After I'd looked through several of the One Pot Meal books, I ended up doing a dessert from the Martha Stewart One Pot Meals book, a hybrid in fact.
There were two giant cookies, where you make just one huge one and cut it up or break it at will. One used the castiron skillet, which I like for baking, but was about chocolate chips, don't like chocolate much at all, and chips not at all. The other one used ground almonds, which I wanted to try out, but a springform pan, which I don't have. Soooooo, I made a hybrid sort of thing.
I made brown sugar by mixing molasses with white, and did the top recipe on the page you see here, but instead of chocolate chips, used the ground almond, and added in almond essence as well as the vanilla essence they list. And I baked the thing in a castiron pan, for longer than the almond recipe, several minutes longer, and reduced the heat to finish.
It slid out of the pan easily, no problem, and I put it in another dish to take it to the meeting, castiron being too hefty to sling about. And we'll see what the gathering has to say about it. I found that a package of sliced almonds for 1.5 cups will make a little more than one cup of ground almonds, about right for my needs. I'm taking in a pizza wheel to help people cut into it if they don't want to break into it by hand. I suppose this is what makes it one pot.
Speaking of favorite tools, I use my pizza wheel to cut all kinds of flatbreads and biscuits and flattish baked goods, much easier than a knife. And I use it to mince herbs, too, just run it back and forward until the herbs are minced.
So substitution ruled the day yet again, and it does look pretty good.
Excitement in the food world: Christopher Kimball is leaving America's Test Kitchen, which he helped found. Apparently things have been very exciting since they took on their first CEO and this is the next big event. I guess they all got their aprons in a twist! You simply never know how passionately food can get people, and the business dealings attached thereto. I certainly wouldn't get into an argument with people who all have sharp instruments to hand and are skilled in their use.
Today and tomorrow's lunch is this dish, created from precooked and frozen cabbage in cheese sauce, from the farm share and frozen in meal size containers, with a can of tomatoes, diced, poured over, the final Vienna sausage chopped in and chunks of sharp cheddar. Fresh ground black pepper over, and it will do fine in a 180F oven for about half an hour or less.
But note the wide open spaces next to the stove now. I did get the microwave moved over and here it is, looking much better, since, I finally realized, across the corner it echoes the corner cabinet shape, much better appearance. And it uses a formerly useless corner space, too deep to reach into easily.
And it's safer and more functional to have that open space by the stove. Observant blogistas will have noted that the open spaces have inspired me to pull out a cookbook from the newly installed bookcase, and since the weather is frigid, bit too cold for me to get out and breathe, baking cookies from Martha Stewart might be just the ticket.
I've been reading House Beautiful again. I love reading decorating HD magazines, and seeing dear little tables at a mere $1200, just to fill in that little corner on a budget..it's like reading recipe books you marvel at but would never be pestered to make.
Anyway, I figured, if Apartment Therapy can do it, and House Beautiful can do it, anyone can do it, so I had a little tour of House Adequate, which is where I live, but if I say it myself there are areas of flair and even panache. Downstairs only, too lazy to climb up and continue. That's for another issue of House Adequate.
I followed the old maxim of using a lot, yards and yards, of cheap fabric when you have a massive window to cover. The patio door is 92 inches wide, super extra large because it's the only downstairs window on that side of the house.
Light does get through the passthrough from the kitchen window, and the living room is light enough. But that window is out of my budgetary reach. Even curtain rods are hundreds of dollars at that size, being custom made, anything over 84 wide is custom.
Enter the handy eight foot pvc pipe, less than three dollars, slung on three big hooks anchored in the wall, using mollies. The curtains are cheapish cotton tab tops, two pairs, one swaggy thing, and another pair of long tabtops in some transparent material forget what. Total cost about $50. And I think it looks pretty elegant. The other thing you can do for a curtain rod on a small budget and an elegant frame of mind is to use a long bamboo cane from the garden store, strong as anything, unbreakable, and long enough for a lot of windows, if you like a rustic touch.
Then there are the Arrangements of Art ideas, which I've been doing for years, long before House Beautiful caught on and all the posh Martha Stewart people.
And the funny object idea, here a child's chair rescued from the dumpster, brushed up and put below a fiberart work of mine. It's decorative, but you'd be amazed at how many grownups pull it out to sit on it!
And whoever said you don't have art in the kitchen? I do, why not. Oh, and remember my fussing about being shorter these days, and the counters too high to mix on comfortably, and what would be a good solution. See that wooden top in the picture?
After wondering and measuring and faffing about whether to introduce a table or an island, neither in my budget, I realized, as I was reorganizing the kitchen ready to start painting, that the storage shelves are sturdy and the right height for me.
Two cutting boards side by side on the top of one, and now I have my right height mixing counter and very well it works, too. Happy to hit on this solution using only what I already had in the house.
Dear blogistas, especially people on a limited budget, what cool ideas do you have to share? please do, always on the lookout for good ones.