Snaps

Here are a few photos of recent projects.

Meyer Lemon Curd - if you come for a visit, I'll give you some.	A new holder for the dish soap. It needs to go in a better location, however.
The infamous Cockroach Coffee Table	Here's a section that I Boraxed. You can see a roach's behind as it checks out my handiwork. The debris on the side of the table is roach poo, which produces a smell that's attractive to more roaches.
A little roach doing a little dance in the woodwork. Too bad somebody else decided to take the table for themselves!	Fenderation!
Mulched.	Satsuma Growth
Growing Herbs	Mulched, growing tomatoes
Strawberry starters	Some visitors. It has rained to the point where my front yard is a wetland area. A good use for the stale bread I accumulated!

A touch of cooking

Can you tell that I've spent most of the weekend at home, by myself? I can.

This is related to a couple of posts back, where I asked about uses for the miscellaneous ingredients left in my pantry, as I've come up with some nice uses for a couple of things.

First, the sesame seeds. Martha Stewart, of all people, has a great recipe for honey-sesame crisps. A recipe such as this one is the whole reason I bought so many sesame seeds in the first place:

Honey Sesame Crisps
1 cup confectioners' sugar
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons orange juice (juice of half of an orange)
1/2 cup white sesame seeds
1/4 cup black sesame seeds (I just used another 1/4 C of white sesame seeds. Shrug.)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour (I used whole-wheat pastry flour. So healthy! <-sarcasm)
Zest of 1/2 orange, about 1 tablespoon
1 pinch of salt

Now, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line some baking sheets with Silpats or parchment paper, and set aside. Trust me, you'll want to use some sort of liner. Now, in a small saucepan, combine the confectioners' sugar, butter, honey, and orange juice. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil for 1 minute. Remove the pan from heat, and stir in remaining ingredients. Allow to cool to room temperature-ish. Use a small spoon to drop the batter onto prepared baking sheets about 4 inches apart. If you don't leave enough space, you'll wind up with one giant cookie. Bake until cookies are crisp and golden, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Next, about that channa dal, and the teff flour. I have actually devoted a fair amount of time already to reading about the uses of teff flour. When I finally got around to looking at the package the flour came in, I discovered that it actually came with a little recipe book. Genius. However, none of the recipes are for injera, the Ethiopian flatbread that serves as a tablecloth for delicious, delicious Ethiopian foods. If you go hunting for injera recipes, you'll quickly get overwhelmed. Apparently, people who make injera have all sorts of different methods for making it, and the methods vary from stuff you can use instantly to stuff that takes a few days to ferment properly. So, uh, yeah. I mixed together 3.5 C of water with 3/4 C of teff flour last night, and sprinkled a bit of yeast over the top. Today, I've added another ~1/4 C of teff flour, and I may attempt to use it to make some injera later this evening. This effort may simply produce a doughy mess - I'll let you know. If so, I'll wait a few more days, and then I'll try again. Oh, I'll cook it in a big cast-iron frying pan, as one would cook crepes.

Apparently if you have sourdough starter from wild-caught yeast, you can convert it over to teff flour and then use it to make injera. Unfortunately, my experimentation in the kitchen hasn't leaned in that direction, yet. Maybe someday I'll get around to sourdough experimentation. We shall see.

To go along with the injera, I'm going to make a version of Mesir Wat, using the channa dal. Now, I haven't made this yet, so I can't speak to its flavor, but here's what it calls for:

One onion, chopped
One clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp ginger (which I'll skip, thanks)
2 Tbsp butter (or oil, or, ideally, niter kibbeh)
1 Tbsp paprika
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/4 to 1 tsp Cayenne pepper
1/2 pound red lentils
2 C water
Salt and pepper to taste

Puree the onion, garlic, and ginger in a food processor or blender. Add a bit of water if necessary. Heat the butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add the turmeric, paprika, and cayenne and cook for ~30 seconds. Add the onion puree and sautee until excess moisture evaporates and the onion loses its raw aroma (5-10 mins). Add lentils and water, bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and then simmer until lentils are cooked through and fall apart (30-40 minutes).

Along with that, it's a good day for some stew, with some cabbage and carrots involved. In Ethiopian cuisine, that translates as Atakilt Wat, apparently.

1/4 C niter kibbeh (butter, ghee, fat, et cetera)
1 large onion, diced
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2-3/4 inch of ginger root, grated
1/2 tsp turmeric
1-2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 pound round cabbage (half a head or so), cut into 1-2-inch chunks
3/4 pound potatoes, cut into 1-inch chunks
3/4 pound carrots, cut into 1-2-inch chunks

So, what to do here. You can probably guess. Heat the fat, saute the onion, add the garlic and ginger, then add in the turmeric, tomato paste, cabbage, potatoes, and sat. Cover it all, lower the heat to medium-low, and cook until tender. Stir every 5-10 minutes so stuff doesn't burn at the bottom of the pot. Add salt and pepper to taste.

So, yeah. The one benefit to just cooking for oneself is that nobody else has to put up with embarrassing cooking mistakes.

But I still need to figure out how to use up the other stuff from the previous list. I suppose if I tackle one or two items a week, I should eventually get through all of it.