Home Cooking

Yesterday, I made meatballs with extra lean ground beef and they came out pretty good.  I based it on a Food Network recipe.  Robert always likes my meatballs, but he also makes really delicious ones, and we have differing opinions as to ingredients and methods.  So I like to make them when I'm by myself; I can be creative with no interference! 

Above image belongs to myspicesage.com



I also made vanilla ice cream, using the cooked custard base method with Lactaid (easier to digest) milk and a really good quality vanilla bean that my favorite spice mail order source, Spice Sage, gave me as a freebie.  I had ordered a few pounds of citric acid, which I use to tackle cleaning problems caused by the combination of hard water and the "new" phosphate-free detergents.  (The citric acid is food-grade and can also be used as a lemony flavorant and preservative)  With that order, they sent me EIGHT, fresh, plump, moist, Madagascar vanilla bean pods for free!  Those would have cost $10 EACH at the local grocer and they would have been all dried out and old, because obviously, no one buys them at that price, when you could simply use extract instead.  I took the scraped and partially "spent" pod and stuck it in a clean amber spice bottle and filled the container with rum.  Probably won't be as strong as regular commercial extract, but after a few days or weeks, I should have some vanilla essence and will have made the most of my spicy windfall. 
Made a loaf of white bread from scratch today - hand kneaded (I used disposable gloves) - no bread machine or mixer.  I don't have a dough hook for my 50 year old Hamilton Beech stand mixer, and I thought, I shouldn't need a $300 Kitchenaid to make a loaf of bread.  Bonus, there's enough dough left over for a second loaf in the freezer.  Even though I used some "premium" ingredients to make it tastier and healthier, it was very inexpensive to make.  Not as much work as I thought, though like all baking, the clean up is the worst job.  Here's the recipe:
White bread recipe

Photo from the thefreshloaf.com

Why white bread?  For something for Robert's lunches without having to pay $3+ for a loaf full of corn syrup and chemicals.  I pack him lunch and supper, as he works during both of those mealtimes - ten to twelve hours.  Sometimes he gets fast food or takes a frozen dinner instead, but I try to pack something homemade whenever possible. 

Tonight or tomorrow, I will make Alton Brown's dough for pocket pies.  Not sure what I will put in the pies, but the dough works for savory or sweet things.  Any sort of fruit puree, jam or jelly, or leftover stew or chili would work.  Again, I think this will be a good take-to-work item, a sort of homemade fast food.