I can’t believe I haven’t posted a recipe for cream scones!
My version is somewhere between the classic and cream scone recipes from The Joy of Cooking, wherein I use cream, eggs and butter. This yields a very tender and very rich scone, as one could imagine.
I’ve been searching for years for a sponge cake recipe. A cake that’s less dense in texture than the typical American butter cakes, that’s not necessarily made by the creaming method, which is to say, by beating soft butter and sugar until creamy and somewhat fluffy, then adding the other ingredients (eggs, flour, etc.). So, I’ve been learning about the foaming method which yields sponge cakes. I had always thought that meant beating egg yolks and whites separately, folding in other ingredients appropriately…and I always felt just a bit too lazy to whip egg parts separately, and not a small amount intimidated at the prospect of folding, which I tend to overdue in the spirit of trying to incorporate every last bit thoroughly.
A couple things helped me along. First, I found a couple encouraging recipes that — THANK THE ALMIGHTY FSM — included weight measurements for flour. Second, I discovered the balloon whisk.
Oh, I still need practice using the balloon whisk, like learning to judge when to stop with the folding motions and not deflate all of those lovely egg and sugar bubbles (i.e., do the bare minimum, don’t obsess over batter appearance thoroughness). And I still cheat (with not much guilt) a bit by adding some baking powder. Yet I still love the realization that I can make a nearly meringue-like structure with whole eggs and sugar.
It’s been a while since I’ve uploaded images to my (food) gallery, so allow me to say that a few more have trickled in. O:-) I should also mention with the latest version of Zenphoto, the RSS feed —if you view my photos that way— has been changed. The new RSS feed URL is now http://zenphoto.iwaruna.com/index.php?rss&lang=en_US.
You might need to rename (or delete) the previous RSS URL you had for the gallery to slurp up the feed again.
There was a head of cauliflower sitting in the vegetable box in the refrigerator. I didn’t feel like steaming it, or making a gratin, but wanted a dish that was flavorful yet on the lighter side. Jeremy F. had mused about cooking this veg with anchovies and garlic, and I thought, “Hey, that does sound good!” And it turned out that it did. 
Nuffingk. Nuffingk at all. Nor is adding five-spice powder. “What? What?” you ask. Yes, warm sticky pudding made with prunes and dates, especially if one runs out of dates but finds a nearly full bag of prunes, and especially with five-spice and ginger and cardamom — “Bwah! Madness!” you exclaim. Ah, but this pudding does turn out well, especially when, er, since I had an abundance of caramel sauce just begging to be used.
I got the hankering for such a pudding when I saw the recipe for American Masala’s Sticky Toffee Cake at Zoë Bakes. The adding of Indian spices to this comforting pud, not to mention the easy blending of ingredients, caught my heart (er, stomach) and mind. But I needed a recipe that gave weight measurements for flour (yes, obsessed I am, Young Skywalker), and found David Lebovitz’s Warm Sticky Toffee Pudding — in which the sticky goodness bubbles along with the baking pudding.
Yemisir wat (a.k.a., misir we’t, mesir wot, and so on, because I’m poorly transliterating it from another alphabet) is my go-to dish at any Ethiopian restaurant I visit. I’ve always wanted to make it at home, mainly to control the amount of fat that goes in, but most importantly, to consume it without having to drive far each time. 
I’m still trying to find the Best Spice Proportions, so if you have a favorite recipe for this dish, I’d love to hear about it. But I think this one is a good start.
I love many mustard greens and other cruciferous vegetables, but have had a tricky time with kale. No matter how much we sautéed it, with lots of oil and garlic, it remained a bit too tough and a bit too bitter for me. The trick, I found, is to slowly cook it in a soup, where it becomes tender, but not mushy, and tastes more mellow.
The inspiration for these nutty-dusty-tender cookies come from Russian tea cakes I used to get many years ago in cafés. There are also called Mexican wedding cookies (or cakes). My version has a faintly Middle Eastern flavor, just to throw in another regional description.
Though less sweet, uncoated cookies are still yummy.
I had a bread disaster, using a starved sourdough starter for a Sally Lunn. The bread came out rubbery. In spite of that texture, it was filled with bubbles, so not a complete brick. Bread pudding ended up a great way to repurpose the failed Sally Lunn. I’ve always enjoyed the pudding from the Station House Café in Point Reyes, but this one has no raisins and more apples.
Thus a round-up of books read in 2009. Late in coming, I know; I blame the remodeling. O:-)
Once again, I’ve marked recommended titles with the lightbulb icon, 
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