Apple and Roasted Chile Pepper Cobbler

Once again I didn't think to take a picture until AFTER eating a slice.

I cook for two reasons: to feed myself, and to have fun.

I usually feed myself with thrown together pasta dishes, sauteed things (potatoes cooked with onion and sauerkraut, cottage fries, scrambled eggs, etc), hot cereals (oatmeal, cornmeal mush), and bread slathered with stuff (yogurt, cheese, peanut butter, jam). I also try to cook one or two "big meals" a week, and eat leftovers.

For fun I like to bake bread or make some sort of dessert. I love dessert (well, anything sweet really) much more than I ought to. I love it so much, I can eat half of a cake or pie all by myself... in a single day. I combat this love for sweets by maintaining a fairly healthy lifestyle in other areas (I walk a lot and rarely buy junk food), and generally only making desserts once every couple of weeks. Still, my roommates have seen me eat sugar right out of the bag more times than I'd care to mention.

Cooking with kids: bread

I'm watching my four year-old niece today. Baking bread is a really good project to do with a little kid. I told her all about yeast, and showed her how it gets foamy when mixed with warm water. Then I had her scoop in flour while I mixed.

When it was time to knead the dough, I gave her a handful to play with. She kept saying it was gross and "made her hands look like a tree frog." But when I offered to knead her dough as well, she refused.

Bread Update

The bread turned out beautifully!

More bread experiments

At this point my kitchen is still made up of somewhat random thrown together tools. I have a bread pan, but no cookie sheet. Two ladles and a plastic spatula, but no good mixing tools. You'd think that this would discourage anyone who wanted to do any real cooking, but the lack of equipment actually seems to breed innovation.