Jananas

I like making bread. The problem with a lot of the normal bread recipes is that they end up making two loaves at a time, which is a lot of bread to eat in a short time period! I know that you can freeze a loaf if you need to, but we have a small freezer and space is at a premium. Added to that the fact that I’m experimenting with different recipes to see what we like best, what works best, what works with our schedules, etc.

So this week we tried to make slow rise no knead bread, using this recipe. Overall, this was super easy to make up. Ours didn’t rise as much as we’d hoped (although I have a feeling that the pan I was using was a little too large for the amount of dough). Also, we both found it a little sweet, which was strange because there wasn’t much sugar.

Next time we’re talking about adding some flax, caraway, or sesame seed to it to add a little more texture. I also think that it would be good with some savoury flavouring. I didn’t add any this time because I wasn’t sure what we were going to use it for and decided to err on the side of caution (as rosemary doesn’t really go well with strawberry jam).

We made the dough up in the evening and left it to sit overnight, doing the final rise and baking it the next morning (which took about two hours). I think that once I’m back working again it would work better to make the dough up in the morning before work. That way, I can do the final rise and bake it in the evening, when I have time versus in the morning when I certainly won’t!

Yesterday I was walking home from the park and noticed that one of the little local grocers had mini ‘cukes available for sale. I’ve talked before about my desire to make homemade dill pickles and Jason’s sister was talking this past week about their previous adventures in canning dill pickles. I figured that today was as good a day as any to try! Over the course of the day yesterday I grabbed 12 1L mason jars ($12.80), 17lbs of ‘cukes ($17), some more white vinegar ($2), and some dill/dill seed ($5).

This afternoon, after getting home from having an always good lunch with my friend Brenda, I decided that it was now or never! I had found this recipe online for dill pickles and it seemed as good as any. I immediately set out to sterilize the mason jars (I ran mine through my dishwasher on the sani-wash setting along with a little bleach) and cool my cucumbers. Here they are just sitting in the sink being cool as can be. This took about two and a half hours.

Once the jars were clean I put in the various spices. I had picked up fresh dill (which smells amazing!). The recipe calls for dill head, although comments on the recipe say that dill seed can work as a replacement so I used that instead. I also added a little bit of Keen’s dry mustard and some whole peppercorns for a bit of zest. Jason & I both love (love!) garlic, so I used 4 whole heads in these babies. After the spices where in, I added some cukes. These were fat suckers, so I slices a bunch of them to fit some more into the jars.

As I was getting the jars ready, I had set the big pot of brine to boil on the stove. It took a while longer to heat up, but Jason kept me company. We filled the jars as a team, with Jason pouring brine and myself wiping edges and putting lids on. It seemed to work well, once I realized that if he had two jars handy he could fill the second while I was dealing with the first. After they were all done Jason tightened the lids as I wasn’t sure that I’d done a good enough job.

Then we placed the jars in a sink full of hot water. Awesome is that we’ve heard a bunch of loud ‘popping’ sounds coming from the kitchen, which is the seals forming. Its been about half so far which has me excited. Hopefully the rest will go soon!!

Sadly, we ran out of the boiling brine mixture partway through the last jar. We topped it up with water, vinegar, and a pinch of salt. Its sitting in the fridge right now. We know it isn’t sealed and so won’t keep forever, but as long as we eat it in the next two weeks (I’m sure that won’t be a hardship…) it’s all good.

Overall, this was a pretty easy experience. I’m thinking that since I still have cucumbers, dill, and garlic that I’ll pick up some more jars later this week and make a second batch! Maybe with some hot peppers…

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Today we were eating lunch at Flying Tiger in Dayton Ohio. As an aside, I realized that we plan a fair portion of our travels around food, in today’s case adding 3 hours to what would have been a 1.5 hour trip in order to eat at Flying Tiger (which has great food in general and some of Jason’s favorite vegan Chinese dishes in particular).

To set the scene, we’re sitting in the restaurant with our friend Jacob, enjoying our respective meals. An elderly couple on the other side of the restaurant calls over the waiter. The husband points at the closest of the fish tanks and asks about “that fish”. The waiter walks over the the fish tank  and points at a small fish. “No”, says the old man, “that big one a little farther over.” The waiter points at something else in the fish tank. “That one sir?” asks the waiter, to which the husband responds “yes”…

“Sir, that’s not a fish. Its a rock.”

We’re convinced that the poor waiter probably didn’t get a tip after pointing that one out. We tried might hard to keep straight faces, but have admittedly been laughing about it all afternoon. A rock!

Amazing! Only slightly more amazing than the man walking his dog while wearing a gorilla mask (?!?) we had seen the evening before in Columbus, nevertheless these are the things that make my day.

A month or so ago, our friend Robot sent us the following message on facebook:

“Good morrow fellow country people!
I have been charged by his royal highness to recruit you to cheer on the mighty knights of our kingdom in the field of battle. The next tournament is being held on Sunday the 7th of June at 4:00 p.m. at Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament.Tickets can be purchased at the peasant friendly rate of2 for the price of 1 using the sorcerers incantation: BOGOWEB at http://www.medievaltimes.com/

We will be getting the standard package as the kingdom is in a recession and we would all like to feast together (people of the plant included). If by chance you find yourself needing a ticket partner let me know and I will try and link you to another of your fellow country people hopefully with sexy results.

Feel free to recruit others non as then we can cheer even louder and hopefully summon a berserker into the field of battle. Please do not link me to the details of this as I plan on surprising my maiden with a ticket.

If you are able to attend please let me know and I will try to have a staging area for us to meet and rush the gates 30 minutes beforehand otherwise you will have to fight you own way into a seat.

For the Alliance!”

Really, how could we resist? We were assigned to the blue section/knight. Once we got over the cheese factor, we had a blast screaming and shouting and cheering and otherwise being high spirited supporters. It really was a bunch of fun, and our theory is that the more people who come the more fun it would be!

Jason was pretty stoked because they were able to put together a vegan meal for him. Yup, the dinner theatre notorious for half chickens and no utensils was able to accommodate vegans!!! We knew that they had a vegetarian option and when our man wench came around we asked if they could make something vegan. Turns out that the tomato soup is vegan by default. They were able to pull together a meal with a veggie kabob, hummus & chips, and rice pilaf. Sadly our man wench was unsure if the garlic bread and dessert (an apple turnover) were vegan, but it just meant more for me.

Jason definitely has a way better beard than the king.

After dinner, we went out to grab a drink in Liberty Village. The majority of our party was still wearing our paper crowns (we forgot they were on!) and we definitely got some strange looks walking into the rather high end pub.

Overall, we had enough fun that we’re trying to get together another group of people to attend with us on Saturday July 18th. You in?

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So before anyone gets their knickers in a knot or thinks that I’m some sort of woman with an agenda against my former company, I actually busy making cookies while writing/editing last night’s post.

While looking through our cupboards yesterday, Jason had come across a bag of vegan chocolate chips that I’d ever so deviously hidden away (and subsequently forgot about). I haven’t (successfully) baked since we’ve been home so I decided that I should make us something good and wholesome for dessert. [As an aside, dinner was curried adzuki beans & green peas over steamed mixed rice]

I googled vegan chocolate chip cookies to see what would come up, and came across Post Punk Kitchen’s Chewy Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. Seriously, these things are like brownies in a cookie form – just amazing!

Here they are just out of the oven. However, this picture didn’t really do them justice, so I took a close up of one cookie (the was shortly demolished).

And they really are chewy cookies! When the instructions say cook them for exactly 10 minutes (they won’t look done, but they are) – listen!!!! Its what gives them their amazing texture.