Kookin' in the Kitchen

Dammit, no nips in the supermarket.

Spent the morning chilling, met up with B for a nice lunch near her office, but cookies kept me from being hungry so I just nibbled. Investigated the farmer's market then hit up the supermarket for a big shop, planning a few big dishes for the next week or so.

TODAY'S COOKING
Guacamole: 4 avocados, one whole Valencia onion minced, one head of cilantro minced, juice of 2 limes, large pinch of salt. Very oniony, but purposefully because I wanted an onion presence in the dish this was going into.

Quesidilas: Had to put my ton of rice & beans to use. I bought mini corn tortillas instead of flour, and found that no amount of steaming or microwaving would make them flexible enough to make burritos, so I laid them out, spread on the loose rice n' beans on one, guac on another, and a sprinkling of grated cheddar in the middle.


Vanilla ice cream base: B's family is over tomorrow, and B refuses to allow me to cook, but she let me do some ice cream, and a family favorite is cookies n' cream, so had to make this base now so I can churn and mix ground up oreos into it tomorrow. The usual, pint of cream, pint of milk, heated with 1 cup of sugar, 3 vanilla beans scraped. 12 egg yolks tempered into it, strained into an ice bathe once thick.

Coco-peanut frozen bars: Edie has been going nuts for "ice cream", frozen treats on stick. We have a set of molds and B has been making one-off frozen smoothies with a lot of fruit, and this morning I poured off enough of my own smoothie to make a pop for her. Rather than one offs, I made a set from pantry stuff. 12 oz of coconut milk. 6 ounce of natural-style peanut butter, 4 ounce of cane sugar cooked until comes together and smooth. Into a blender with banana, a large shot of vanilla extract and a large pinch of salt, blend to smooth.  Into 6 molds and into freezer. I calculate that is about 2 tablespoons of sugar per pop -- depending on how they taste, I may cut the sugar in half and consider other fruit to the coconut milk-peanut butter-banana base. Also, I wonder how the consistency will be -- maybe I should try to run it through my ice cream machine to whip air into it and avoid crystallization? Hopefully the salt and extract will help stay soft and relatively smooth in the frozen state.

BREAKFAST: 6am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Milk, good yogurt, banana, frozen blueberries, cherries and mango, flax, a pinch of salt. Very thick.

AM SNACK: 10:30am, 5 cookies, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 12:30, an arancini, an avocado toast, a little moz, a bit of sandwich, a few potato chips, water, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK 4:30pm, a few failed mini burritos, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 6:15pm, a quesadilla, 3 ears of boiled corn, water, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, handful of Oreos