baked feta pasta with spinach

[stellar_dust]

I made that baked feta pasta recipe that's been going around social media. I used the Washington Post version, but here's basically the same recipe without the paywall.

I used a can of diced tomatoes instead of fresh, and added spinach by taking the bake out of the oven about 10 minutes early, stirring everything up with pasta and spinach, and then baking for another 10 minutes. This method might not work so well with fresh tomatoes, since you don't want to stir it up till after they burst. I didn't end up needing to use the reserved pasta water.



It was pretty tasty, but I doubt it will become a go-to recipe for me, since it relies on having a block of feta on hand, which I don't usually. So that's too much advance planning, though I can see myself maybe picking up a block if I'm at the store already and the mood hits me to make this later in the week.

I guess I'll count this for my "made something hot" bingo square. Temperature-hot, that is -- it does have red pepper flakes, but they just seemed to add a little flavor, I would not call this a particularly spicy dish.

Buddha's Delight (Jai)

[tielan]

I've been planning to make this for a while, but a working bee at my house on Lunar New Year provided opportunity, with people who are open to vegetarian dishes.

The dish is known as Buddha's Delight in the Omnivore's Cookbook, but I know it simply as "jai". My mother cooks it at Chinese New Year, and I figured it was time to learn. I did have mum's recipe, but for the purposes of this challenge I figured I'd just run with the Omnivore's Cookbook recipe.

( adjustments, notations, thoughts )

NB: For those concerned about meetings and eatings, under current COVID conditions in NSW, Australia, working bees and other gatherings around food in private homes are permitted as our community transmission is considered extremely low.

Lemon drop cookies

[valoise]

I was in the mood for something crisp and lemony, so I thought I'd try this recipe from 1858. These are from page 602 of Wholesome Fare: A Sanitary Cookbook by Edmund and Ellen Delamere.

Lemon Drops.
Mix together a quarter of a pound of loaf-sugar, a quarter of a pound of butter, six ounces of flour, the yolk of one egg, a teaspoonful of cold water, and a little fine-minced lemon-peel. Drop lumps of this composition, the size of a walnut, on a buttered tin plate, and bake in a brisk oven.

The recipe calls for loaf sugar, this was a common form of sugar in the 19th century. Just use regular granulated sugar. It seemed a bit dry when I used only the yolk, so I went ahead and included the egg white as well. I used the zest from one lemon and instead of cold water, I used juice from that lemon. I baked them for 12 minutes at 350 F. I think next time I might use the rest of the juice with some confectioners sugar and make a thin glaze to drizzle over the top of the cookies.

Walter Sands Basic White Bread

[mama_kestrel]

I've had the King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook since it came out in 2003. I like it because not only are the recipes clear and straightforward, they explain things like what the ratio of flour to liquid is for basic bread, how to vary it, and how different recipes relate to one another. I'd made several things from it, but never plain, everyday white bread. I've been baking bread for better than 50 years (I had to stand on a stool when my grandmother first taught me), so if I want plain bread I just make it. No recipe, and very little measuring. I measure the liquid to set how much dough I'll end up with, and the yeast because I gave up on packets in my teens. After that, it's mark one eyeball.

But my son, who has sensory issues and has had a lot of trouble with cooking, has been watching Gordon Ramsey and Bingeing with Babish religiously, and he decided that it was time to make his own bread. Specifically, he wanted to make small loaves he could use as bread bowls.

So I went in search of a recipe, and found this one in the aforementioned cookbook, then looked it up on their website. My son made it, with mom's oversight and demonstrations of things like kneading and shaping. It came out really well; about 75% of the batch vanished the day it was made.

In the book version, the powdered milk is listed as optional. I left it out, because I didn't have any. I also used olive oil as the fat, and honey for sweetener and yeast-booster. Other than that, we followed the recipe. I did note that it took 5 cups of flour rather than the listed 6, but that amount of variation isn't unusual in bread, and has mostly to do with the lack of humidity in a heated home in winter.