Kerry Beal

Tonight - Negroni for Anna, homemade G&T for me.

Realize I hadn't yet shown you the shelf that we are using for the liquor this year. Picked up the wire shelving at the Flee Market - found some boxes there yesterday that help hold the bottles securely on the wire.

My lunch as it looked before it hit the carpet - toasted bun, cheese, bacon, tomato and mayo.

You may ask - but you may not get a correct answer - I just put them in and took them out when I was ready for them. Suspect it was around 20 minutes. Temp was 210F.

Added probably 2-3% extra cocoa butter - whipped in TMX for about 30 minutes at speed 3 with whisk (butterfly) in place. So first attempt - cooked for 12 minutes - too loose, back in for another 4 minutes or so - still too loose - back in cooling oven for about 10 minutes.

Raspberry breakfast bars use a pound. Blueberry Crumb Bars work well with 4 cups of raspberries instead (or a combination).

Experiment under way over here.

This evening I've been playing with the l'ambroisie chocolate tart under discussion in this thread. Mixed the eggs and sugar for most of 30 minutes in the thermomix (or until the power went off) - then mixed in the ganache that I had tempered. Now due to my chronic inability to follow directions (the pastry recipe was for two tarts and was to have been refrigerated for 24 hours) I ended up with pastry that could be used as a doorstop. It also provided wonderful insulation against the heat in the oven for the filling. So the 12 minutes did absolutely nothing towards cooking the filling I'd say. So now I had leftover filling that was to have filled the second tart (the pastry of which was insulating the first tart) - Anna suggested the phyllo that was in the fridge left over from the burek. Much more interesting texture - I baked this one about 4 minutes more. I put tart number one back in the oven for 5 minutes - still too oozy - but after letting it sit for another 5 or so in the cooling oven - the filling seemed perfect. Sadly the pastry didn't improve!

For work tomorrow I made Fruit Crumble Bars with the raspberries and blueberries.

I add a little lemon oil to the batter and usually use plain sugar (if I remember to sprinkle with sugar)!

While we were enjoying a glass of vin de peche with Kira's sitter - the sky to the north started to look a little spooky. Then a little spookier - and the air got cold - Then it lightened up - but it didn't get warm! We did have a power outage for a few minutes - right at a critical cooking point! A caipirinha for Anna and I before dinner - actually Anna snacked - and I just realized now that I didn't have dinner.

Stopped in at the grocery store on our way home - and guess what we found - right on Manitoulin? Mussels - so there is hope Tri2Cook!

After lunch we stopped in at Tracy's to pick some raspberries. Tracy and her hubby live on the water - a property zoned for farming - they have a couple of horses. And raspberries!

Indeed - some sort of potato croquette with cheese and onion - forgotten the name they gave them - maybe potato bites?

Lunch today was at a lovely little campground in Sheguindah that I had driven by a million times before but never stopped at. I had to drop a form around on Friday and thought that the food smelled great and that the kitchen was open and clean - so when we found ourselves in the area today it was a perfect place to stop! Meals come with coleslaw. It was a very nice coleslaw. Liver and onions for Anna. Club sandwich with turkey - just the way I like it for me. One of the best meals we've had out on the island this trip.

One of the places we got to today was Pike Lake Farm for some eggs. Entertained by this partridge on the road - didn't stop for pictures of the baby skunk - didn't think it was wise.

Working on some tonic water syrup today. Hadn't brought any cinchona (or as Anna calls it chinchilla) bark along - so had to get hubby to mail it up in an envelope. Noticed the envelope had been opened and stapled back together - hope this happened at work and not at the post office (they usually leave you a little note of apology if they open something suspicious).

Yesterday - between trips into to the ER - I put together some blackcurrent jam with the berries we picked on Sunday. Ran the jars through the steam oven to sterilize them. Going to take a couple of jars this am and add some water and reboil - looking for a slightly looser texture!

Pork belly, cauliflower cheese - can you hear the crackling crunch?

I came, I ate, I'm heading back.

Cheese biscuits for rounds this morning.

Not one to muck with success - Summer Torte Blueberry edition. This will be for the ER staff - tomorrow morning I will make some cheese biscuits to take for rounds.

It was indeed - from our herb garden.

Look at this beautiful baby!

Sniff in another classic pose - accepting the intruders! Tonights libation - Rafa's The Man Comes Around. Not quite all the right ingredients - but quite satisfactory.