RatCreature's Journal

The actual number of hours it takes to achieve cookies is regularly vastly underestimated by cookie recipes. And I'm not talking ten minutes here, but a factor of three or so. On the upside I now have Zimtsterne and Vanillekipferln.

I unwittingly caused a life and death drama in my fridge's vegetable drawer: I just found a giant, dead caterpillar (well about four centimeters long) in the bowl of plums I had also stored in the drawer. It definitely wasn't in the plums when I put them there, considering that I transfered them to said bowl from a bag and it was too big to have been inside any of the plums without doing obvious damage (and not the type of critter you commonly find in plums either). I think it must have come hidden in the cauliflower I also stored in the drawer (though that wasn't sitting directly next to the plums), somehow tried to desperately escape the cold or something, and then expired in my plums.

Well, I guess it's good to know that despite not being organic or anything, my cauliflower was wildlife supporting. I kind of feel bad for it, trying to escape and then slowly dying of cold. It was still unpleasant when I found that thing as I just wanted to grab some plums to snack on, though.

Keeping the comments and advice on my last post on this topic in mind, I tried to make blueberry pancakes again this morning. (Pancakes tend to be my Sunday morning breakfast treat.)

So I floured my frozen blueberries and only dropped them into the pancakes once the first side had firmed up but the top was still liquid. Additionally, because my usual buttermilk pancake batter turned out to be a bit too liquid to rise to cover them entirely, I dribbled a bit of liquid batter over them to protect the blueberries from burning. This method worked out for about half of my pancakes, which were somewhat fluffy (not peak fluffiness, but no dense or soggy areas), nicely browned, with blueberries on the inside (and those not turned green either).

Unfortunately I failed with about half my pancakes, which still suffered from burned blueberry bits and/or soggy areas around the berries. This mostly happened when the blueberries still came into direct contact with the pan, then usually burst open and released juice into the pan and the batter. Though partly that was because in my second batch I didn't leave quite enough batter to properly cover them from above. The earlier ones turned out much better.

So it's progress.

I was making myself some banana-oatmeal pancakes for breakfast when a tiny fruitfly decided to commit suicide by flinging itself into the hot butter. So I had to fish a tiny fried insect out of my pan. I guess it was lucky it didn't try to land on the then still soft topside of my pancakes.

Why do rotting potatoes smell so much worse than any other rotting fruit or vegetable?! And how can it get so bad so quickly? I swear a few days ago there was no sign of a potato liquifying in my storage box. Ew, ew, ew.

I've never had sweet potatoes (they're somewhat exotic here), but today my supermarket had some on offer so I got a couple.

Do you have any favorite recipes highlighting their taste that would be good to try them?

Feeling slightly adventurous I bought this squash? pumpkin? of a kind that I've never eaten before. I don't know what it's called, because they were just labeled "miscellaneous squashes/pumpkins" (in German both are the same word) and there were a variety of them in the same bin, all for the same price. The one I got is quite small and white, and now I wonder what the best way to prepare it is. (I'm sure I could browse wikipedia for squash/pumpkin to identify it, and then google the name for recipes, but I'm lazy...)

( a picture of the squash? pumpkin? )

I made some this upside down apple cake, and I already reduced the sugar by a third in the cake (and put no sugar in the whipped cream), yet in combination it was still so sweet as to be almost inedible. This always happens to me with US cake recipes. Are other people having this problem? In principle I like sweet things, and the cake recipes that came with my mixer for example I make without reducing the sugar, so it's not like I'm against a sugary taste, but whenever I try a recipe from an US blog, things turn out too sweet. I guess I should bake more often to get a better feel for tolerable sugar amounts so I don't have to depend on the recipes.

My meals recently have been somewhat odd because one of the major considerations has been that my food should also result in something tasty and fattening for sickly rats. So my lunch today has been cream of wheat pudding made with half milk and half cream and sugar (instead of just milk and no sugar like I normally make it) so Leo would get more calories with his lacking appetite. On the bright side, at least Leo was eager to eat some of it.

A few days ago I asked for advice how to fix the texture of my yeast plait, and got many helpful comments. I took the advice, got the more expensive bread flour higher in gluten, only softened not melted the butter, and kneaded a good deal longer, and it worked! The texture of the one I just baked is like it's supposed to turn out.

In the recent ep Diana claims that Neal's raw milk Pecorino cheese was illegal (Neal counters that it was a gift, not sold), which I found very strange. I know that there is more concern about risks of raw milk products in the US than elsewhere, but surely the US wouldn't outlaw all kinds of cheeses? What on earth would be sold as Parmesan cheese in the US for example (I mean if you want the non-ersatz kind, i.e. proper Parmigiano-Reggiano), if raw milk cheese was really illegal? Or Gruyère? Or any of the other common cheeses that need raw milk? It's not like raw milk is only used in obscure specialty cheeses foodie snobs seek out.

I've been wondering about carnivorous habits, and which animals people eat and which they avoid, thus a poll. (Vegetarians like me, feel free to answer for a period of your life when you ate animals. Obviously if you have never eaten any the poll is kind of moot.) For each you can pick a number from 0 to 3, where 0 = "I have never eaten this animal" (or an animal from a that group, as I bundled some), 1 = "I've tried it only once or twice", 2 = "I have been/am eating this every now and then" (e.g. animals you eat repeatedly but only on rare occasions, or as a treat), 3 = "this animal was/is a regular part of my diet".
( cut for length )

I'm wondering how many people are familiar with the situation that you are moderately hungry, but none of the food you have seems appealing in any way, and worse, you have no idea what you'd rather eat just now, even if the food of your choice could appear by magic.

I find this really frustrating. When this happens to me I either don't eat, and wait until I'm hungry enough that I don't actually care much about what I eat (but that sometimes leads to bad eating choices, also it is unpleasant to feel hungry for the time it takes for me to not be finicky anymore, usually about two skipped regular meals) or I just force myself to eat something that I have available. However that is unpleasant too, because I often start to feel sick of the taste of the food I have prepared way before I've consumed the usual amount of food I eat during a meal. Which maybe wouldn't be so bad, my weight being what it is, but then I actually go back to feeling hungry for that elusive unspecified thing not too long after. And it is the same thing all over again with the next meal.

This is really annoying. Also it takes any joy out of eating. :/ Besides, it seems messed up to feel appetite without it being either for something or just indiscriminate for somewhat tasty food. So do others have any strategies for this besides just waiting for the own wacky appetite to become normal again at some point?

I'm used to baking with butter (or in the rare cases that I've made vegan cake I got vegan margarine that on its label announced it as okay for baking). However butter prices being what they are (they are up to €1.05 as the cheapest for 250g again here -- food prices suck), I've been considering to substitute margarine, but the cheap non-vegan baking margarines have dubiously long ingredient lists, presumably to simulate butter taste and consistency. And of course there is the trans-fat prone hardening process issue that can come with margarines. (And the less scary vegan ones tend to cost about the same as butter or even more.)

So I've been wondering whether I could just use the neutral, no-frills vegetable fat you buy in cheap blocks as substitute for part of the butter, say half-half, and let some taste come from real butter, but cheaper as you'd only use half as much, and circumvent the whole margarine issue. That fat is just naturally hard fat with no other stuff in it, the kind you use for frying if you want hot temperatures. But then I wondered about the dough consistency and baking properties that would follow, as of course margarine is usually only about 80% fat with the rest water (same as butter I think) and softer at room temperature.

I mean, the problem of softening it enough could work through melting it at a low temperature, depending on the cake recipe I often do that with the butter anyway, but maybe you then would still need to add a bit less of the pure fat and more liquid to simulate the percentages.

Maybe I should just experiment and see whether the results are edible, but surely that kind of thing has been tried by many people, since it's not as if high butter prices are a new phenomenon?

I still haven't had any dinner, because it's clear that the Spanish custom to have dinner really late around ten or so in the evening, is the only sensible one in this this kind of heat. Any earlier is simply too hot to have any substantial appetite.

And this awful weather sucks for my food budget. In reaction to the intolerable temperatures I'm mostly subsisting on chilled yogurt and fruit and the like, which I'm sure is healthy and everything, but even in season fruits are expensive. Also, ultimately while tasty not all that satisfying.

I'm hungry, I have plenty of food at home, but I'm too sticky and lethargic to cook myself anything.