The Raven's Roost

Bake up a bunch of stuff and potentially have plenty to share with neighbors and friends. Feel free to leave comments with more recipes.

All about shokupan, aka milk bread. I've posted this one before, and this is a sort of master post that takes you through all the steps and explains what's going on. It seems long and intimidating but it's actually very easy. I like to knead a small amount of cocoa powder into some of the dough, then layer it into a cat-shaped baking pan to make calico kitty bread.

Monster Matcha Miso Cookies These cookies are awesome. I add white chocolate chips to mine. They're SO good.

Honk Kong Egg Tarts I don't know why I love these things, but I do. One of my favorite buffet places used to make good egg tarts. If you don't want to make dough, you can get away with buying frozen pastry dough, no one's going to judge you. Besides, mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

Dorayaki I'm a sucker for these things. Packages of dorayaki are NOT safe in my house. I WILL eat them.

Sponge cake It's basic Japanese golden sponge cake. Simple, but with a lot of possibilities. Run slices under a broiler briefly, then top with whipped cream or ice cream. Strawberry short cake. General face stuffing.

I was casually scrolling through one of those infamous internet lists the other day, in this case, "what culinary hill are you willing to die on," as asked to users of Reddit. And we all know people on Reddit have Opinions About Things.

"Burgers should get wider, not taller," which meshed well with "A burger should fit in your mouth - you should not have to use a knife and fork to eat it." I agree. While a tall, stacked burger looks good in an ad, in practice, eating one is terrible. I want to get a little of all the elements of a burger in one bite, so I can enjoy them together.

"Stop dissing 'poor food.'" A-fuckin-men. Do you know what kind of cooking skill it takes to make crappy, cheap ingredients taste good? Then you go to a Michelin starred restaurant and get shit like basil foam served over a paper-thin slice of dog's milk cheese? WTF.

"Take your apron off when you go to the restroom." Holy shit, who doesn't do that. Gross.

Another one that I don't think was specifically addressed, but that bugs me to no end, is the way some people comment and respond to recipes. I cooked something last week and, no joke, there was some nitwit in the comments talking about how she subbed beef for pork, left out the soy sauce, made any number of other changes, and then gave the recipe one star because it didn't taste good? YOU DIDN'T MAKE THE RECIPE, BRENDA. You made whatever other unholy concoction of ground beef and ditch water you described in your comment.

In some cases, yes, you can make substitutions, like ground pork or turkey for beef, depending on what you've got. But if you start swapping all the seasonings around and changing the cooking method, you've strayed so far from the recipe as written that you're not following it any more. In those cases I'll bookmark something and add the missing items to my grocery list. But I like to typically make a new recipe exactly as written at least once before I start tweaking it and changing things around.

That being said, Disneyland has a new dish at their Galaxy's Edge Outpost, and it's described as being a chili-ginger pork and noodle dish. Now, I assume that when they say spicy, they mean "Disney spicy," which means someone may have waved a cayenne molecule in its general direction. I went Googling, and I found it's actually a fairly common recipe, so it's on the list for me to try to make. I just have to wait because I'm out of fresh ginger, and the recipe actually has ginger in the name, so I can't just leave it out. But it sounds like an adaptation of a Thai dish, with the ginger, sweet chili sauce, soy sauce, lime juice, and crushed peanuts.

It's Time for the Slow, Aimless Novel to Get Its Due - From Electric Lit, as good an argument as I have seen in a long time for reading The 1.001 Nights, aka The Arabian Nights. If I'm not mistaken I still have an unabridged copy around here somewhere. I also used to have The Decameron, but Ex Husband kept that, too. asshole Speaking of unabridged, I put aside The Count of Monte Christo after discovering the copy I had, which was part of Kitty's library, was a heavily abridged movie tie-in. I got through six or so chapters, the whole time thinking, "This story is moving really fast, even for Dumas. Things are moving so fast I keep expecting someone to tell me to keep my arms and legs inside the car at all times." Well, there's a reason it was moving fast, LOL.

How to be Indistractable - by Nir Eysal, who oughta know because he literally wrote a book on it. I found this article insightful, especially as a perusal of minimalism and digital health subs on Reddit mainly got me a bunch of announcements of people doing digital detoxes. I can understand that a cold turkey, rip off the bandaid approach works for some people - it works for me sometimes but it depends on the situation.

But having several years of mindfulness meditation under my proverbial belt, I would read these announcements with the suspicion that I could do a detox if I liked and it might be good for me. After all, I am generally offline by a certain time each night to allow myself screen-free time before bed, and I am not typically a "glued to my phone" type anyway. So it seemed like the problem isn't so much the phone, but something in our minds that pursues distraction. It's not the internet, it's the way we use it. And this piece confirmed that my suspicion was correct.

No-Churn Acai-Blueberry Ice Cream - since it's still FREAKING HOT, have some ice cream. I'm looking at a lot of no-churn or vegan nice cream recipes right now because I don't have a churn. Kitchenaid makes a churn attachment for their stand mixers which I'm considering buying at some point but this'll do for now. If you have a power blender, you can use frozen blueberries, but if you have a standard blender, you might wish to use fresh, and run the acai packet under warm water for a bit to break it up. I intend to make this today and spoon it into popsicle molds.

I have two short runs this weekend - a three miler today, and another tomorrow. But tomorrow's is supposed to be at race pace. I'm also back to playing games on Steam (a post in and of itself) and if you want to be friends an nerd out on Hollow Knight lemme know.

I decided that I shouldn't have talked up the buttermilk pie so much and NOT included the recipe.


If you're using a screen reader or can't read the image well (click through for a big version) here's the text:
1 cup sugar
4 tablespoons flour
1 whole egg
3 egg yolks
2 cups fresh buttermilk
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon lemon extract
Sift together flour and sugar. Add whole egg well beaten with egg yolks. Add buttermilk, stir and cook in VIKO Aluminum Sauce Pan until thick and creamy. (You can use any sauce pan, but since this was a promotional cookbook, they make everything in pans and pots from Viko.) Remove from fire; add butter and lemon extract. Cool slightly, and pour into baked pie shell. Cover with meringue.
MERINGUE: use 1/3 cup sugar for the three egg whites.

The pie shell called for is a basic pastry dough - use your favorite recipe or buy one from the store. They also don't give much direction for the meringue, but I never used it. You can feed the egg whites to your pets, or make nougat or something. If you make a lot of granola bars, egg white makes a good binder.

I have no clue how you'd make this vegan. I know unsweetened soy milk will curdle and perform like buttermilk in biscuits and breads, but I haven't tried this recipe with it. Maybe Isa Chandra Moskowitz could put her big vegan brain to work on it.

We're forging ahead with birthday month baking here. I received my freeze-dried corn yesterday so I can tackle the Milk Bar Pie today. The same chef also make corn cookies with that stuff, and the reviews say they taste like slightly sweet corn flakes in cookie form, so that sounds awesome. The corn powder called for is just freeze-dried corn ground into powder, so you can buy survival tubs of the corn and blitz it in a food processor or high-powered blender. My guess is it's going to both sweeten AND act as a binder, so I wouldn't skip out on it if I were you, and you were making this stuff.

And now for something completely different.

It's not usually a good sign when all your cats are sitting around staring intently at the same thing.

Early this morning they located a cave cricket in the ash bucket near the fireplace. It's shadowy in that corner, and it was before dawn, so when I looked in, all I saw was LEGS. I dropped a tupperware bowl over it and escorted the bucket outside, then went back out when the sun was up to remove the bowl and let whatever-the-hell it was out. Honestly, it looked like a massive spider, and when the bowl was over it, it made these insanely loud clicking and buzzing noises. But in the sunlight I saw it was just a cave cricket - which is actually a kind of grasshopper, but anyway. They're alarming looking but pretty harmless.

I'm glad I found it when I did. The last thing I need is for one of the cats to proudly bring me the partially-dismembered corpse of one of those things while I'm still in bed. And I'm just thinking back to when Baby Sheba brought me that mostly dead mouse one night, but then wouldn't drop it. It was like she just wanted to sit on the bed with it in her jaws and growl. Because cat.

 So this is the recipe as it's written in the Hare Krishna Cookbook. If you want a PDF of that book, one's available for free --> here. It isn't a terrific scan but for me, zooming in makes it a bit easier to read. The web page and the book itself have a lot of info on the "yoga diet," though I'm not an adherent. It's a good vegetarian collection, but does include dairy-based recipes, so if you're lactose intolerant or vegan, you can skip those parts. 

1 1/2 cup chickpeas
2 cups rice
1 Tb turmeric
1 fresh lime
1/4 cup ghee
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tb ginger
1/2 tsp cayenne

'Cook the rice as usual with the 1/2 tsp. of salt. Soak the chickpeas for 3 hours and drain. Fry the chickpeas in 1/4 cup ghee until crisp. Then mix them with the turmeric. Toss lime juice, spices, and salt with the rice. Garnish with fresh lime slices.'

Bird Says:

I couldn't tell from the recipe if the chickpeas were supposed to be cooked here or not, but I would assume so. I used a different type of bean and I assume you could as well - my next batch will likely have cranberry beans. 

2 cups dry rice yields 4 cups cooked. You can use white or brown rice, just follow the directions for whichever you choose.

I also assumed the recipe was calling for fresh turmeric, which I didn't have. I used one teaspoon of dried ground turmeric instead. I also added the spices and ginger to the pan with ghee (I used olive oil, actually) and beans in order to 'bloom' them. After the spices I added the rice, stirred to mix it all thoroughly, then added the lime juice last.

If I see fresh turmeric root when I'm out next I will try this recipe with it, but I've never worked with it before. 

I found this was a good accompaniment to crispy tofu nuggets, but it stands on its own really well. I warm mine up, but it would probably be fine cold, thus good for a bento lunch, but use caution if your bento is wood or light colored plastic since the turmeric will discolor it.

While I'm sharing, here's the quinoa salad recipe from Kusafiri Coffee Shop in Disney's Animal Kingdom, courtesy of D23. I will be leaving out the cucumber as I'm not a fan. You could either pay five bucks for a bowl at Disney, or spend five bucks on bulk ingredients and make enough to feed your neighborhood. Happy chowing!

Roasted Garlic Bread

I originally planned to make garlic knots, which I'm pretty good at, but Fox wondered if we could make garlic knots, but as a loaf. The only problem I had with that idea is that the knots themselves are just plain dough, and the garlic topping is where the flavor's at. Many years ago I had a cookbook with a roasted garlic loaf recipe and it was amazing - you rolled up roasted, mashed garlic into bread dough, jelly-roll style. I don't have the cookbook, but the recipe above seems to be similar.

I'm using bread flour instead of AP flour, for a better crust and texture. I also happen to have bread flour and don't want it to get stale, even though it's in a sealed container.

I'm also using a terra cotta garlic roaster instead of wrapping the cloves in foil. Foil imparts a metallic taste, some of the cloves can stick to it and scorch, and the roaster allows me to utilize moist heat by soaking the lid in water before putting it in the oven. I bought mine ... oh man, in 1996. A completely different life ago. I think it also says something about me that as an almost broke college student, I spotted this thing in the window and a Williams-Sonoma for twenty five bucks and decided it was worth it. Still got it - still love it. So if you ever see one in a shop or at a yard sale, etc. go ahead and get it.

I've never tried her suggestion about the pan of water during baking. I have done this with rising dough, though. In winter when the house is open, it can sometimes be too cool inside for dough to rise properly, so I'll turn on the oven lights, which gets it up to around 110°, then I put a small dish of water in alongside the dough so that the interior stays somewhat humid. I've found that it helps the rise and the dough quality. But I'm going to give it a shot when I bake this loaf and we'll see what happens!

I came across this recipe looking for some way to eat more of the seitan that I make. Especially as I found a new recipe for it that incorporates lentils and yields a sort of steak-like patty that tastes really good. Plus, I'm nailing my protein goals every day with this, and in general I'm okay with eating similar meals every day or week. 

Seitan and Pasta with Peanut Sauce

The pasta and seitan really drink up the sauce, so I'm going to try adding cauliflower puree' and vegetable broth to stretch it a little, but it's not unpleasantly dry. I found it did kind of need some extra salt to finish, as well. Since I make my own seitan I almost always have some in the freezer, meaning this is entirely made from pantry staples for me.

Now, I like a long run as much as anyone, and I'm always looking for something to challenge myself with, but this is not a race I want to do. The Sri Chimnoy Self-Transcendence is a 6-month daily run around a single city block in New York totals 3,100 miles. "Some runners report having out of body experiences during the race." Gee. I wonder why. But I will take a pass on that one. 

In the realm of "totally do-able" running, I found out there are almost-daily fun runs are different Disney World resorts! Most are 3ks, meaning about 1.8 miles, fifteen bucks to enter, and finishers receive a small prize like a pin or coupons for free food. Since "eat and run" is sort of a personal mantra for me, I'll take a plate of Mickey Beignets with gratitude.

 Today I am making plantain-chocolate chip muffins. I bought some plantains on impulse and then couldn't remember what brilliant idea I'd had in the grocery store, so they sat around on the counter getting blacker and blacker, until this morning when I thought, "These are almost entirely black on the outside. Should be perfect for bread or something." Normally I am kind of uncreative with plantains and just spritz them with olive oil, dust them generously with Tony Chachere's and make chips. 

I used this recipe from Plantains and Challah - and combined it with another recipe linked at the top for spinach and zucchini muffins. I didn't have any spinach and I'm trying to use up food before we leave. I DID have zucchinis so I grated them up in the food processor (the extra grated zukes went into the freezer for use in smoothies) then added the oil and processed until fairly smooth, then threw the peeled plantains in and gave it a few pulses. My muffins have some chunks of plantain in them but it doesn't detract. Actually I wish I'd added some chopped walnuts or something for more texture, but next time.

This list of 100 SF/F Novels You Should Read This Year is going around, apparently partly to undermine my decision not to buy new books, and I'm a little surprised at how few of them I've read. But then I'm also kind of NOT surprised because my reading habits have spread out from just scifi and fantasy and there's only so much I can read at once. There's also a certain creative self-protection there, because it's difficult for me to focus on developing my world when reading about someone else's. Also, there's the obligatory dude in the comments pissing and moaning about how many of the authors featured are feeeeeeeeeeemales. (Yes, you should hear that as if it were spoken by a Ferengi) 

Tomorrow is my last training run for Disney and I am so tired of training and I just want to get to the race .... *whine* Eight miles at an easy pace should take me four or five episodes of Attack on Titan. I know from last year I'll have some down time for reading and chilling, so I'm bringing my Chromebook along to read KA: Dar Oakley in the Ruins of Ymr by John Crowley. I'm already familiar with Crowley's writing style so I'm finding this a very engaging story. Crowley's work also rewards careful reading so I'm taking my time with it. If you're into dark mythopoetic works and crows, this may be something you will like.

 The weather is all over the place lately. Yesterday it was almost 85, right now it's 62 and dropping. The good news is we'll be able to leave the house open until into next week - maybe Wednesday or Thursday. The bad news is that I'm now old and creaky enough that I feel like I've been hit by a truck. I'm having a cute little assortment of muscle and joint aches, especially my right knee (years of being overweight + several falls) and my back (just cranky, no reason). Oh, and my left big toe going down towards my arch ... like, WTF is this for. What gods did I offend. And all my uh ... female stuff. No idea why, but as anyone who has a uterus will tell you, sometimes shit hurts for no apparent reason other than it hates you. I just feel ground down by it and want to go cuddle up in bed and read.

Anyway, I think I've hit on the right spices for my gingersnap granola. I'm going to make one more batch this weekend, but I feel like this is a good recipe. I'll continue making the chocolate kind as well. I made a grilled eggplant and cold soba dish yesterday but it didn't turn out quite as well as I'd hoped. I think I'm just turned off by the texture of the eggplants. I'm okay with the cold noodles and sesame oil (which sometimes comes across to me as burnt-tasting) but that eggplant, maannnn... that's just not good. I'm going back to something I know I love and making some spicy chickpeas and a lime-tahini dressing for wraps & bowls. So, baby spinach, brown rice, etc.

I paid for another year of DW yesterday, making I think today my one-year anniversary? Roughly, one year. I should probably get around to making myself some more icons.