helpful tips from my kitchen!

[moominmolly]

[1] If you've had a long hard day, the kind where you can just barely make it in the front door with your groceries (even though people are helping you with that last bit), don't drown your sorrows in a whole big container of cottage cheese. Just don't. Go for the ice cream, or something, instead. In the end, you'll be happier, and you'll probably waddle less.

[2] If you feed 1/3 of your pumpkin muffin batter to the floor, try to be pleased that the remaining batter -- that's right, the stuff you were just staring at and wondering whether it'd make a really flat loaf, or what -- just so happens to precisely fill up the emptied muffin tins.

[3] Butternut squash roasting in garlic and a bit of spice smells really good. As a bonus, it matches the pumpkin muffin batter on the floor.

(And apparently, it makes vegetarians come downstairs and ask, "what is that seductive meaty smell that smells so meaty and yet good?" "Uh, squash.")

Comments

[harimad.livejournal.com]

Doesn't sound like your kitchen's been too helpful today.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair to the kitchen, I was a bit of a hazard today. I'm sure it was all in self-defense.

[razil.livejournal.com]

Your icon makes me want Cheeeeeeese!

(But the squash and muffins sound good, too.)

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

Cheeeeeeeeese! Also, it turned out that the nice camembert I brought home was a brie. hmf. I guess I'll survive.

The squash was just now turned into some nice savory soup. The muffins were an experiment -- a success in terms of taste, but not quite perfect in texture. Ah well.

[dancingwolfgrrl.livejournal.com]

The recipe for pumpkin bread in Joy of Cooking is excellent, although I usually leave the nuts out. It seems like you should be able to just adjust the cooking time and temp and bake it in muffin tins, although I've never tried...

Sorry your floor got some of the goods. But yay for orange foods!

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I actually liked the taste of the ones I made, but substituting applesauce for eggs (and cutting down the moisture a bit) caused the texture to be a wee bit denser than it otherwise would have been. Actually, given how tasty the crispy little bits around the edges were where the stuff burbled up and cooked on the muffin tin itself, I might try the same recipe (applesauce included) and bake some as cookies! But thanks for the pointer, too, just in case. :)

[yagagriswold.livejournal.com]

I second that. I just made the Joy recipe on Sunday, substituting roasted butternut squash for the pumpkin, and its really good. I think I've converted hissilliness into a squash-eater.

squash-eaters

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I don't like yellow squash sliced and fried up with zucchini and onions or whatever, but man, there's not a whole lot that's naturally tastier than roasted butternut squash. Mmm.

Maybe I'll break down and try this bread this weekend. But I have all of these muffins to finish up first...

[harimad.livejournal.com]

I figured out something useful to do with summer squash recently. Summer squash is fine stuff but too watery for my tastes. Salting didn't do it for me either; it turned the veg from watery to briny. Then I had an idea: I half dried sliced yellow squash in a dehydrator. It's leathery rather than squishy (squashy?) and tastes good both raw for dips and cooked.

How do you tell the difference between camembert and brie?

sincerely,
a blue cheese lover

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

There's probably more of a taste difference in raw milk cheeses. Also, I have no idea what the difference is *supposed* to be, so my impressions might be different from other people's. But here are the differences to me:

- Brie is a bit creamier and runnier than Camembert
- Camembert has a stronger, more "stinky-cheese" flavor than Brie
- Brie can come in small or large wheels, where I only ever see Camembert in small wheels

It's the lovely complicated overtones of a raw-milk Camembert left out of the fridge that I really really love, and I don't ever get that out of Brie. But since I'm not eating raw-milk cheeses at the moment anyway, it's mostly just loyalty that makes me huffy over getting Brie rather than my beloved Camembert. :)