The Mezzanine

Tonight was time for recipe #10: choc-chip cookies.

(For Americans - yes, it is utterly weird that we call them biscuits except when they have choc-chips, but somehow call them cookies for this one recipe. We know that. We still do it.)



Very nice, but I didn't quite read the recipe closely enough. The final step - shaping the mixture into balls and cooking them - said to do teeny tiny balls of mixture, and I overlooked that and did them in my normal size.

Behold: I have a long slab of choc-chip cookie, where all the individual balls have melted their sides into each other. I'm having to cut little squares off...

Last night I made a chocolate self-saucing pudding in my crock pot. YUM.


For the self-saucing bit, I had to sift a whole lot of cocoa and brown sugar over the top, and then pour boiling water over it. Anyone else ever tried sifting brown sugar? It gets... complicated. Because not only is brown sugar as prone to lumps as icing sugar - so you get these huge big balls of sugar rolling around and positively refusing to be sifted - but it's also really sticky, and instead of going through the sifter it sticks to the sifter holes and starts getting more sugar to stick to that sugar, and on and on until you have this big mass of sugar all hanging off the sifter and not falling onto the pudding...

Hasselback potatoes, done!


They're potatoes with funky slicing stuff, roasted in butter and then covered in breadcrumbs and cheese.

YUMMY.


There are, of course, bits of the pan that don't have potato - bits that end up just breadcrumbs and cheese, fried in too much butter. I think my taste testers were even more excited about the crusty fried goodness than they were about the actual potato...



(Having a bad evening. Compliments on my cooking won't just be gratefully accepted; they will be leapt on with blissful excitement.)

Recipe #4:
I made brownies! They have chocolate, butter, more chocolate, and sour cream. (Among other things.)

Years ago, I added baking soda to brownies instead of baking powder - with disastrous results. Thankfully, these brownies required neither. They're just yummy and awesome.



While waiting for the baking to finish, I watched Community. The way Britta pronounces "bagel" is extremely cute.

Recipe #1 is in the slow-cooker, waiting to be eaten this afternoon. It's "Veal and Rosemary Stew" - and looks rather yummy.



In other news, I'd like to propose a vote of thanks to the inventor of the bandaid, who helped me out once again today, mid-onion chopping.

I already have two scars across my thumb that I use as my "this is why I no longer use Stanley knives" reason; if I ever stop chopping vegies, I'll be able to use the brand new scar on my ring finger as my proof that I should never be allowed to hold sharp things.