RWood

Haven't had a steak in probably a year. Picked up a ribeye, made a compound butter. Roasted Vidalia onions, and made potato cakes a la Cook's Illustrated. My mother is not a big meat eater, and if she has beef, WELL done 😑😕. Oh well. Probably why we don't have it much.

Not the best photo, but, Pan seared salmon with polenta and a warm tomato salad. Sauteed zucchini (what else? 🤦‍♀️) and one of the seared scallops I made for my mom since she doesn't eat fish.

I just fried this time. I would like too stuff with goat cheese, but my mother doesn't like it. So, maybe ricotta next time. I'm still experimenting with the batter, this was with club soda, gonna try beer next time. I really cut the leaves back on ours. The flowers were getting hidden, so once I did, the bees were getting back to work. When I removed the stamens, I was considering doing just that, but there weren't any flowers ready. We've only had about 5 so far, but that's been plenty. I've got two now I'm trying to decide what to do with. I would rather have the blossoms though ☺️.

Raided the squash plant and made fried squash blossoms. It's only had a few zucchini on it, so I'm eating the blossoms. More taste anyway 😁.

Pesto Pizza! Basil and early girls from the garden. Crust is the master dough with starter from The Pizza Bible (Tony's pizza in North Beach is my favorite). Cooked on the grill on a pizza stone. Drizzle of arbequina and fresh basil. So good!

Try the CI blueberry recipe. It's different from a lot of scone recipes. It's got a little bit of a lamination technique. And the liquid is a combo of sour cream and milk. I've made cream scones, butter and cream, buttermilk. Tried a lot of different versions. My mother loves scones, and she said this one is her favorite. They are soft, and not dry at all.

American Scones to me seem similar to a southern biscuit, just with added stuff. So, no need for the jam, etc. They can be either sweet or savory, I make one with gruyere, dill and scallions that is very popular, and I'll make bacon, cheddar and chives. Anything really. I remember my grandmother asking me for "one of those sweet biscuits." So, that's why I think more biscuit (not an English biscuit 😊) than anything else. And I agree with you about Migoya 😑😊.

Back when my mother had to pick fresh cherries (20lbs), I decided to help use them up by making Cherry Almond Scones. I used the blueberry recipe from Cook's Illustrated. Added a little almond extract to the dough, then topped with sliced almonds before baking. Made a double batch that's stashed in the freezer.

Thanks! Yeah, she really doesn't look 81.

Happy 81st Birthday to my mom's cousin Peggy! We had a pizza party and cake. She loves white cake, so I made a scratch WASC and the 3 types of pizza. Sorta Margherita, one with a lot of stuff, and arugula and prosciutto.

If you are spraying on dark chocolate, you'll need to add titanium dioxide to make the colors show up. As is, you will only see the color on white chocolate, and it may still be light.

Made a couple quick things for my dad for his birthday/Father's Day this week. Beer caramels, some just wrapped and a few dipped in milk chocolate with smoked Maldon flakes. This was a recipe that I hadn't tried before, and they came out too soft. So, I chilled a few as I was dipping, but they will probably have little blow outs. I used an aged Belgian style beer called Allagash. And, the other was a request from my mom. Spanish red skin peanut clusters with white chocolate. But, my dad loves them too.

I think there is too much liquid in the recipe. From the combo of the egg, milk and yogurt. And, the sugar seems a little low, which could affect browning. Also, I brush the top with either cream or melted butter and sprinkle with sugar. Most scone recipes bake at a higher temp as well. I usually bake at 400F convection. I have made several types of scone recipes over the years, and my favorite that I have found for any type is the blueberry recipe from Cooks illustrated. I've made savory, Cherry, etc with it, and it works great. In this recipe, the butter is grated on a box grater. Makes a big difference in flakiness and also doesn't need to be worked in as much.

And then adding something that would be mush kinda adds to the shelf life issue I would think. Since the soft texture in an actual tiramisu is ladyfingers soaked in liquid. I worried about that anyway, adding mascarpone, but I kept a few and just checked them every couple of days to see how they were holding up. After two weeks, they were still fine. I wouldn't have sold them at that point, but it was good to know I didn't have to worry that they would go bad that quickly.

I made a tiramisu bonbon a while back. I molded it in milk chocolate because I felt the dark shell would overwhelm the filling. I add grated dark chocolate to the filling, instead of cocoa powder. My filling consisted of white chocolate, mascarpone, glucose and a mix of marsala, espresso powder and a small amount of amaretto. I added the amaretto because I had made tiramisu for a function, and the recipe the chef gave me had it in it. Really good. I never tried adding a ladyfinger or cookie component because of the mushy issue, or that tiramisu doesn't have a crunch. Mine tasted like tiramisu, so I didn't really miss a ladyfinger type layer. With the soft texture it normally has, I'm thinking that type of component isn't needed, for me anyway :).

Yeah, the back is the only place that is cake. The rest is rice krispies. They only needed cake for about 10 people, so like I told them, I got over enthusiastic :). But, for a 3D standing dinosaur, what else would have looked right?

Yeah, Ginger was already asking me what I thought of a humpback whale. New obsession I guess. But, that could change in a year :). And, the mom is expecting another boy in a few months. I have a few cakes I'm wanting to make. An octopus for myself, and a standing Harley for my dad, but I have to get back to Georgia to make it for him. I have a list that maybe I'll get to one of these days. Hopefully from paying customers and not just for me ;).

Grandpa Brian sent me some photos of the birthday boy with his cake. When I dropped it off he had just woken up from a nap, so he wasn't quite sure what to make of it. I think he wanted to play with it :).

I have three sets of the sugar structures made by Innovative Sugarworks, and I watched a couple of their videos on how the recommend using them and attaching a board. I just went by the shape of a T Rex. It took parts from all the sets to get it the shape and secure it. I went to Lowes and they had a scrap piece of thick MDF board they gave me. The weight of that helped keep it from being unbalanced. I used armiture wire to make the arms. Here are a some photos of the progression.

Thanks! I started working on small parts of it (putting the structure together, figuring out the head, turning the house upside down looking for the stuff to make the eyes 🤦‍♀️) on Monday, and worked a little each day. Thursday and Friday were the serious days. Finished the board Saturday before delivering. And, so not into the TV thing. Most people on those shows annoy me to much to watch 🤷‍♀️😊

My friend Ginger asked me to make her grandson a T Rex cake for his 3rd birthday (today). He's made of chocolate cake, Rice krispies and modeling Chocolate. First time using Satin Ice covering chocolate instead of fondant. That stuff is great! The eye is made of isomalt with a transfer sheet. He was fun to make.

So, using up sourdough starter ala King Arthur. Sourdough breakfast biscuits with sausage, and sourdough crackers with rosemary and oregano from our new herb pots. Biscuits were really good and easy, crunchy outside like we like. Used whole wheat flour for the crackers, and I rolled as thin as they would go. Good, very light texture.

Well, my sourdough came out pretty tasty. Crust was nice when it first cooled, softened some now, but made good toast this morning. I gotta get better at scoring my loaves, I've barely done it since pastry school. I made this with a flour I got online from Janie's mill. I’ve bought several types from them to try, this one was recommended for long fermentation.

I was planning on trying these when I do my next feeding

With all this time on my hands, I decided to play around with bread. My starter is finally looking happy, and I have the beginning of sourdough in the fridge. Here's 🤞🏻🤞🏻.