Food friday

My son and I both had optometrist appointments at Costco and it was a challah baking week which required a bit of complicated scheduling of all of the cooking and baking. I set up the challah for its first rise right after breakfast.

The challah and the chicken can't cook in the oven at the same time. So just before we left I had my son braid the challot and set them out to rise.  The chicken was about halfway done (cooking at 350) as we were about to walk out the door. I turned the heat down on the chicken to 285 and hoped that it would be cooked by the time we got home a few hours later.  I had the chicken stay in the oven while I preheated it for the challah at 420.

That actually worked out perfectly.

Had it been cooler out, the challah would have been fine, but alas it is a hot day and our challah is over-risen and is a bit deflated by the whole experience.

A couple of weeks ago I taught my younger son how to sew on a button. Since then he has been repairing shirts and shorts that need new buttons. Today I taught my son how to make perfect asparagus.

You break off all of the ends. Then you put the asparagus in a shallow dish and boil a kettle of water. You pour the boiling water over the asparagus and then shock the asparagus with cold water.  You end up with perfect un-mushy un-stringy asparagus.

A bit later I will add a marinade and this will be added to leafy greens along with some other vegetables.

My daughter and new son-in-law went to Mexico on their honeymoon they brought us this bottle of vanilla.

We opened it at the dinner table a couple of Friday nights ago. It smelled so good that we all put it on as it if was perfume. We all smelled delicious.

I decided to use it tonight in a non- dairy ice cream.

I let my youngest taste some. He moaned. It was that good.

I cooked a custard-like base with tapioca starch (because I had some left over from Passover but potato or corn starch would work just fine), coconut oil, water, sugar, and salt. After the mixture came to a boil I took it off the heat, added 2 tsp of the excellent vanilla and mixed in a whole egg. The color of the mixture at that point was kind of unfortunate. It looked like grey mucilage.  Being whipped up in the ice cream maker made it look a whole lot more appetizing. We will be serving this with fresh cherries.

In a week or so my son and I will have new glasses. I look forward to seeing a bit better.


I have lovely new bits of work accumulating for me to start.