Green chili, tortilla chips

Green chili made with tomatillos and both fresh and tinned chile peppers, 

I learned something. The amount of tomatillos I used caused the whole batch to be way too much acid. I pondered what I could add to counteract that so it doesn't taste so tart. 

What should I add?

I added one level teaspoon of baking soda. It foamed up exactly like the 3rd grade volcano demonstration. It kept foaming and foaming and foaming and as it boiled it continued foaming even more. It foams up like the dramatic moment of making caramel, like dropping rice noodles into oil, like popcorn at its climax of popping, except better than all that. And it altered the pH to pleasantly acidic and not tart-candy like acidic. 

My next batch will use poblanos and tomatillos and that will be better. 

Potato cheese pierogis

The dough has sour cream in it and that makes the dough softer and more elastic, a bit stronger. 

The potato has sour cream in it to lighten it. 

Sour cream as garnish because, eh, what the heck, it's a thing that's done.

The Atlas is hooked up for superior rolling, even and flat and thin.

The motor is hooked up too and that is unusual because the manual crank is so fun, but this is even more fun, a lot faster and better and and not too noisy. It's worth dragging it out.

One russet potato made this. 

* potato

* warm milk

* melted butter

* cheese

* horseradish

* dry mustard

* sour cream

* salt and pepper

Sour cream in increments until I am satisfied with the texture.

Caramelized a little too fast a little too hot, but not so bad.

Boiled gently until they float, coated with oil so they don't stick. They're done. Right now they're done. Mum went a step further for some reason, a side of her family did that, and one night they were a big hit at some shindig at an isolated air base. Back and forth she went catering theses things and I got to eat vast quantities, like three. 

I could never get enough.

Pot pie, hand rolled pasta, savory broth

Egg noodles rolled out and cut the usual way. Commercially prepared broth. Bay leaf and chile flakes.

Great bread the easy way

This is the last of the boulle picked up at the same time as the mortadella and smoked Gruyère. This right here is a disappointment because it's marketed as sourdough. C'mon, we make our own sourdough and this isn't close. This isn't even as fermented or as rustic as dough with leaven grown overnight. Twenty-four hours fermentation on the counter surpasses whatever starter, or whichever method they used for this bread. It is small and it is expensive. Too expensive for a disappointment. 

The two final slices are made into a usual sandwich.

This is the end of it. I can start a new boulle effortlessly and have it ready for tomorrow and have a loaf better than this to replace it more easily than I can walk down to Tony's or hop in the truck, or even include a soft loaf with usual groceries as people do and then manage it carefully all the way home through various transfers. Nah, Brah, this is actually easier.

* 1 cup cold water

* 2 cups flour

* 1/4 teaspoon dry active yeast, this would be 1/4 little package.

* 1 teaspoon salt

This one is flavored with rosemary. It's an impulse thing. We baker types do this.

This was started early evening and proofed overnight. It was returned to when I felt like it, about noon. Morning would have worked and so would evening. There is a broad margin to work within.

The oven is turned on to high and a pot with lid like this is preheated.

One side of this is pulled and folded on top to create a tighter bundle. 

Huh? What? 

And so the steady sandwich conveyor rolls on unaffected.

Huh?

Jacket potato with white beans, mortadella side

Butter.

And more butter.

And this stuff.

I turned it down for twenty years because it has the word "sour" in it.

Mortadella sandwich

Mortadella, the word sounds like death but it is the life of bologna such as Oscar Meyer never lived. I had their version a few times as a boy, it was awful, put me off mortadella almost permanently. I was reluctant to try it again. But I'm glad that I did. It's expensive but worth it if you want to be fatter.

Two summers ago I bought a pound, then another, then another, and BAM, just like that gained twenty pounds. I'm counting on that happening again.