Hot Cross Buns

I don't do much to celebrate Easter. Usually, if weather permits, I like to go outside and garden. While I'm out there digging in the dirt, I get to see all of the church folks walking home after church in their Sunday best. Two different churches in my neighborhood this year sounded like they brought in high school marching bands to play at the end of the service. It's a fun day to listen to, if the sun is out, and I can be outside.

But the one thing I try to always do is make hot cross buns. My grandma always did, and I follow that tradition.

I used Ree Drummond's recipe this year.


It was tasty, but all of the bottoms burned. . . so either my oven is too hot, or you should cook these puppies on a silpat.

I couldn't stop being domestic today if I tried. I made and froze the filling for butternut squash ravioli. . . ran out of steam before making the pasta, because I had already made homemade chicken potpies (from scratch) and prep-cheffed out for stir fry later in the day.

I cleaned the bathroom. I cleaned the kitchen. I mopped the floor.

But back to that butternut squash. I have made butternut squash soup about 8 times in the last 3 years. That means that I have cleaned about 18-20 of these bad boys--carving and peeling off the tough outside skin and then chopping the squash up into small pieces to then boil in stock to soften. What was I thinking?

The squash pictured above was rubbed with olive oil all over and then brown sugar on the cut faces of the squash and then I baked it in the oven at 375 degrees for an hour with the cut-side down on the cookie. when I took it out, the flesh just scooped right out. Tender. Sweet. AND NEXT TO NO WORK AT ALL!!!!! It was amazing.

Nom nom nom.

Thai Shrimp Soup

Geewhitakers, I love this soup.

A kinda complicated stock of chicken stock, shrimp parts (heads and tails), garlic, onion, dried teeny shrimps, fish sauce, chilis, a little yellow bean paste, sugar and white pepper. You cook it until it reduces by a third, so that all of those yummy tastes get really intense, then you strain it so that it's just clear golden tasty broth.

Then you bring the broth to a boil, throw in shrimp and .5" cubes of medium firm tofu and boil for about 3 minutes and then you're done!

The Final product gets ladled over pre-cooked Asian noodles (somen are my faves) and then gets sprinkled with green onions, bean sprouts, and fried shallot slices.

The perfect winter soup--fun to make and has enough heat and spice to warm you to your bones.

from

Takeaway: Southeast Asian Soups, Salads and Stir-fries by Les Hyun.

FYI, though, this awesome cookbook is hard to find. For some reason, it was for sale at the Cincinnati Williams and Sonoma two years ago. But I haven't see it anywhere else and it's one of those third party buys off of the American Amazon site.

Kneadlessly Simple. And How!

Two weeks ago, I bought Nancy Baggett's new bread cookbook, Kneadlessly Simple.  And it's excellent.  I don't have an aversion to kneading, per se, but I've always been terrible at cooking bread (and my mother is ashamed, no doubt, of this weakness).  So, I thought it couldn't hurt to try a different process.

Well, I've made two loaves of Baggett's bread and it's amazing.  Easy to make, nearly no work at all, just mixing ingredients and waiting for a day or two for it to knead itself.  And the bonus is that in that time, it seems to begin to ferment or something?  And you wind up with artisan looking and tasting bread.  So, Yummy.

Here's tonight's loaf as proof--a beautiful brown domed loaf.

Seems the secret to getting good bread out of my kitchen is to remove me as much from the process as possible.  Strangely enough, the same is true of rice and my kitchen as well.