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Showing posts from April, 2020

Eggplant Parmesan

This was Jess's sandwich. I scooped my bread so I could fit it in my mouth. It took many years away from New York (like 22 years) to suddenly realize that I missed a really good east coast eggplant parmesan, particularly in sandwich form. So I've made this a few times, and it's successfully fulfilled the craving. I hate frying things, so I searched for instructions for a baked version and found  this one from Gimme Some Oven . The only change I made is to omit the fresh basil (because I usually don't have it on hand) and also omit the Italian seasoning in the breadcrumbs. I like to keep the flavor on the eggplant simple, and pack my sauce with those flavors instead.  I usually pick up fresh bread to turn it into a sandwich, but we're in quarantine and Fred Meyer was out of the french bread that I tried to get in my last pickup order. So out came the flour and yeast, and I followed  this recipe for french bread , and it's SO good and not terribly

Yogurt - Instant Pot

The best yogurt. I tried this when I first got an instant pot and decided it wasn't worth the effort, mainly because the amount of yogurt that I was left with after straining was the same price (or slightly more expensive) than just buying a tub of Nancy's. But I now realize that where I went wrong was that I used 2% milk instead of whole, and I probably didn't let it "set" fully, and then I had to strain it too much to get it thick. I'm better at it now, and it's totally worth it. I'm glad that quarantine led me to try again; it's been hard to find good yogurt through grocery pickup, so I've taken to just buying extra milk and making the yogurt myself. In addition to now using whole milk and making sure that it actually sets, I also follow a tip that I read somewhere: After completing the "boil" step, I take the lid off and boil the milk for an extra 5 minutes. This makes the yogurt thicker. My instant pot is a Duo M

Banana Bread

The lower left is chocolate, not burned stuff. My criteria for a good banana bread recipe are: 1) Lots of bananas. I don't understand these "banana bread" recipes that use 2 bananas. 2) Butter and sugar. Not canola oil or coconut oil. Not maple syrup or honey. If I'm going to make banana bread once in a while, I just want butter and sugar. In responsible quantities. 3) Chocolate chips. 4) Oats. I was pressed for time when searching for a recipe this time, but  this one from Crafty Cooking Mama  looked like a good starting point. Five bananas! The changes I made: 1) Deleted the nuts and added the chocolate chips, obviously. 2) Added 1/2 c instant oats, and some yogurt to offset the extra dry ingredient. 3) Deleted the nutmeg. I just don't like it. The result was delicious! I could definitely push it further in the healthy direction (less butter and sugar, more oats and yogurt and maybe applesauce), but it's not terribly un