Despite a recent lull in writing, I have been eating and visiting the farmer's markets.
I bought a Cuisinart food processor, so I've been blitzing lots of things. I made pizza and cinnamon rolls! It is really amazing how quickly the dough is kneaded in the processor. I know that lots of people say kneading is theraputic, and I am sure it is. But when you live in a zoo, kneading dough by hand means lots of time when cat hair can find its way into the dough, no matter how clean the house, so I like to knead in a closed environment. I will share my cinnamon roll recipe after I tweak the recipe just slightly.
I think my yeast is alive! This is Red Star yeast, which is available pretty much everywhere in small packets. I bought a 3 kilo bag of it at Costco in a moment of weakness and delusions of daily bread baking:
veggie pizza topped with pequillo peppers, onions, and kalamata olives (very tasty). a pizza baking pan came with my Cuisinart, and it is a nice way to get a crisp crust with a chewy interior:
The cinnamon rolls, before being iced:
Thanks to Market Mary, I got to see the Top Chefs when they came into town!! Our stop had Stephand Izard, the only girl to win Iron Chef, and Ariane, the funny Jersey girl. They were actually quite funny, and the emcee was also very funny. Apparently, the emcee is also the production manager, setting up tents and wrangling everyone. The chefs made a nut butter with marcona almonds and miso paste. I might have to try something like that soon, especially since I have my handy-dandy processor.
I had a solo brunch at a tiny restaurant with tomato plants in the rafters on the paio, and kohlrabi growing from hanging burlap sacks:
And of course, many of you know I changed jobs in recent weeks (yay!) and that Husband has been in Spain; he returned yesterday with lots of treats for me, which I'll be writing about very soon!
