A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

Look, I made my own!

ETA: You can follow my adventures on Instagram, I'm updating live.

I attempted to do it in 18 minutes while having a Zoom chat with friends. This was beset by a number of technical difficulties. But I emerged with both the chat and the matzah!

My neighbor left a bottle of wine for me, hidden on her doorstep between two planters. Today I am going to attempt matzah ball soup (with the homemade broth she also left for me), charoset (I crushed pistachio nuts yesterday with a rolling pin while watching Mr. Robot), and crisp-braised duck legs with all the root vegetables that have been sadly lurking in my fridge or cabinets for much too long.

This pandemic combined with my chest freezer has made me WAY better at not wasting food. Previously I didn't have room to freeze much, and also had a lot more distractions. All the same, I selected the duck recipe specifically to use up beets, etc, which are otherwise going to go bad.

The turnips are a lost cause - everyone says they become very bitter once they start sprouting, and they look like a forest. I think I'm going to plant them instead, and get turnip greens.

Chag sameach!

A Bread Improvisation in 5 Photos

I used my favorite peasant bread recipe to create two loaves, one sweet with black sesame paste and one savory with chopped Chinese sausage and hoisin sauce. I added both flavorings before the first prove. Behold my elegant marbled dough!



Then I punched them down and added some decorations. Delicious bread-to-be, or Cthulu at a nine-year-old girl's birthday party?



Ready... Set... BAAAAAAAKE! Isn't the sausage loaf gorgeous?



The sausage loaf had a wonderful crisp crust, but the sesame loaf had a fantastic pull-apart texture.



And eat!



Verdict: Black sesame is good and the texture is excellent, but just making regular bread and spreading sesame on it is a better sesame delivery system.

Chinese sausage bread is GREAT. I had to pop it back in the oven because it didn't bake fully through, but once it did, the taste is phenomenal. I added a little hoisin to the dough and probably could have added more (and possibly put in a little extra flour to compensate.) Also maybe chopped the sausage finer.

Alas, I belatedly realized that I should not leave meat out overnight so I had to stick in in the fridge. So much for the crisp crust! I'm sure it will be great toasted up though.

Yesterday I got caught up in some neighborhood drama (spent 4 hours helping a neighbor pack up for a last-minute move, or rather a move he'd left till the last minute) and I have no idea what I ate, though I have a distinct memory of being annoyed that I had neither bread nor time to bake it. I remedied that today.

I grilled a hangar steak on a no-stick pan with just a tiny bit of butter, plus salt and pepper. I am very good at making steak if I do say so myself, and that was an extremely fine steak. I had it with mashed sweet potato and the inevitable pickled daikon.

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I just finished gobbling a slice of just-out-of-the-oven cider bread spread with maple butter, as per this recipe. It was definitely gobble-worthy. Grade A, would bake again.

ETA: Just finished gobbling second slice.



For lunch (and forthcoming dinner) I had a slight variation on yesterday's lunch/dinner, fried "rice" with acini de Pepe, the rest of the Chinese broccoli, the rest of the kimchi including its brine, Chinese sausage (pre-steamed), and hoisin sauce. It was just as good as Take 1.



Tomorrow I am getting up early to hit the Santa Monica farmers market and be back in time for the plumber.