Stress Baking
Clearly the end of semester stress is getting to me. In the past week I have inflicted the following on my housemates:
Choc/peanut cupcakes:
Using a basic pound cake recipe (see below), add peanut butter (maybe half a cup) and chocolate chips to the cake batter just before putting it in the cases. Use 2:1 peanut butter to butter when making the icing, and fold through chocolate chips once you've beat in icing sugar to the desired consistency. Sinfully rich. Possibly best made as mini-cupcakes.
Burgers a la Bill Granger:
Distinctive features: they were made from pork and served with sweet potato oven baked chips (cut batons, toss in oil, paprika, pepper and salt, bake in hot oven). I do like a nice hamburger, I should make such things more often...
Choc-chunk peanut cookies:
Another offering from Bill. Firm but not crispy - I would make them a little smaller next time as they were still a little soft in the middle.
Did I mention I was focussing on Bill Granger's Every Day book? Last night's dinner was from there too. It's one of those ones you can cook in the time it takes the pasta to cook, which is always a plus:
While your spaghetti is cooking, gently fry a lot of garlic (I used about 8 small to medium cloves) and chilli in a decent amount of olive oil for about 5 minutes. Just before adding the cooked pasta, throw in some white wine and let cook for about 20 seconds. Add pasta and a lot of spinach (remember it cooks down to almost nothing), and serve immediately with lots of parmesan.
Conceivably one could use other vegetables, possibly chopped fine and added to the pasta in its last few minutes of cooking if they are too tough to cook in the last few seconds as spinach does. Of course, I had to complicate things somewhat, and served it with garlic bread.
See how this baking thing is great? It's relaxing, fuels my procrastination efforts - doubly so when I blog about it, and lets me fill up time thinking about what to bake next. Doesn't actually get the study done, strangely enough. It's crunch time 'til the end of the month, so I suppose I'd better go be productive. Have I mentioned before that this Post-Grad Dip thing is taking up more of my time than my Honours year? I don't even manage to watch day time tv anymore!
Choc/peanut cupcakes:
Using a basic pound cake recipe (see below), add peanut butter (maybe half a cup) and chocolate chips to the cake batter just before putting it in the cases. Use 2:1 peanut butter to butter when making the icing, and fold through chocolate chips once you've beat in icing sugar to the desired consistency. Sinfully rich. Possibly best made as mini-cupcakes.
Burgers a la Bill Granger:
Distinctive features: they were made from pork and served with sweet potato oven baked chips (cut batons, toss in oil, paprika, pepper and salt, bake in hot oven). I do like a nice hamburger, I should make such things more often...
Choc-chunk peanut cookies:
Another offering from Bill. Firm but not crispy - I would make them a little smaller next time as they were still a little soft in the middle.
Did I mention I was focussing on Bill Granger's Every Day book? Last night's dinner was from there too. It's one of those ones you can cook in the time it takes the pasta to cook, which is always a plus:
While your spaghetti is cooking, gently fry a lot of garlic (I used about 8 small to medium cloves) and chilli in a decent amount of olive oil for about 5 minutes. Just before adding the cooked pasta, throw in some white wine and let cook for about 20 seconds. Add pasta and a lot of spinach (remember it cooks down to almost nothing), and serve immediately with lots of parmesan.
Conceivably one could use other vegetables, possibly chopped fine and added to the pasta in its last few minutes of cooking if they are too tough to cook in the last few seconds as spinach does. Of course, I had to complicate things somewhat, and served it with garlic bread.
See how this baking thing is great? It's relaxing, fuels my procrastination efforts - doubly so when I blog about it, and lets me fill up time thinking about what to bake next. Doesn't actually get the study done, strangely enough. It's crunch time 'til the end of the month, so I suppose I'd better go be productive. Have I mentioned before that this Post-Grad Dip thing is taking up more of my time than my Honours year? I don't even manage to watch day time tv anymore!
posted by Eleanor at 1:52 pm
6 Comments:
I kind of liked that they were slightly soft in the middle...
mmm... it all sounds yummy!
Yo. Did you get your Metropolitan Museum of Art card?
I have that Bill Granger book too... I don't think I've actually ever made anything from it, but I should. Everything you've made looks so yummy. & baking as a form of procrastination has to be better than many others :)
Ash: thank you, I did.
Rhea: It is a good book - and there is a focus on the no fuss, quick dinner type of recipe which is handy (mind you, how hard is it to vary a basic stir fry recipe on your own?). I do find his sweet recipes a little on the sweet side though, but I'm not fond of too much sweet food in general these days.
Yo. Congratulations on not posting for a while about your new job. You are a winner!
Post a Comment
<< Home