Apple on Top

Edie had off from school today, so kept busy doing the laundry, baking knishes, given Edie mid-day showers, feeding myself, cleaning the huge mess Edie made in her path, took some phone calls resulting from the press release I've issued for the knish venture -- one even resulted in a piece on a blog the same day! Between baking, publicizing, taking active care of Edie, feeding myself homemade food, visiting a friend's new baby in the afternoon, all in all it was a busy day. When B came home, I ordered in dinner and collapsed on the sofa.

TODAY'S COOKING
Chicken Paillard: Hammered out the last piece of chicken, dunked it in a little peanut oil and Worcestershire -- definitely the best, salty, umami, just right. Gonna do this with my students next week.


Chocolate Hazelnut Cheese & Apple Cheese Knishes: Up until this point, the sweet knishes I've made were an afterthought, using left over dough. This time, it was all about the cheese knishes.

Instead of using the tougher, potato-based dough that has been my go-to for the savory, I consulted a book I plucked off of Amazon recently, Love & Knishes, long out of print, my edition from 1958. There were two dough recipes, one with and one without baking powder -- I chose the later, hoping for a flakier lighter lift. 2 cups flour, 2 eggs, 2 tbsp "salad oil" (I assumed vegetable oil)1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt. It warned it may be too try to come together, and to add water. It did not come together, but water would just develop gluten without adding anything, so I threw in a 3rd egg and all was copacetic.

For the fillings, I did a second attempt at chocolate hazelnut and a first attempt at apple. For the first one, used 1 pack of farmer's cheese, half a container of nutella, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 flour, 1 tbsp cocoa powder (dutched), 1 egg, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp vanilla. For the apple's cheese filling, the same with nutella swapped out for sour cream and no cocoa powder. I took three apples from the CSA, peeled, cored, sliced, fried in butter with a little cinnamon, cardamom, salt and brown sugar, until firm but a little soft. I made a slurry with 1 tsp of corn starch and 1 tbsp water, and added it to the pan once off the fire just to give the juices a little body, and prevent them from watering down the cheese mix.

Used a cupcake pan again, and after panning most of them, decided 4" square is enough dough for this pastries. For the apple, some I put the apples on the bottom, some on the top, but once they came out of the oven (300 degrees instead of the brown-inducing 425 for the savories, 20 minutes instead of savory 30-45), clearly the apple-on-top just looks more appetizing. Two hot ones went into my mouth with lunch and they were good, but the real test is when they are cold. The apple cheese didn't taste sweet enough (the apples were REALLY tart), but cold always makes things sweeter.

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 8:45am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1:15pm, chicken paillard, brown rice pilaf, 2 small cheese knishes, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5 

DINNER: 7pm, pad thai, fried tofu, 1 beer, water, 2 small cheese knishes, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5