Other cooking adventures, not having to do with chicken

So, last weekend, I only wrote about chicken, but I actually cooked some other things.

On April Fool’s day, I burned a perfectly good batch of sourdough. I set a timer and went upstairs to work and when the time went off I thought I’d go check the bread after I finished an email, and then forgot all about it for two hours. I posted the pics and somebody suggested croutons with the still-soft middles of the bread, which worked well. The croutons were really only nice and crisp right out of the oven – we enjoyed them on a salad the first night, and then I re-crisped them for a second salad, and then I made panzanella with the last.

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Probably it was universe telling me I didn’t need to make more bread, since I had made a perfectly nice loaf of challah with sourdough discard just a few days before (also featured on Insta).

Last Saturday Al & Emma came for brunch – the first people other than us we’ve sat inside with since something like March 15, 2020, when John & Megan were here. We ate breakfast burritos and fruit salad and chocolate matzoh and lemon cheesecake bars, the crust made from the Girl Scout cookie Lemonades, which proved to be delicious, just the right amount of lemon. I bought the cookies by a combo of ordering online using a code to benefit a local Scout Troop and curbside pick up off the girl’s porch, the house where they always have lots of seasonal inflatables, Nightmare Before Christmas, Christmas Dragon, and most recently some kind of Easter crocodile – I think it’s a crocodile, anyhow.

Sunday we sort of had Easter dinner, ham, slow cooked collards (a Bryant Terry recipe that would have been vegan if I used veggie broth instead of chicken broth, from the bones of the big chicken) and mashed potatoes.

So, the rest of the week was kind of using up the ham, or really, first the chicken, then the ham. And other leftovers, evidently.

• So, Monday we had chicken noodle soup and ham sandwiches on challah toast and salad (well, Mark had a sandwich and I had challah toast & salad, and of course I ate some cold ham while I getting dinner ready);
• Tuesday we had leftover tater tot hotdish and panzanella (after I taught an online class, that was after I worked the election in the morning);
• Wednesday we had the last two breakfast burritos, and chips and salsa. I decided to make a roasted salsa with the last two tomatoes and a handful of grape tomates that were slowly aging in the veggie bin, so I and bought a jalapeño & some cilantro at Metcalfe’s, that came wrapped in plastic. It seemed like as soon as the city of Madison said they won’t recycle plastic bags anymore all the produce at Metcalfe’s was wrapped. I put too much tomato paste into the salsa and it was too thick so I added some Frontera salsa that was too thin, and at first I thought the homemade tasted just like the Frontera – but it got better after it sat and blended a bit. Naturally I had to taste test with about half a big bag of corn chips;
• Thursday we had a quiche made with the filling from some potato, leek, bacon, and cheddar pasties that had been in the freezer since last November. Based on Laura’s recipe from the Breat British Baking Show. It made good quiche. We also had it in a scrambler with eggs and spinach a couple Sundays ago.
• Friday we had the last of the chicken soup, and ham salad sandwiches, and cabbage apple poppy seed coleslaw.

On Tuesday I was scheduled to work the election from 6:00-1:30, so on Sunday morning I made a batch of cranberry-cinnamon chip-pumpkin muffins, so we could have a lighter breakfast instead of our big brunch followed by dessert, because we were having that Easter ham. Then I inidvidually wrapped all the muffins and took them to the polls on Tuesday.

Muffins were a persistent theme; on Thursday morning the bananas were too ripe so I made these Banana Streusel ones, and even managed to post the recipe.

 

So I guess that brings us back around to Saturday again. We biked to the first outdoor big Dane County Farmers Market of the season, and it was kind of a mess. No easy bike access, too many cars, too many people and cars and vendor booths crammed into one parking lot for the Market, which they must’ve decided was the thing to do because Covid testing and vaccinations are ongoing in other areas and other parking lots at the Alliant Center campus.

And here are my flower pics and selfie experiments from the week.

 

And, oh yeah, we discovered, and started watching, the Discovery of Witches TV series, and I started reading the books; I have book 2 & book 3 on hold at the library now, and I got a free sample of book 2 that I was reading during down times at the polls on Tuesday. We had to get a free trial so finished watching the Witches pretty quick, and will now have to wait for season 3 to be produced (though I’ll probably get the book sooner), and went back to watching the alternate history of space. We decided that Deborah Harkness’ historical romance is more like Diana Gabaldon’s than Julia Quin’s, just to cover all the romance we’ve been consuming during pandemic, on TV and in print.