Boyfriend and I are both big fans of The Great British Bakeoff, so we've started doing baking projects together.

• Apple pie
• Croissants
• Sponge cake
• Angel food cake
• Egg yolk sponge cake

A is for Allspice
B is for Bay Laurel
C is for Cinnamon
D is for Dill
E is for Epazote
F is for Fennel
G is for Ginger
H is for Horseradish
I is for Illicium verum, otherwise known as star anise ( Read more... )

Chocolate mint creams: boil the syrup a little harder, flavor with peppermint, vanilla, and butter extract, roll into small balls.  Chill the balls in the fridge, when firm, dip into melted dark chocolate.  Chill until chocolate shell has set.  Eat.
Verdict: Tasty and very rich.  

In honor of the season, I'm experimenting with mellocreme.  (I'm not a big candy corn person, but I love those little pumpkins.)  I'm starting with Alton Brown's candy corn recipe with different coloring and flavoring - for the first batch, mapleine and cinnamon.  So far, it's very tasty, and the texture is delightfully smooth, but it doesn't ( Read more... )

Here are my hundred menus!  Next step: testing!

Putting these behind a cut because it's a long list.
( Read more... )

Doing another budget cooking project.  My mom got interested in the Live Below The Line challenge and was costing it out, which made me think of my old projects of that nature.  $2/day is a bit austere for me, so I tried to design some $2 dinners.  It was great fun.  If you live in an area with good grocery infrastructure so you can comparison shop ( Read more... )

The budget menu project has been upgraded to $3.50/day, and I decided "to heck with it" with regard to iron and calcium intake and just budgeted for vitamins.  But it's done!

• I used the regular price for things - store club card discounts applied, but I didn’t allow for coupons or sales.
• I went to three stores: Safeway, Big Lots, and Trader Joe’s ( Read more... )

My latest project is a "Can I have a balanced diet on $3.25/day?" grocery shopping and menu plan.  It was a spinoff of the $2/day challenge, but I decided to up the budget a little and try for a fuller balance of nutrients instead of just adequate protein and calories ( Read more... )

* 1 batch Ukrainian honey cookies ( Read more... )

My second attempt at oatmeal fudge turned out a lot better than the first. This one was a plain milk-and-sugar fudge, no chocolate, and it turned out kind of like barfi/Indian milk candy or Scottish tablet. Less caramelly, but I think that's because it's made with all fresh milk, no condensed or evaporated stuff. I made mine oatmeal cookie ( Read more... )