Friday, February 18, 2011

"All you've got is all you can give and that will ALWAYS be enough".

I was off today. Slept in and I'm still tired! Made my own breakfast in the LG kitchen, talked to friends, spent time online, read some, then went to the beach for a couple of hours. It was a beautiful day until about 3pm, then got cloudy. Lunch was at Iggie's. Chuck was my waiter. He was all upset because one of the iguana kept walking into the water, then would get washed back up on shore. He said he'd never seen that behavior in the iguanas. I've seen one of the iguana fall into the pool and seen them scramble to get out, so it doesn't seem that they really like water. I don't know......

I've been reading a new book called "Bakewise" written by Shirley Corriher. Apparently she is the scientific guru of the cooking and baking world. She was a chemist early in her life but also a food enthusiast. She has also written a book called "Cookwise". Both books help you look at recipes to see if they will be successful or are poorly written and also gives tips for successful cooking and baking as well as recipes. She writes well and I've enjoyed it so far.

I decided to try one of the recipes from my new book. She also recommends refrigerating all your cookie dough up to 36 hours. She says it improves the taste and the texture of the dough. I decided to try her Peanut Butter cookie recipe, although I do not have toffee pieces, but don't think they'll be missed. Mix 1 cup of chunky peanut butter, 3/4 cup of white sugar, 1 large egg and 1/2 cup of toffee pieces. Drop by Tbsp onto a parchment line baking sheet, bake at 350 degrees for 9-11 minutes, cool two minutes on the baking sheet, then remove to a cooling rack. It was interesting to watch the texture of the peanut butter while I was mixing. I put it in the fridge and will bake them up tomorrow afternoon. No flour in them. The flour and eggs are what provide the protein and leavening. In this recipe the egg provides the leavening in this recipe. The dough tastes good, so the cookies should taste good. I'll let you know!

Dinner was late (Chicken Caesar salad), as the LG was busy, so I waited until things died down a bit. Richard and Katarina were there with some out of town guests. Richard for some reason has started calling me "Ape". Interesting choice and certainly not a nickname I would choose, but I have decided to let it go. Bob, the Materials Manager from my old job, calls me "A" (still), and that I can live with. No real nice way to shorten April! One thing I didn't do today was pick up laundry. Janee had the day off and I'm tired of paying for taxis! Taxi drivers control a lot on this island and pretty much charge what they want. I guess this will be short term though, thank goodness!

An otherwise early night, it's another 6:30am start time tomorrow!