Strawberry Shortcake

With a recent batch of my perpetual buttermilk biscuits, Pamela fashioned a delicious strawberry shortcake with strawberries and whipped cream. Simply macerate the strawberries by letting them sit in a bowl with some squirts of lemon juice and a spoon of sugar for a bit, and then throw some on a half-biscuit and add whipped cream and some of that maceration juice on top.

Accidental Paneer

     The other night I had the good fortune of being able to base an entire meal on an experiment gone awry. 

     I make my own yogurt, because the tubs you can buy in the store are like a single mouthful for me. To get even cheaper, I decided to try making yogurt from rehydrated dry milk. Instead of yogurt, I ended up with a bucket of water with a smaller bucket-shaped cylinder at the bottom. The substance seemed to be cultured properly, but the texture was denser and grainy, almost like hummus. My ever-positive mom was fortunately around to say "I bet that would be GREAT with some salt and garlic", and a fantastic cheese-like substance was born. 

     I put it over salmon (with honey) and scalloped potato with mouthwatering, cheap, and nutritious results. 

Red Velvet Cupcakes

For Susan's birthday I made the Smitten Kitchen Red Velvet Cake recipe and adapted it for cupcakes. They're delicious. I've also learned that the secret for the best cream cheese frosting ever is to whip it! It's much lighter and fluffier that way. I always used to just stir and ice; no more!

The Perfect Scrambled Eggs

I just made this delicious recipe for scrambled eggs. Probably the best I've ever had. It's Gordon Ramsay's "Perfect Scrambled Egg" recipe. I substituted cream cheese for the creme fraiche, and fresh basil for the chives. Next time I'll use quite a bit less butter because they were soooo rich. Delicious! It's also a lot of fun to watch Ramsay cook.

Cakers

I have a website that I think some of you will like, (and may just be the answer to the question, "What is Canadian food?"). It's by an author, Brian Francis, whose book Natural Order I really liked. Anyhoo, on the side he runs this hilarious blog called Caker Cooking.

"It's not about cakes. From casseroles to canned corn, this is the best of the worst of mangiacake cuisine."

 He makes food from old recipe books by Enbridge, auxillary clubs, church groups, etc. It reminds me a lot of the Pause For Living magazine. Good stuff for sure. Funny writing too. Some favourites? Spaghetti pie, coca cola salad, dump cake, and mock apple pie —"You have to make it to believe it."

Ten Foods I Dislike

How about we list the foods – or, to be precise, ingredients or flavours – that we dislike? I have been a very picky eater for most my life, but recently I have begun to love a lot more food (saliently almost all vegetables). I think I have come a long way so that now there are very few foods I dislike (though a small number of ingredients at the top preclude the enjoyment of a lot of dishes [saliently Indian and Mexican cuisine]). As you can see, I think one could generalise that I am more sensitive to bitterness and other sharp flavours than most. Here are the food items I most dislike in order of distaste (beginning with most disliked):

1. Spiciness
2. Cilantro
3. Peppers
4. Alcohol
5. Grapefruit
6. Chocolate
7. Liquorice
8. Sweet potatoes
9. White mushrooms
10. Coffee

I Made Pretzels

I made pretzels. They were very good. It was fun bathing them in baking soda water. It was like a weird science experiment. I used this recipe.