Res ipsa loquitur

The kidlet requested a trifle instead of a birthday cake this year. I had never made a trifle (well, I'd made banana puddin', but never a non-Southern trifle). I used the Cook's Country recipe for Tipsy Squire Trifle as a model; substituted a strawberry syrup for the one and a half cups of sherry because, hello, fourteenth birthday party, and anyway I don't even like sherry all that much; substituted lemon curd for jam because yum.

I have the following observations.

1. Yum.
2. I cannot make a sponge cake to save my life. I found a sponge cake recipe (also from Cook's) and followed it to the letter twice, and both times the layers went as flat as a slice of bread as soon as I took them out of the oven. My grandmother, the farmer's wife, is ashamed of me in the great beyond.
3. Store-bought angel-food cake was just fine, truly. I was afraid it would introduce an artificial taste, but it didn't. Mostly I tasted custard.
4. About that time, I began to suspect that the name 'trifle' might be sarcastic. Pretty big undertaking, unless you happen to have some stale cake just lying around and have my grandmother's skill at making custard.
5. If I'd only been feeding my own kid, I still would have left out the sherry, but I would have added some Grand Marnier with the strawberry syrup.
6. Seriously, can I say yum? This stuff was so good.
7. Pretty sure a person could use milk instead of cream in the custard and it would still be delicious.
8. My grocery store did not have any macaroons anywhere. Trader Joe's vanilla wafers were a fine substitute. I don't buy Nilla any more; have you read the ingredients lately? Also, somewhat off topic, most brands of ginger snaps don't list either ginger or molasses. What is the world coming to, Grandma?
9. People who don't like mushy food won't like this.
10. I like mushy food, and in conclusion, yum.

It probably reflects well on your eating habits when your salad spinner cracks open from overuse.

How do you manage your recipe collection?

For a long time, I was perfectly happy with my card file. But then I started using tags for LJ/DW, and now everything in life that doesn't have tags is really annoying to me, because why can't one recipe be under Poultry and Grilling and Quick & Easy and Summer and Kidlet's Favorites?

Also, it would be handy to be able to link up a recipe with a side dish that works really well with it, or with another one that uses up the leftover roast chicken or the other half of that tub of ricotta or what have you. Maybe even to see when was the last time I cooked it.

I've been half tempted to post my recipes as locked DW entries so I could tag them, or to start a new journal just for recipes. But I'm betting there's some better way out there.

I made roasted peaches a couple of times this summer (an absolutely marvelous dessert -- you cut them in quarters -- a little butter, a little sugar, a little lemon juice, maybe a sprig of rosemary), and the spouse and the kidlet have been asking for them again, but there are no fresh peaches to be had.

Who has recipes along those lines? Mostly fruit, lightly sweetened, reasonably low in fat, something that a spouse with high cholesterol can eat multiple times a week?

I realize that not everyone is as fascinated by community-supported agriculture, or what I cooked last night, as I am. So: an opt-out opportunity.



( Meanwhile, this week's haul. )

Anybody want to give me your most wonderful recipe for a Valentine's day dessert?

Ideally one that doesn't make huge quantities, so that the three of us can eat it all on the day itself and not have leftovers sitting around tempting us later?

You know, I vaguely remember a time when I used to write smut. Some of y'all may recall it, way back in the misty past. One day I will write smut again. This is not that day.

This is the day when I invite you to help me plan my Christmas dinner.

( Poll inside )

Oh, I've just eaten the sort of thing that would probably give me religion if I didn't already have it.

Last night for dinner I made a middle-eastern-style salad -- cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, minced red onion, and parsley, dressed with lemon juice, a little olive oil, salt, and pepper.

For lunch, I had a ripe avocado I needed to eat right away, and when I went looking for a lime slice to squeeze over it, I found the leftovers from last night's salad. So I mixed them all together into a dish that was about half salad and half avocado.

Man, was that ever good.

which nobody asked for, but I will share anyway because this is the hazard of mobility, that you long for food that's hundreds of miles away.

Top Five Things I Would Be Eating If I Still Lived Someplace Else

1. Raisin brioche from Bennison's in Evanston (and I blame tzikeh for this longing)

2. Open-faced egg sandwich from the Irregardless Cafe in Raleigh. Egg, cheese, sprouts, tomato, mushrooms, onions, avocado, on an English muffin. With a glass of honey-sweetened Red Zinger tea.

3. Fried chicken with three veg from a diner in Waynesville whose name I've forgotten. One of those places where they define Brunswick stew as a vegetable. Homemade biscuits. Sweet tea. A nice quiet evening walk back to the Mountaineer, where all my co-workers would still be slaving away on tomorrow's paper.

4. Boiled shrimp by the metric ton at the beach. Corn. Hush puppies. More sweet tea.

5. Tomatoes and black-eyed peas from my mother's garden. Banana pudding from my mother's kitchen.

Once I saw a poster that said, "What is patriotism, after all, but the love of the fine things we ate in our childhood?"

Typo hall of fame: Self-pimposed.

Also, in my search for good tofu dishes, I discovered ( that this is heaven. )