Simple pear and strawberry trifle. Kept it very small-kid and convalescent Kavi-friendly this time, with strawberry jam (I don’t usually use jam in my trifle), no sherry, and non-dairy Cool Whip instead of real whipped cream (Kavi’s avoiding dairy for another day or two until she’s fully recovered). (There’s a nice bottle of sherry on the counter, though, so you can either add a glog to your trifle or just drink some…)
We’re hosting potluck and board games and knitting / crochet this afternoon. Kind of a low-key version of our traditional Christmas party + New Year’s open house. I sent out invites late enough, I suspect not too many of our good friends can make it, but maybe a few, and we should have some new folks coming for knitting. A chance to make some new friends, perhaps.
I’ve been mostly in hunker down mode for a while, but I don’t want to stay there forever — time to open up a little, reach out to the community, breathe.
Okay, I promised Kavi a mango fluff, so make that next, so it has time to set. Beef smoore and ginger-garlic chicken made, next I think a quick carrot-cucumber pickle. Will set out yogurt instead of making a raita, because that way, the yogurt can either go with the curries or be eaten with berries.
And if I’m feeling ambitious, maybe some Sri Lankan noodles — Amma used to make those for New Year’s, if I’m remembering right. But there’s a bit of cleaning and organizing to do too, so we’ll see.
Open house 2-6, bring some food or drink to share. Or just show up, and please help me eat all the food I want to cook. 🙂
I had a really harried day yesterday (and I think I was getting sick, but didn’t realize that was why I was so exhausted), so when Eliana came over to help with shipping things, I also asked her to bake a cake for me that I wanted to test for the Patreon boxes.
She did great — I think I took it out a little early, it could have used more browning. But mostly, I’m confused because you’re supposed to soak it in honey syrup, and I only used half the amount the recipe called for and it was THOROUGHLY soaked. I’m not sure if I did something wrong, but the end result was pretty tasty, so that’s something.
This batch was a practice batch (that I put out at Kavi’s Halloween party) — I think I’ll modify it some for the Patreon boxes. So I’d really like to know what was going on with the honey before I attempt it again — none of the comments on the recipe mention too much honey syrup as an issue.
It’s all a little mild for me too — when I make it next, I think it’s getting a kick of ginger, more cardamom, a touch of black pepper — and probably less sugar in the cake. Original recipe in comments.
Today is Kevin’s birthday (observed). He was on a plane for most of his actual birthday.
Dinner (not pictured) was a porterhouse steak from Carnivore Oak Park with roasted new potatoes. Dessert: spiced pumpkin cake with brown butter frosting.
Still a little too harried to bake from scratch (Kev comes back today, yay!), but I’ve found a banana bread mix I really like (yes, I know those are pumpkins, but I have multiple pretty pumpkin molds, no banana molds (haven’t found any pretty ones), and a habitual excess of bananas in our freezer), and that makes it easy. Miss Jones mix (link in comments). Zinnias by neighbor Sera Sera.
Stopped at Carnivore Oak Park on Sunday because I didn’t know what I wanted for dinner. PIcked up a few pounds of pork shoulder (which they kindly cubed for me) — I’ll make a curry with that later today. But that takes a few hours of simmering — on Sunday, I wanted something fast, so turned to the grill.
Two delectable crab cakes & just-picked corn from Carnivore joined some underripe peaches (so good brushed with a bit of oil and grilled!) and purple bell peppers from my garden. The bell peppers sadly turned an unappetizing grey on the grill, so they are not pictured, but they did taste good. 🙂 I might stick to using them raw in the future, though!
Crab cakes grilled in a few minutes and then were served on a bed of spinach, graced with remoulade and some peppery young nasturtium leaves and flower from the garden. And then when I got the Hugo award news later in the day, I chopped up another peach and added it to some Ben & Jerry’s caramel ice cream, which was DELICIOUS straight out of the container…
Nice to have a little more time right now for summertime cooking. Two weeks ’til the semester starts. Trying to hang on to that lazy summer vibe for as long as I can…
Lilac & lime simple syrup. Delicate sweet + citrus floral flavor, nice with gin and tonic (got to keep that malaria away), would also be nice with seltzer water. I’ll have 9 little bottles at the art fair Saturday.
I meant to make this earlier — by the time I got around to it, most of my purple lilac petals had fallen, so I ended up with mostly pink petals, which made a sort of brown syrup.
Usually, if you add citrus to lilac syrup, it’ll turn purple, but I think the pink is just not strong enough color for that, so I ended up with a sort of melon-y color? Still pretty, though it doesn’t particularly shout ‘lilac’ when you look at it. 🙂
Some recipes recommend adding a few blueberries to get a purple color — I didn’t have any on hand, but maybe I’ll try that next year. This recipe suggests that, for example: https://www.havocinthekitchen.com/lilac-syrup/
They also suggest uses: “Think of fancy cocktails, refreshing lemonades, or over your ice cream. Enjoy with pancakes, crepes, and French toasts. Besides, it would be great as a part of desserts, soak cake, topping for your oatmeal, and a dressing for your fruit salads.”
