Weekend Wrap-Up

Weekends that don’t include travel, socializing, or mountains of schoolwork are often cooking bonanzas for me. This weekend included:

1) One improvised rice-vegetable-venison sausage stew.
Highlights:included venison and sweet potatoes (evidence that I’m a black girl with roots in rural Mississippi), had a bunch of curry and cumin (not sure what that’s evidence of), and maybe included too much rice. I dunno – I like the veggies cooked with rice dishes, think of them as hearty pilafs, but they never go quite like they should. Something always gets too mushy, sometimes the veggies, sometimes the rice.
Verdict: Tasty, but the texture was off

2) Crockpot Veggie-Sausage Stew.
Was heavily adapted from this recipe. Based on my cooking choices, you would think it was November in Minnesota, not summer in California.
Highlights: Cooked with my lovely lover boy. Used big-ass chunks of potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, and beans. Accidentally left for too long in the crock pot, but still perfect.
Verdict: Texture and consistency dead on – I think the trick was not trying to do too much with it. So good I actually noted the changes and stuck it in the recipe binder. You know, cuz now I have one of those.

3) Rosemary Bread:
Tried this guy’s recipe for bread. Pretty standard stuff, but different in that he specifies not to preheat the oven to a roaring 400-something degrees. I was doubtful, but I would suggest giving his page a gander as to why he suggests sliding the bread into a cold oven. Now that I’ve done it, I wouldn’t go back unless I was trying to make baguettes (which I would never try to make unless I secretly wanted to make bread pudding).
Highlights: Experimented with adding milk, an egg, more yeast, and some rosemary. Did you see that?! I futzed with the yeast content for a recipe! I’m a crazy woman!
Verdict: De-lish.

4) Earl-Grey Tea Ice Cream
Highlights: Actually followed the recipe exactly. Was not totally successful on the custard making front – I think the egg started scrambling or something, but I took it off the heat when the bits started to appear. Then, when I put it in the old ice cream maker, I watched it churn for twenty minutes to no avail – the canister wasn’t frozen enough and the custard wasn’t cold enough. Good news is that throwing the canister back in the freezer for about seven hours (while the custard mixture hung out in the fridge continuing to chill) worked just fine.
Verdict: This shit is good. I should have just made a gallon of this on Friday and skipped all the other stuff.