Baklava

Baklava is definitely one of the more tasty things you can possibly imagine. After making baklava ice cream twice last week, I decided i had to try making the actual stuff. The fact that I had a shit ton of fillo dough to get rid of before it spoiled was in no way an incentive to get that done. None at all. The recipe I used was for Turkish baklava. I found it here. You can tell the difference because the Greek baklava is generally made with walnuts and honey, and middle eastern style baklava generally is made with pistachios and a syrup of sugar and water. I had heard rumors that baklava was a seriously time consuming experience, and it was for me, but I think the time it takes to do this could be seriously shortened. For instance, I didn't really think to get the pistachios ready beforehand, and so I had to sit and shell them all right then. You could probably cut down on time by buying unshelled pistachios, or doing this beforehand while you watch tv or something. It's not really taxing work. If not for that, other than baking time, I probably could have gotten this done in an hour or so. Also, I recommend not cutting the pieces as huge as I did 'cause they're drippy and hard to carry that way. Alternately, you could not put all the syrup in with the baklava and that might also make it not drippy. All I'm saying is that it dries white, and you don't really want that on your pants. Not that I know this from experience or anything. Other than that, this is pretty tasty.

Bread Makery

I have, indeed, been making shit. Unfortunately, my camera is broken, so no pictures yet. Coming soon: The very exciting tale of how I conquered my fear of my own sewing machine and learned to make some straight stitches. You have no idea what I feat this is for me.

In the meantime, I have been trying some adventures in bread making, and it is going fairly well. My first attempts at making dough utilizing a bread machine ended in an unfortunate way, to say the least. I trusted a recipe that I shouldn't have, and I ended up with an incredible mess. Seriously, I was cleaning dough from the sink and table for a few days, ruined a t-shirt, and had to eat some shitty noodles for dinner because my calzone dough went to hell.

The next attempts have been somewhat more successful. Thanks in part to the fact that I have been watching at least one episode of Good Eats a day, I have picked up some stuff about bread making that is coming in handy. Also, the internet helps. Yesterday I made a few modifications (I used fresh rather than canned, chopped rather than minced jalapenos. I also added a bit of garlic and chili powder) to this recipe and made mozzarella jalapeno rolls. I, of course, sought help from the internet in this endeavor, and found some pretty helpful tips for shaping bread. Alas, my dough was sort of a bizarre consistency and didn't really cooperate with me when I tried turning it into breadsticks, it still tasted pretty good. There's always next time.