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have an ongoing struggle with the perfect pizza dough. On my first try after receiving the happy gift of a pizza stone and peel, I used this recipe from Bon Appetit and with the help of beginner's luck, created a perfect crust: light, bubbly, crispy, and tender all at once.

Since then, I've had no love from my further pizza attempts, even using the exact same variables as the first time. But then, pizza is temperamental like that. So I soldiered on to different recipes, hoping to find something that yielded somewhat consistent results.

The latest attempt was using a basic dough recipe from Vegetarian Classics, with decent and sturdy, if not stunning results. The crust was crisp but a bit too dense for my taste. On to the next!

Posted by Satya at 8:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

appy Easter! M. and I are laying low today and just catching up on cleaning and work, but I did take a moment this morning to do a little baking so I could use up some of my exploding stash of carrots. Because Easter is all about...bunnies, and bunnies obviously like carrots (?). I admit I don't entirely understand the association with rabbits and resurrection, but at least I can enjoy eating the results.

Here's the recipe I used, with the following modifications: fuji apple instead of granny smith, vegetable oil instead of corn, swapped about half the oil for applesauce, no nuts (didn't have any), and my coconut happened to be unsweetened.

Posted by Satya at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

ust got back from the hospital to have the stitches removed, and the finger is doing well - just have to baby it along for a couple weeks, as the doc said. Meantime I've jumped back in the cooking saddle, but haven't had a chance to update for a little while, so here's a big entry with my myriad latest creations.

Numero uno: a little bento for two to celebrate my friend L. obtaining her own studio space for artistic/crafty endeavors - something Repast is a big supporter of! I packed us turkey BLATs (the A is for avocado!), carrots, cheese, Haribo gummy rolls, and miniature champagne. I packed straws in the chopstick container, but the champagne bubbled over quite amusingly when we tried to use them.

More after the jump!

Continue reading "Catching up" »

Posted by Satya at 9:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

t's raining today, again. I made some last-minute plans to take advantage of San Francisco's Dine About Town, but I had plenty of time to kill until then so I decided to whip up a batch of cornbread.

Cornbread is so easy (and not even from a mix, though the TJ's mix is pretty darned good if you go that route) it's a wonder I don't make it more often. I usually have all the ingredients on hand too: corn meal (a must for pizza making), flour, milk, an egg, baking powder, sugar, and salt. I made them in cupcake molds instead of in a square pan, because really, what isn't improved by being baked in an individual muffin cup?

I put half in paper cups and the other half in silicone baking cups, since I plan to freeze them for lunches and figured they would hold up better through the defrosting process. Now I just need to make some chili.

Posted by Satya at 3:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

e had some company over Friday night for a simple dinner and some game playing, though one of our guests only joined us for the latter. While we were waiting for her to arrive I decided to whip up some gingersnaps that I'd been meaning to make for awhile, but hadn't gotten around to yet. It was an exuberant affair involving explosions of flour and cascades of sticky molasses, but in the end we decimated a couple batches of warm, spicy cookies.

Note that I didn't actually use fresh ginger for this recipe, I was just feeling artsy. The key ingredient (besides the ginger) turned out to be some more of the candied orange peel that's been kicking around my fridge. Chopped up and added to the batter, the sweet orange essence flavor is an interesting contrast to the spices.

If you want the recipe I can't recommend David Lebovitz's Room for Dessert highly enough - it's in my little Amazon store thingy on the right there, though please feel free to buy it from wherever you like if you decide to get it. The candied orange peel instructions are in there as well.

Posted by Satya at 4:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

n an attempt to make more winter foods that would use up our weekly produce box, I finally got around to making some sweet potato pie. I used this recipe from Epicurious pretty much as written, but I decided to make mini pies that were more bento friendly instead of one big one.

I had extra batter so I poured it into some silicone cupcake molds and placed a cutout from the pie scraps on top of each one. Kind of like a gooey cupcake. I don't know if those really worked out, but I didn't want to waste the batter so it was a good experiment.

Incidentally, the pies popped right out of their tins when they were cool enough to handle, thank goodness!

Posted by Satya at 12:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)