A seething mass of turgid drama.

A friend: "Was the Norman Conquest a result of the Y1K crisis?"

Me: "...No, but Cnut's was."

I mean, William the Bastard is 1066, hardly the turn of the century! And while math says that the millennium actually started 1001, the popular misconception coincides much better with Cnut's conquest in 1016.

I'm stealing the format from the last milestone I commemorated, #800 back in 2019.
( Cut for navel-gazing )

Finally, this week's Resolution Recipe: Plum and Walnut Pie.
"Plums and walnuts work beautifully together, with a little cinnamon and butter to distract from the sharpness of the fruit."
( Read more... )

We got a gourmet chocolate advent calendar from Dandelion Chocolate. The wife really wanted to try it, so I agreed. A couple days in I started rating them, and set up a quick Google Sheet, because of course I did. Here are the results and some quick thoughts around that.

My half-assed scale was 1 to 4 cocoa beans. 1 = bad; 2 = meh; 3 = tasty; 4 = mouthgasm. (I did end up giving half ratings, e.g. 3.5 = tasty-plus but not mouthgasm).

The average was 3.1. I never gave any 1s, and I frankly would have been shocked if any had deserved that because if nothing else, Dandelion makes very good chocolate. More than I would have liked were "meh" or "okay" which was what I gave a 2.5. For the price point, none of them should have been below 3 and eight of the 25 were!

The packaging was very good but kind of a waste, because it's going in the recycling bin. Some of the products we may look for on their own but I doubt I'll put a huge effort into it. So, summary: not worth the gourmet cost overall, would not get again.

Quite a few years ago, we realized the way had been doing dinners was flawed. Having lots of ingredients on hand so you can whip up whatever you feel like is great, but it requires inspiration and sometimes planning. Too often we fell into "It's 6 PM, I don't know what I want to have, let's get Chinese food."

So we started weekly meal planning. Near the end of the week we make up a shopping list, and most of the time involves plotting out the coming week's meals. I get bored very quickly if all the meals are similar ("meat and salad" can only happen a couple times in any given week, even if the meats are different like fish and chicken). I also try to look at the calendar and think through the week to see how much work I am willing to do. When I was Kingdom Exchequer (drink!) many more of the meals were simple and/or "the wife puts most of this together" because I didn't have much spare time or bandwidth.

I don't plot out when most of those meals will happen. We typically decide the night before. That allows the wife, who likes more spontaneity, to make changes on the fly. But it's also not locked in - last night I suggested we postpone today's meal because it would create lots of leftovers, and we already have several lunches' worth in the fridge. Instead I'm making a salad with leftover beefsteak. It's important to allow for changes when a meal that sounded good the previous Friday just doesn't appeal... we had onion soup on the list for two successive weeks before taking it off the dinner plan for now.

Not triggered by anything in particular. It's worked well for us for probably 20 years.

I went back to the dry yeast no-knead loaf recipe today. Half strong white flour, half local coarse wheat. Thing One had an additional one cup walnuts kneaded in.

The loaves are nearly identical with a good rise and round shape, if not high and fluffy. Soft texture and open interior crumb. Thing One is a bit darker due to the walnuts. The flavor is nicely walnut-y but not overwhelmingly so; I probably could have increased the amount.

Yesterday I made the no-knead bread recipe again, because we basically devoured the loaf over the week. This time I wanted to see how sourdough starter would work in it. So Friday night I made one bowl of regular dough (half wheat, half strong white) and a second the exact same, but with one cup of sourdough starter replacing the water. Well, I had to add a bit more water to get the right texture. I called them Thing One and Thing Two. Thing One was the sourdough.

After the 18 hour rise, Thing One was heavier by ~100g and Thing Two was schlorpier. This made some sense; more mass in the sourdough and more aeration/yeast activity in the dry yeast. I pulled out my 14" Lodge footed pot from the garage (I don't use it anymore for tourney baking, but I can't get rid of it) and started the oven with the two pots. When the timer went off, I checked the oven... to find out that I had apparently not gotten it lit. Sigh. Another half hour and I started the bake. Unfortunately by that point Thing Two was a bit over-proofed, so it was significantly wider and flatter.

Given that last week's single loaf was too hot at 450, I heated the oven to 425. This time the loaves did not get near-burnt. In fact, Thing Two was significantly softer on the underside. Which makes sense, because the 14" Lodge has a cake rack living in it, so the loaf did not touch the bottom of the pot. Apparently I should have let it. Also, with two cast iron pots in the oven, neither one got as hot and so both could have used a higher temp.

Thing One has a significantly tighter crumb, which I expected. It also has more sourdough flavor as expected. Both are good but Thing One looks better because it is rounder. Thing Two has a softer crust (even discounting the underside). I'd like to try the experiment again, but with our two smaller cast iron pots and a longer pre-heat (I might heat to 450 and turn it down after the initial 30 min). But we have to finish these loaves first.

This is going to be a slightly much longer post than usual for this tag. Because this is Resolution Recipe #800. And round numbers can be an excuse for introspection.

Why Resolution Recipes?
( Read more... )

Numbers Geekery( Read more... )

A few other notes. ( Read more... )

Finally after all that bloviating, this week's Resolution Recipe: Mapo Tofu.
(Fuschia Shock) ( Read more... )

Bonus: Sweetcorn Kernels with Green Peppers.
"This is the kind of everyday dish you won't often find in recipe books, but it crops up frequently on the menus of low-key Sichuanese restaurants and in home kitchens."
( Read more... )

Bonus bonus: Basic Rice... FOR SCIENCE!
( Read more... )

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Now that I've hit this round number, I have no plans to stop cooking Resolution Recipes. I certainly wouldn't have imagined that I'd still be going this many years later. Now if only I could make and follow some other resolutions with this fidelity...

It was a busy weekend, even though objectively it wasn't actually hectic.
( Read more... )
( Pics! )

The wife and I decided to get tickets to a Giants game so that we actually go to one this year. Neither of the two alumni groups scheduled one (that I am aware of - it is possible, though unlikely, I have fallen off their lists as I do not donate). I picked a Thursday afternoon game as that will be more fun, even though it means taking some time off work. (Or because.) I bought the tickets.

Then, when I was adding it to the calendar, I noticed that a couple weeks ago I bought tickets to a "history of tamale making in San Francisco" talk that day. Well... the game starts at 12:45, and the talk is at 6. Barring many extra innings we should be okay, but it will be a busy day.

Note to self: this is precisely what calendars are designed to avoid.

Nothing is "very unique". Something is either unique, or it is not.