Long weekend.....

Long weekend....after a very hectic week, I am ready to enjoy the long weekend. I slept in and had a light breakfast and just did nothing....read magazines and listen to music.

Then just before lunch, I had to do something for a family member and visited him for a while. I have to get him to do his will. He is legally blind in one eye and is in a home care facility.

After, I went to a Chinese bakery in downtown and bought few things. Last weekend I had baked a few things.

I brought them to work as I am trying to lose weight, not a lot but enough so I don't have to take insulin.

Moist and chewy chocolate chip cookies. I always try different recipes and see which ones I really like.



New recipes to try......

A good friend of mine gave me a cookbook.....actually a gluten-free muffins.

I have looked at some of the recipes and this week end I am trying one or two recipes. The first one is the bacon scallion muffins and the other one is golden raisin rosemary muffins.

These recipes call for finely ground brown rice flour, potato starch and tapioca starch. This is the base of all the recipes. I have seen tapioca starch and potato starch but I have not seen brown rice flour.

Worst case scenario I will just use cake and pastry flour or just all prupose flour and see how they turn out. There are lots of recipes I want to try and it is good that it makes 12 muffins.

I will post result as soon as I have tried them.

That is the picture of the golden raisin rosemary muffins.



What's baking?

I have been busy today baking and getting recipes I would like to try for Christmas baking. But I still like the mainstay like shortbread, sandies and spritz.

This afternoon, I baked shortbread, banana cake and ensaymada which is like brioche with butter and dusting of sugar and cheese on top. I do not like the cheese part so I omitted that. They all turned out well and I am taking shortbread and the individual sized ensaymadas to work tomorrow.

I am getting excited about baking and having fresh bread. I did not put sugar in the bigger brioche so I can cut up and toast it and make it like regular toast with butter and jam or peanut butter.

banana loaf

shortbread

ensaymada

It was a busy afternoon but very productive.

Another work week, hopefully it would not be as stressful as the last.



What's baking?

Over the weekend I tried a different recipe for southern style buttermilk biscuits and it turned out really well. The only thing I will change is the size, I would make it bigger.

Buttermilk biscuits came oout flaky and yummy.

Good with butter just after taking it out from the oven and also with jam. Next time I will make sausage gravy, now that will be really southern!

 

 

Fudgy chocolate cake, tastes almost like fudgy brownie. It was good with a glass of milk or iced tea. And very easy to make.

Weekend experiments.....

As I have said in my previous blog, I was going to try a few recipes this last weekend.  I got enough energy and enthusiasm and started Saturday morning.

I have a whole container of almonds and wanted to do something with it. At first I thought I would do something savory or spicy but felt like doing something sweet. So I tried my first brittle --- almond brittle.  I first roasted the almonds and made my mixture for the brittle.  I had to be fast and measured everything before I started, then I realized I could not find my candy thermometer so I did the dropping the sugar mixture into cold water and made sure it hardened.

It was easy and good recipe except I should have used a bigger pan so the brittle would be a bit thinner than what came out. But all in all the ladies at the office liked it. I even pounded some and put in on top of my vanilla ice cream for dessert that night. And  at work today, I put some on my yogurt.

almond brittle - not too sweet, good recipe I got online

I also had puff pastry and wanted to do something with it and again I made something sweet.  Cinnamon sugar puff sticks.  I really like these.

Cinnamon sugar sticks, goes well with tea or hot chocolate.

I was going to try a new recipe of buttermilk biscuits but I found an old recipe for soft dinner rolls and made that instead.  Just after taking it out of the oven I had it with butter and apricot jam. Comforting combination. I actually had a second one.



Yummy soft dinner rolls

I don't know if I will be doing something this weekend since I will be cooking maybe baking too on Easter weekend. But it all just depends on what mood I will be in. Actually, I wanted to make some empanadas so I can bring it for lunch. 







Pecan tarts a la Gino

This weekend I used my leftover tart shells and made pecan tarts. I remember a few years ago I came to visit my family in Mississauga just before Christmas and we baked all kinds of Christmas goodies. Tarts of all kinds!!! Gino, my nephew baked his version of it and put chocolate chips instead of raisins. So in honour of him I made this version the same and hence the name.

Last weekend, I tried buko pandan using jello that is already flavoured with pandan. Nene from Yellowknife has been  looking for this type of jello so I bought and made it and it actually tasted good.

Fruit tarts

Last Saturday I went to the farmer's market so this is what I did with some of the fruits I have bought. I put apricot glaze on the tarts but it does not show up well on the picture. Then I made some spinach dip and had it with baguette I got as well. This weekend I might bake some muffins and whatever else I have in the pantry I can  use. I might try the creme caramel recipe with melted white chocolate.