Sunday, February 10, 2013

Adventures, lately

Having not checked in here in quite some time, I thought I would just make a brief record of some of the things I have (semi) successfully attempted in the kitchen.

1) Fish.  I am usually quite leery of cooking fish, but a growing consciousness of how important it is to maintain one's health led me to pick up a package of tilapia filets at the store.  I steamed them in foil packets with thin slices of lemon, onion, potato, and chopped kale on top.  T. loved it and said he could eat it twice a week! Baby steps.

2) Soft pretzels.  I made them! I did it! And they taste great, dipped in mustard or just ripped up and eaten out of hand.

3) Innumerable cookies. I tried a number of different recipes and they've all been great (duh, they're cookies).  Although I've made cookies twice now and forgotten some kind of random ingredient (once salt, once vanilla). It really just goes to show you that even as I have grown much more comfortable in the kitchen, a little complacency can lead to a little inattention can lead to cookies missing that subtle kiss of salt.

4) New banana bread recipe.  My go-to recipe has changed several times: I was a devotee of Molly Wizenberg's (Orangette) chocolate chip banana bread with cinnamon crumb topping. Then I started using Florence Chang's recipe from Flour bakery.  Now I use a recipe I got from a copy of Williams-Sonoma's Home-Baked Comfort by Kim Laidlaw called Super Banana Bread.  It's awesome.

5) Bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with Manchego cheese.  Do I need to say anything else about these?