “Chicken Curry”
Cheddar
I’ve pretty much given up on every other sort of cheese – unless it needs to be melted; cheddar doesn’t melt well – and settled on cheddar as the type to have on hand. When I write “cheddar” on the grocery list, I mean a block of not-expensive cheddar that I can slice for sandwiches,Continue reading “Cheddar”
Skill or Luck?
In the best of times, I have issues with setting the timers needed to successfully make bread. For various reasons, which probably should be a blog post, I have a new phone. It upgrades and restarts itself every day, so far. Apparently, Android upgrades must be applied one-by-one in sequence rather than just skipping toContinue reading “Skill or Luck?”
Marked Up 