Life's Lab Notebook: 2013

Hello from Week 38. For my exercise this week, I went to another power yoga class and thankfully, I wasn't as sore this time. My neck was a bit stiff the next day, but that may have been from just sleeping funny too, I'm not sure. But, no one really wants to hear about that . . . let's get to the fun stuff :) I have a few new recipes and tips to share with you this week, so I'll get right to it. First of all, my top tips:

1. This is something that seemed like a revelation to me a few years ago and most people probably already do it, but just in case someone out there isn't doing it, I thought I'd write it down: Whisks are NOT just for wet ingredients. My mindset was always that whisks were for wet ingredients only, but then some recipe somewhere directed me to whisk together my dry ingredients before mixing with my wet ingredients, and of course I always follow the recipe to a "T" ;) (okay . . . most of the time), so I tried it and it was magic. The ingredients were very quickly and easily incorporated, and I didn't toss dry ingredients all over the kitchen like I usually do when using a spoon or spatula. Magic :)

2. This is how you should cook corn on the cob: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-never-shuck-corn-again/?ALLSTEPS Okay, so I can't get 100% behind this method, because I don't like having to chop off the end of my corn like that (it seems wasteful), but it really did work. There were a few strands of silk left, but they came off very easily. No more boiled, overcooked corn, no more taking forever to pick off every little bit of husk and silk, and no more microwaving in plastic wrap that could potentially give off harmful chemicals . . . hooray. Corn cooked perfectly in the wrap God gave it to us in, no mess and tasty corn :) I just peeled off the few outer layers of husk and popped them in the microwave (five minutes for two ears). Once they were cooked I carefully removed the rest of the husk and the silk came off very easily too, even without trying to slide it out of the husk like the method I mentioned above. Sorry this tip is coming a little too late and corn season is pretty much over, but just save this tip for next summer and I'm pretty sure you'll thank me :)

Now for the recipes I made, apple kuchen with custard, armadillo eggs, and petite pumpkin spice doughnuts.

I had gotten a bunch of apples from my mom and this cake looked like the perfect way to use some of them up. It was simple and tasted really good with some Bird's custard that I whipped up in place of the hot cream because I didn't have any cream. I also got to serve it to my friends in these really cute little dishes I got recently . . . a great find at an estate sale :) I felt really fancy with my "professional" plating ;)

Prepared

Baked

Coated

Plated

My adorable little apple kuchen armada ;)

The armadillo eggs were a Pinterest find, and I must say, they didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. That could also have been because I didn't read the recipe carefully enough before making it . . . oops :( I just kind of made it up, so in my haste I forgot the egg and breadcrumbs and of course, my armadillo eggs fell apart (hence, no picture . . . sorry). I also missed the bit about baking them in the oven and put them in my cast iron skillet . . . that probably didn't help either. So they were pretty tasty, but not very pretty . . . I'm going to have to give them another try sometime, although next time, I'm definitely wearing gloves when I cut up my peppers, either that, or use something a little milder than a jalapeno. My hand was burning for hours . . . ouch. Oh and p.s. soaking in milk, olive oil or cold water didn't make it go away any faster I don't think . . . it just takes time (about 24 hours to fully go away I would say).

The final recipe was these adorable little baked doughnuts. Now before you go thinking that they must be a "healthy" doughnut because they are baked and not fried . . . check the end of the recipe where you are instructed to dip them in butter and roll them in sugar . . . yup, there went your "healthy" idea ;) However, I found that a little too overpowering, so just a really light coating of butter (like when I ran out of butter and just swirled the doughnuts in the buttery bowl . . . those were perfect) and then some cinnamon sugar was really good, and they were even good plain. They weren't super sweet without the cinnamon sugar coating, but they still tasted good and I thought they were fun because, in my mind, if you set them in a large bowl with milk in it, they would look like giant Cheerios . . . fun :)