A Day Away from Knishes

Got to bed around 11, woke up at 9:30 to a happy B&E. Horrible weather, sleeting and windy and freezing, it would have been a disaster to have a debut knish stand today. Had a cleaning person over to do the laundry and clean the house top to bottom, and B went out to get her hair did while I took Edles out to a local restaurant to feed. It was even worse weather on the way home. Me n' Edles watched a little TV when my momma in law came to help out with Edie, and I quickly passed out on the couch for a solid 4 hours -- 5 days of intense knish making will do that to a guy.

We ordered in pizza, as the fridge is still in lock down with too many trays of knishes. Tomorrow they will be disgorged to the world, and hopefully I will get some good vibes, personal and business related, back.

BREAKFAST: 10:30am, blueberry pancakes, bacon, potatoes, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 6pm, 3 slices pizza, green salad, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5


EVENING SNACK: 7:15pm, box of entemann's chocolate chip cookies, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

The Knishening is (was) Tomorrow

Hoo boy. Edie is a little feverish, B is a little pregnant, I woke up with not enough sleep and the final day of knishing ahead of me.

AM SNACK: 7:15am, diet coke

----

That's all I wrote, in the morning. I don't quite remember what I ate the rest of the day, except it involved a 2 liter bottle of diet coke fueling me. I baked 166 potato knishes while juggling other things, like a phone call from Edie's school saying she was 102 degrees and needed to be picked up. I picked her up, she was in a good mood, and Betsy was able to cut her day short and meet me when we got back so I could go back to the knishes.

The last round of knishes, the last round of the day, the last round of the week, the last round before setting up shop tomorrow, was in the oven when I sat down to check my email. I heard the weather was going to be iffy so I thought to email the fair organizers to see if they have any arrangements with food banks or charities in case I have a lot left over. There was an email from the organizers cancelling the event, due to predictions of rain, wind, snow and freezing, sleety weather.

I first called Betsy to tell her the news, who was at the pediatrician with E (E is fine, but better safe than sorry.) Then I stood by my living room window and stared out the window for a solid 10 minutes, wearing nothing but floury boxer shorts, hands knitted in a ball behind my back. What does one do with 500 knishes and no place to sell them? My permit to sell is temporary, limited to one day in one place, any other day in any other place requires a new permit, not to mention publicity, time and a host of other arrangements. Being that I've been working from a home kitchen, I've been banking knishes -- after the weekend, they will seriously start to lose quality. They gotta move, and they gotta move this weekend. An email to the fair organizers brought back no suggestions.

Sunday is better weather. So Sunday it has to be. Where? I live next to two green spaces. I send an email to my coop board and the organizer of a group that cares for the public park next door. In a few hours, I get permission to distribute and ask for donations from my backyard, but to be discrete about the money thing. I quickly update my blog, my facebook, create a facebook event, get in contact with the media that has been friendly to me the past month to spread the word. I'll be hosting the equivalent of an adult lemon aide stand on Sunday. Who said giving birth to a business would be easy?

Sitting around, mind racing in the evening. For all is said and done, with the refund of the cost of the table, the money I'm in for is not that much in the scheme of things, even if I don't make dollar 1 this time around. But this was a one shot deal --- I can not put my household and family through an entire week of full time production for such a meager yield -- I should be able to pop out 500 pieces in 1 eight hour run in a properly scaled industrial kitchen, not 5 twelve hour runs where my family has to crawl around a grumpy knish maker, and a fridge that is barren of everything but the bare essentials to get through the week.

Contemplating the next move, gonna give it some thought while enjoying this baby coming up. Which could be any day now.

The Knishening - Day 4

Woke up at 6am after some fantastically graphic stress dreams. Got some knish-related work done before getting Edie to school, did some food shopping in the morning and spent about 11 hours cranking out brocolli cheddar knishes and spinach & roasted garlic knishes. All in all, almost 200 pieces. I actually ordered in a sloppy breakfast from the local diner because at the moment, the oven, the stovetop and the microwave were all working, he he he.

Edie & Betsy went over to a friend's for dinner and they brought me back some left overs, which helped. It was good to be able to start winding down around 8pm, allowing me to clean a little and prepare for the final day of cooking tomorrow.

BREAKFAST: 10:15am, pancakes, sausage, potatoes, diet coke, 1 bowl


PM SNACK: 12:30pm, greasy corn muffin, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 2pm, broc cheddar knish, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER pt 1: 6:30pm, chicken nuggets, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER pt 2: 8pm, 2 slices of pizza, can of diet coke, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

The Knishening - Day 3

Woke up worn out from yesterday's knishening, but the knish shall not be denied. Spent the morning delivering trays to friend's houses for storage, as my fridge is limited. Made 4 big batches of dough which will hopefully get me through, cooked off the rest of the pumpkin filling, then went to Brooklyn and taught.

Got home totally blown out. Got through part of a short list of things that needed to be done, passed out around 10.

BREAKFAST: 9:15am, good granola with organic dead milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 12:45pm, pumpkin knish
Last knish out of the oven was a 13th, and so I ate it. It's good, but could use a little bit more salt -- why didn't I catch that earlier. Oh well, it's not bad, just not perfect.

SCHOOL SNACK: 3pm, chocolate covered pretzels, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5


SCHOOL DINNER: 6:30pm, shrimp in sauce, Cesar salad with fresh croutons, sprite, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


EVENING SNACK: 9pm, potato chips, chocolate chips & peanuts, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

The Knishening - Day 2

Woke up at 6am to get the onions in the oven, but only 2 of the trays fit. Peeled potatoes as Edie and B got up, and soon after I delivered E to school, got back to cooking the potatoes, cooking up the filling for the pumpkin knishes and kasha knishes, made a buttload of knish dough.

By 2:30 got everything cleaned up, cooling in the fridge or the counter and picked Edie up from school. First we went to the market to pick up some supplies, then to a park, where I ate some Chinatown vendor food. I dropped Edie off with our friend B and his son (sons, I guess, since he has a new sprog) while I did a shift at the CSA. Once home, I got to the process of assembly and baking until I couldn't no mo'. Ran out of dough, that was all. A little ahead of my production schedule, but as a few bumps have shown me, I'm really figuring this out as I go.


AM SNACK: 6:30am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 10:30am, good granola with dead organic milk, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 3:15pm, fishball with rice noodle, lotus leaf wraps, a donut, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 9pm, mini kasha knish


DINNER: 10:30pm, 2 hotdogs, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

The Knishening - Day 1

Had dreams about making knishes, kind of. I had a made a huge amount of crisp thin dried round apple slices, and I was attempting to smear peanut butter on them and reassemble them so they looked kinda like lined apples. I was only able to make a handful of perfect ones, as a lot of the apple broke or was misshapen.

After taking Edie to school, went straight home and attacked the mountain of knish making. Today, did the dough, filling, assembly and baking of 125 apple-cheese and chocolate-hazelnut sweet knishes. Diced 15 lbs of onions before showering and picking up Edie at school at 3. When B got home a little after 6, started again and diced another 30 lbs. Pretty much got done what I wanted, but I suspect I'm going to have to go late Thurs and Friday nights....

AM SNACK: 7:15am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 10:30am, good granola, dead organic milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5


AM SNACK: 11:45am, pint of grenadine soda, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5


LUNCH: 4pm, shrimp lomein, egg roll, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 8:30pm, white castle burgers, water, peanuts & chocolate chips, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

The Knishening is Koming - Prelude

Woke up about 15 minutes after the time I was hoping to leave for the bike ride in the Bronx. Despite almost 11 hours of sleep (with an hour of TV watching around 2:30am), felt groggy and achy -- back is better yet, but still sore, though reasonably so. Nose is still stuffy.

But it's good, today I got to help Betsy out with Edie, and knock out some of the food shopping necessary to start production tomorrow. Brought home 150+ lbs of groceries on my bike for the beginning of the Knishening tomorrow, got the laundry done, played with Edie in the backyard for a few hours. In the early evening, a reporter from jewcy came over to interview me, don't think the piece will be published before the event, but perhaps after. So focused on planning today, kinda forgot to eat lunch.

Had a hard time falling asleep --between 11 hours of sleep last night, anxious about starting knish production tomorrow, and a bunch of Sunday night television shows I watch, I didn't get down until 1am.


AM SNACK: 9:30am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 11am, toasted sesame bagel with cream cheese, pint of grenadine soda, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 2pm, tortilla chips, a little guac, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Swung by a local Mexican joint where B&E were eating, on the way to the supermarket.



PM SNACK: 4pm, a couple of sweet knishes, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 5:30pm, half a sweet knish, glass of grenadine soda, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 8:30pm, eggplant parm hero, green salad, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, chocolate chips & peanuts, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Run Down

Woke up at 9:30, stuffy nose. Back feels even better, but still a little bit sore. Skipped weights, and will probably sacrifice them next week, too. After pancakes, Betsy went to work to get on top for her last week coming up before officially leaving to give birth, and I watched Edie while doing some knish-related chores. Got to bed a little after 9pm, feeling run down and hopeful I'll feel better for tomorrow's Tour De Bronx.


TODAY'S COOKING
Pancakes: Trying to empty out the fridge (milk, eggs, yogurt), and stock the freezer for this coming week's knish onslaught. No buttermilk on hand, but a half cup or so of the full fat Fage had a similar effect.

Burgers: Grated onion, Worcestershire, salt and this time some  garlic powder. Better distro through the meat than if using fresh. It was good.

BREAKFAST: 10am, iced green tea, pancakes, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 2pm, breaded shrimp, cheese tortellini in olive oil & garlic, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 6:30pm, 2 burgers on whole wheat buns, potato chips, butternut squash soup, milano cookies, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Ramping up

Spent the day getting smaller details of next week's knish table done, stuff I may forget or overlook when I'm in the heat of multiple days of production . My back feels better, though still not 100%. Was going to lift weights, but think perhaps to wait another day rather than risk a recurrence.

Nose is getting stuffier, head a little heavy, better be careful or my weekend will be 86ed.

AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 9am, toasted onion bagel with cream cheese and whitefish, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


LUNCH: 1:15pm, 2 slices streetza, grape soda, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 4:30pm, black cherry soda, a beer, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
At a 2yr old's party.



DINNER: 6:15pm, butternut squash soup, large green salad, mashed potatoes, a little sliced turkey, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Zoo

Woke up with an achy back, but not as bad as last night, which is a relief -- it's muscular, not spine-related or torn-something. Edie had off from school, so we rode over to the Prospect Park Zoo in the morning. Visited an auntie in Park Slope in the afternoon, and had a nice rollicking evening with the ladies after.

Looking over today's eating, it's a bit of a roller coaster. Super healthy breakfast, super evil lunch, super healthy dinner, then rather crappy snack-explosion in the evening. I guess 50% is better that 0%, but I do know I can do better.

AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 8:45am, smoothie, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Milk, yogurt, banana, blueberry, cherry, mango, peach, flax, salt, vanilla, a small dash of sugar. Used a frozen banana and made the whole thing too thick to blend, had to add extra milk. Still had to eat it with a spoon!

LUNCH: 12 noon, quarter pounder with cheese, fries, diet coke, 2 mcnuggets, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 4pm, rice noodle & fishball, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 7pm, breaded tilapia, butternut squash soup, green salad, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


EVENING SNACK: 9:15pm, popcorn, peanuts & chocolate chips, 5 chicken nuggets, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

Backy back

Spent the morning riding in the rain taking care of some chores. In the afternoon, taught and rode home in the rainy dark with 50+ lbs of borrowed equipment that'll help with the knish-production next week.

I'm not sure what caused it, but during class my back started hurting really bad, making it hard to lean over - maybe I lifted a large pot of water the wrong way? I'm not sure. It continued to hurt on the ride over, and by the time I got home, it hurt to stand from a sitting position, and I needed to just lie down and be still -- good thing, because that's my main activity in the evening nowadays?

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 10:45am, good granola with organic dead milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 12:45am, butternut squash soup, green salad, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


SCHOOL SNACK: 3pm, chocolate covered pretzels, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5


SCHOOL EATS: 6:30pm, grilled chicken, mashed potato, swiss chard w/caramelized onion & olives, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 9:15pm, mini cheese raviolis with homemade sauce, whole wheat ritz with nutella, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

Soup n' Sweet Knishes

TODAY'S COOKING
Various Cheese Knishes: Due to scheduling of life n' shiz, today was my last chance to experiment with some knish making. Desert-centric cheese knishes tend to be an afterthought, so there is two good things -- no one expects much, and the definition of what a sweet cheese knish must be isn't as codified as the savory potato.

I was not that thrilled with the apple-cheese knishes from last week, so for inspiration (and to dispose of 12+ lbs of CSA apples) over the weekend, I baked off 5 apple pies & crumbles. The essence of the pie is the flavorful liquid of the fruit that cooks out and becomes a thick, gelatinous sweet jam-like substance. How that happens is simple -- the fruit is tossed in flour, sugar and a little salt, and between the gluten of the flour and the pectin of the fruit, when the juices cook out it becomes that wonderful goo. I don't want to make pocket pies, but I want some of the wonderful goo in my fruit-cheese knishes.

So I scavenged around the kitchen and got myself a line up o' fruit: for the fresh team, we had banana, apple and pear, for the frozen team, blueberries, cherries & mangoes. I did up a mise-bowl of equal parts flour, sugar and a little salt, and dredged the fruit handful by handful before inserting them into the open mouths of plain and chocolate knishes. Everything except bananas I paired with the plain sweet cheese, threw the bananas in the chocolate.

I tweaked the recipes as I went, the main change was doubling the sugar in the plain cheese, as it just wasn't sweet enough before. This made the batter noticeably looser, which reminded me of what I was taught in c-school: sugar is always considered a wet ingredient, not a dry. Now I appreciate that more -- it dissolves or gets slushy in the presence of wet, adding to wet's mass.

Upon baking, it came clear that for the wetter fruit (everything but the banana), the fruit sweated enough to make a slight to large amount of gooey goodness on top of the cheese layer. As for the banana layer, the jury is still out, it may need some more thought.

Another thought is that the chocolate-hazelnut is not hazelnutty enough. I'm depending on nutella, but amping it with dutch cocoa powder. I may go full on cocoa powder and hazelnut butter for production....

Butternut Squash soup: I got some butternut squash, leeks and fresh apples from the CSA, so a quick blender soup seemed to make sense. The B-nut-S soup I made last week kinda rocked my world, so I had high hopes for this one, but it came out strictly...bleah. I did lots different with this one, and the end product couldn't be more different. Sauteed the chopped leeks in olive oil, put in a half head of minced garlic at the end of saute, then deglazed with some white wine I had in the fridge. Boiled up the processed squash with 2 apples instead of 2 sweet potatoes. Blended it all together, finished it with what I had on hand -- sour cream instead of plain ol' cream. Seasoned with salt and...fneh. The wine, the tart apples and the sour cream all added to a sligthly vinegary overtone, which made the garlic pop, but it was....vinegary. On the other hand, if I served this soup at a high-falutin' pretentious over-priced restaurant, people would probably think it was very sophisticated n' refined. Fneh.

AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 9:30am, pumpernickel bagel with creamcheese and smoke white fish, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Bought some kippered white fish form WF on a grocery run this morning. Reminded me a bit of when I lived in England -- salty, tough, and not very good.

LUNCH: 1pm, 5 falafel balls with hummus, pickle pint of grenadine soda, pear & apple knish, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Was gonna also have salad, but smelly funky and the cuces went icy.

DINNER: 6:45pm, breaded shrimp, large green salad, butternut squash soup, 2 chocolate knishes, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5 

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, kraft dinner, mini waffles, peanuts & chocolate chips, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Rotten Avocado

Spent the day working on Knish PR and taking care of the Edie. Got notice my new iPhone should arrive on Thursday, made me oddly excited.

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea


LUNCH: noon, sardines on homemade wholewheat, green salad, multigrain chips with school salsa, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Few things more disappointing then cutting open an avocado and finding it completely rotten and stinky.

DINNER pt 1: 5pm, meat tortellini in homemade sauce, 5 falafels w/hummus, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER pt 2: 8:15pm, Stouffers French Bread pizza, chocolate chips & peanuts, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

I didn't eat it, it just jumped in my mouth and made me swallow.

Woke up early, and some pie jumped down my throat. Did a slow 30 mile bike ride in relatively cold weather, fueled by junk food, and when I got home, more pie attacked me and jumped down my throat. On top of that, my momma-in-law was around in the afternoon and they ordered in Chinese, and low and behold, a bunch of greasy carbs jumped down my throat...twice! How did that happen?!


BREAKFAST: 6:45am, iced green tea, apple pie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


BIKE SNACK: 10:15am, gatorade, potato chips, peanut butter cups, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


PM SNACK: 1:30pm, apple pie, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 5:45pm, beef lomein, pork fried rice, egg roll, grape soda, .75 bowl hunger 4/5


DINNER pt 2: 7:30pm, beef lomein, pork fried rice, veg dumplings, water, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

Pie vs Crisp

A nice day with Edie, took her to Occupy Wall Street and the Imaginarium playground in the morning and a 2 yr old friend's b-day in the afternoon, with pie making bracketing Edie-time.


TODAY'S COOKING
Apple Pie: Wanted to make pancakes this morning, but not enough ingredients. Made pie dough instead using this recipe (I was too lazy to dig up a proper pate sucree recipe in my c-school journals), with shortening I had in the freezer. Freezing it made it easy to cut the fat into the dry ingredients in a quick moment in the food-processor, without it becoming paste - the key to a light and flaky crust, little pockets of fat that melt into the flour and leave pockets. I could cut by hand, but that would take minutes instead of seconds, he he. The dumb recipe says hold in the fridge 10 minutes, but I know that's wrong -- you'll have a sticky mess with warm dough like this, so I did it in the morning and held until the evening.

Betsy wanted me to make crisps to give to a few friends, but I wanted to go full-throttle on pies for two reasons: 1) any buffoon can make a half-decent crisp with minimal work and 2) I need to refresh myself on pie-filling, because all cheese & fruit knishes can be regarded as one part unique simplified cheesecake, 1 part pie filling. For the apple knish I pan-fried some apple slices in butter and seasoned with salt, brown-sugar and cinnamon, but it didn't have the thickened sweet liquid that really makes a pie so unctuous.

Granola: I've pretty much got this recipe down to a science. This recipe, with these adjustments: 4 cups oatmeal instead of three, 1 cup of raw cashews instead of 1.5 cups pistachios, 1 cup slivered almonds added, 1/3 cup maple syrup and 1/3 cup brown sugar as the total sweetener, 1 tablespoon vanilla extract added. Replace fruit with 1/2 cup dried cherries, chopped. Damn good.

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 8:15am, organic cornflakes, dead milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5


LUNCH: 12:30pm, 2 small hamburger, a handful of fries, diet coke, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACKS: 3-5pm, a few bites of chicken quesidilla, diet Dr. Pepper, a handful of chips, half a cupcake, 3/4 of a slice of cake, a few stuffed grape leaves, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 6:15pm, wholewheat boboli pizza, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
My dad was a fan of this product, and I saw a whole wheat version, so I gave it a whirl. Topped with my own spaghetti sauce, cut up some of Edie's string cheese, dried oregano and basil, shaved some romano on to it. Crust still tasty kinda meh.


EVENING SNACK: 9pm, small bowl of ramen noodles, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Sabbath Dinner

Lifted weights in the morning, while hungry. I read somewhere that while eating before lifting is neither here nor there, eating after the lifting enables the body to process more efficiently and deliver the repairative aspects stronger when needed. I wonder if that's true, or just hooy.

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 9:45am, the good yogurt, honey, homemade vanilla extract, raw cashews, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 1:30pm, breaded tilapia, brown rice pilaf, large green salad, 2 small apple cheese knishes, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Happy with this last round of knish. The chocolate is good to go, the apple needs sweetening and maybe more vanilla, but the crust is great.

PM SNACK: 4:30am, multigrain tortilla chips & school made fresh salsa, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 6pm, salmon, brussel sprouts, roasted potatoes, 1 glass of wine, 1 chocolate cheese knish and a snippet of ice cream, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Over at a neighbor friend for sabbath dinner with our kids. Haven't put on a kippah and said prayers over candles n' stuff in many years, was weird but nice. Definitely helped that the host was also any excellent cook -- I usually despise salmon and brussel sprouts, two things very easy to over cook, but these two dishes was perfectly done.

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

First day of class again

After dropping Edie off at school, took care of a few things at home before off to school to teach the first class of the semester -- food safety, knife skills, the wonder of salt: salsa with a lot of chopping of vegetables, smoothies that are tasted before and after salt. Small but good bunch of students. This is the fifth time I'm teaching this class, hmmmm.

TODAY'S COOKING
Chicken Paillard: Took hammer to chicken breast again, with a lighter touch, oil, soy sauce and cayenne, a lot less stinky than with fish sauce. Better.

AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 8:45am, 2 pancakes, bacon, a little homefries, diet coke, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


LUNCH: 12:30, chicken paillard, large green salad, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

SCHOOL SNACK: 6pm, chips and freshly made salsa cruda, cup of smoothie, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 7:30pm, shrimp fried rice, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, pint of grenadine soda, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, peanuts & chocolate chips, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

A whole lotta pasta

A good day, got a bunch of social media stuff done for the knish project, volunteered at the CSA in the afternoon.

TODAY'S COOKING:
Chicken Paillard: Haven't hammered a chicken breast since c-school. I picked up the tenderizing hammer from the supermarket on a whim. Lay meat between two pieces of plastic wrap, then give it a few wacks until it's an even sheet. It's easy to over-flatten and put holes in it. Still, it grilled up quicker and more evenly. I did marinate it briefly in a simple concoction of oil and fish sauce, which gave it a wonderful flavor, but kinda stunk up the house. A fish-saucy cloud is not something you want in the same house as a pregnant lady.


Brown Rice Pilaf: Fried the dry rice in butter before adding water and spices (salt, onion powder, cayenne, dried thyme) but added a little too much butter, came out a bit greasy.


AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 9:15am, good granola with dead milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
The supermarket was out of whole organic milk, bummer.

LUNCH: 12:30pm, large green salad, capellini with a little sauce & romano, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
I didn't want any capellini left over because Edie makes a huge mess of long noodles. I cooked half the box, realized once in bowl that 1/2 lb of pasta is a LOTTA PASTA. I didn't intend to finish it, but it just went down. Next time, I'll weigh out 1/3 or 1/4 of a box....

DINNER: 7pm, chicken paillard & brown rice pilaf

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, ritz crackers & nutella, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Darned Science

Edie did not have school today, but had coverage in the afternoon, so spent a nice Columbus Day afternoon with none other than the HVS. Movies, then some extreme vegan food at Quintessence -- raw, vegan, room temp, a waiter who seemed a bit too happy to be a waiter.

I noticed on their menu they have a page of cooked foods, with a bunch of text explaining that in some circumstances, cooked food can be just as healthy as raw food. No shit, Sherlock. Some could argue (with that darned SCIENCE) that the whole reason people started cooking food way back in prehistory is a) it disinfected food but more importantly, b) cooking makes more nutrients available for digestion, more than making up for the nutrients it destroys. The company made up for the mushy rawness of it all, though.


AM SNACK: 8:15am, iced green tea


BREAKFAST: 10AM, 1 pancake, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5


LUNCH pt.1: 12:30pm, green salad, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5


LUNCH pt.2: 1:30pm, slice of streetza, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5


SNICKLESNACK: 4:30pm, raw Indianeque mush, a little greenery, water, vegan ice cream cone, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5


DINNER: 7:30pm, 2 potato knishes, pint of lime rickey, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Almost too salty, gotta pull back on the salt on the next batch.

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, chocolate chips & peanuts, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5