wiredfool

I baked a new type of bread today, a Rosemary Diamante, which I got a basic recipe from here but modified to fit my preferred timings. The dough turned out to have a very elastic texture, beautiful rise and oven spring, with a very soft interior and crisp crust. It was very tasty, with a good hit of rosemary, a touch of olive oil, and the bite of the salt on the crust.

It had nearly a light white bread weight on the inside, probably due to the 1/2 water, 1/2 milk proportions on the liquids. I’ll probably try to make it a bit more hearty the next time around, most likely by cutting down the milk, leaving the olive oil, and processing it nearly like my other white breads. I’ll also boost it to 5+ cups of flour per 2 loaves, rather than the 3 1/2, since the loaf turned out really small, small enough that it didn’t seem out of place to devour one when it got mostly cooled.

So, for the next time:

– 2+ cups liquid, maybe 1/2 cup milk in that.
– 1/3 c olive oil
– 1+ tsp yeast
– 5 c flour
– 4 T chopped fresh rosemary.
– 2 tsp salt in the dough, 1 tsp sprinkled on top before baking.

Boy decided that we were going to have dinner made of what he dug out of the cabinets today, so I started with a can of corn and a can of chick peas. It came out as a very monochromatic yellow, somewhat different Indian dish.

– Mustard seeds, some, in the oil at first.
– one block tofu, small cubes, fried for a little while till I got sick of it sticking.
– Before adding liquid, some tumeric, maybe 1/4-1/2 tsp. it needs the higher heat of frying.
– Add drained chick peas.
– Added corn liquid, and some extra water (1/4 cup extra?). And some butter. Butter makes everything better. Ghee would work too.
– Salt and Cayenne need to be in there too.
– Added the corn near the end, essentially to heat it up without cooking it to mush.
– At the end, put ground coriander, fenugreek, a bit of cardamom, a couple ground black peppercorns in hot oil and fry for 30 seconds to release the aromas, then mix in with the rest of it.
– A tsp of lemon juice at the end for a little brightness.

I served it over couscous, but any grain would work.

This surprised me for a 15 minute too tired to cook anything night, especially since I didn’t really know what I was going to make until I was about halfway through. Good enough to write it down so that I have a chance of doing it again.

Throwing caution to the wind, I updated the MacBook with 10.4.11 as soon as I saw it in the Software updates today. No troubles here, and the new Safari 3 is nice. I’ve been using the Webkit nightlies on and off for a while, but now my default browser gets that nice speed boost. As an added bonus, most/all text area items are now drag resizeable with a little handle in the lower right corner.