A day of cooking

If this blog were to have existed before yesterday this would have been up earlier this week but, alas, that isn't the case.

On wendsday the 24th I imbarked on some sort of cooking mania complete with pictures. First came the shells for would would be ice cream puffs. The sheer fact that I am able to even think about making these with out much worry about moisture absorption reminds me that I am no longer in NY but in my oh so wonderful, but quirky home of Portland Oregon


I thank whomever made silpats (though the picture above is of the dough on a silpat alternative) from the bottom of my heart because the dough is rediculiously sticky (you could use it as an adhesive if you really wanted to because of all of the eggs in it) I couldn't imagen trying to get them off of a non lined baking sheet, though you could use parchment but that would be more wasteful.


Clearly I should have smoothed out the sides and top more because I didn't have a pastery bag or tips though I was highly amused by the little devil like horn sticking out of the puff on the left. The puff on the right is one that I smoothed out a little.


The finished product stuffed with peppermint icecream that I made ealier that week. All and all, a very tasty desert.


Promptly after finishing the cream puffs and cleaning up I started making the focaccia.


A few years back I use to not be too good with yeast, I could never figure out how hot the water needed to be but clearly I've gotten better. Above is what you get when you mix 1 tsp of yeast desolved in half a cup of warm water and 3/4 cup of flour...granted it rose for 40 min. I have a feeling that I let it rise too long - that shall be fixed next time I make focaccia.


After rising twice for a total of 2 hours and 10, being minipulated into a pan (I would have used a baking sheet but my baking sheet that has sides is in storage at SLC), poked and prodded with my fingers, sprinkled with fresh rosemary from the garden and salt as well as being drizzeled with olive oil this is what we get - a pretty pale dough ready to go in the oven (as well as a very run-on sentence).


And the end product - could have been more moist but i really have a feeling that the sheer bulk of the sponge had something to do with that.

First post

so this is the custimary first post on this blog. i decided to start a cooking blog because, as most of my friends know, i cook...all the time. it was my first love and i hopefully will always enjoy it.

a bit abt me (in the form of bullets)
-i'm 19 and go to sarah lawrence college in bronxville, NY but am currently in Portland, OR
-i've been playing flute for about 9 years
-when i have an abundence of free time (read when i was in high school) i do a lot of community organizing and activism
-the firs thing i cooked on my own was an omelette te (i think i was around 7 or 8)
-i'm really, really bad at spelling (but only in english, when i studied german i was pretty good at spelling and i'm currently studying spanish and haven't had any problems spelling wise)