Saturday: public market, sticky buns, and dinner with Sheka
Downtown Phoenix Public Market
Once again, the market looked bigger. It was an absolutely gorgeous morning to be out and about, and I ran into my friend, Chris W, while I was there.
Breakfast was from Sapna Chill Out Cafe--very yummy fish and potato soup, but a bit too much parsley (or too big a leaf, rather)
I picked up a P&M tiramisu
And my friend got a P&M eclair after I raved about the cream puffs, which uses the same pastry cream
This week's haul, most notably, lemon cucumber from Crooked Sky Farms, which always has at least one thing I've never seen, more green tomatoes from One Windmill Farm, and eggplant manicotti from Raimondo's--I finally tried a sample, and it was delicious, using veggies instead of pasta to make low-carb pasta
I still have last week's giant zucchini from Crooked Sky Farms. It will probably make it's way into some soup this week
Baking experiment
I'd seen this sticky bun recipe on dozens of blogs a couple of weeks ago, and I had a tremendous urge to bake it. They just looked and sounded so wonderful. I wanted to bake a mattress-sized one to nap on. But maybe that's too much information ...
My mixer, hard at work (it was the weekend, I was relaxing)
The bun dough, pre-rise
The bun dough, post-rise--go, dough, go!
As I'd read from countless blogs, this dough really was very easy to work with as I rolled it out
I rolled the dough, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, into a "cigar"
Pre-proof tester pan that I baked for me and my friend, Sheka, who was my weekend guest
Baking the buns. I just love looking into the window (just like when I wash laundry). The buns seemed to breathe as they baked, heaving and growing. I might have been scared if I hadn't been so fascinated. And hungry.
The baked buns and the resulting sticky pan from overflow
I baked the buns too long, so the caramel got too hot, reaching the temperature necessary to make hard caramel candy--the last thing you want with sticky buns. I tasted a bit of the caramel, and welded my jaw shut as I tried to chew it. The problem was remedied after 30 seconds in the microwave, but for the rest of the buns, I made a mental note to pull them from the oven a little earlier when I baked the rest the next day so they wouldn't need the extra help and just stay soft. I shaped and retarded the buns in the fridge overnight, but that's a whole other post.
Dinner with Sheka was yum
It was delicious, and by the time I'd finished cooking it, we were both starving, so there were no photos: steamed butternut squash and turkey sausage cooked in homemade tomato sauce (onion, garlic, thyme, rosemary, oregano, salt, tomato paste) with spinach. Sheka, a photographer, was playing with my new camera, and she took these last two photos. After 15 minutes of playing with it, she'd found out more features that I had after more than two weeks of fussing with it.
Butternut squash--Sheka was excited to see how easy it was to cook it. She'd never really had squash, and I chose it after she told me she liked sweet potatoes. I just halved it, seeded it, peeled it, cubed it, salted and seasoned it in a microwave(gasp)-proof bowl, covered it with plastic wrap punctured with a dozen steam vents, then nuked it for twenty minutes. It's one of my favorite quick-and-easy sides.
The turkey sausage in the raw
***
Edit: I had leftovers. =D
Once again, the market looked bigger. It was an absolutely gorgeous morning to be out and about, and I ran into my friend, Chris W, while I was there.
Breakfast was from Sapna Chill Out Cafe--very yummy fish and potato soup, but a bit too much parsley (or too big a leaf, rather)
I picked up a P&M tiramisu
And my friend got a P&M eclair after I raved about the cream puffs, which uses the same pastry cream
This week's haul, most notably, lemon cucumber from Crooked Sky Farms, which always has at least one thing I've never seen, more green tomatoes from One Windmill Farm, and eggplant manicotti from Raimondo's--I finally tried a sample, and it was delicious, using veggies instead of pasta to make low-carb pasta
I still have last week's giant zucchini from Crooked Sky Farms. It will probably make it's way into some soup this week
Baking experiment
I'd seen this sticky bun recipe on dozens of blogs a couple of weeks ago, and I had a tremendous urge to bake it. They just looked and sounded so wonderful. I wanted to bake a mattress-sized one to nap on. But maybe that's too much information ...
My mixer, hard at work (it was the weekend, I was relaxing)
The bun dough, pre-rise
The bun dough, post-rise--go, dough, go!
As I'd read from countless blogs, this dough really was very easy to work with as I rolled it out
I rolled the dough, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, into a "cigar"
Pre-proof tester pan that I baked for me and my friend, Sheka, who was my weekend guest
Baking the buns. I just love looking into the window (just like when I wash laundry). The buns seemed to breathe as they baked, heaving and growing. I might have been scared if I hadn't been so fascinated. And hungry.
The baked buns and the resulting sticky pan from overflow
I baked the buns too long, so the caramel got too hot, reaching the temperature necessary to make hard caramel candy--the last thing you want with sticky buns. I tasted a bit of the caramel, and welded my jaw shut as I tried to chew it. The problem was remedied after 30 seconds in the microwave, but for the rest of the buns, I made a mental note to pull them from the oven a little earlier when I baked the rest the next day so they wouldn't need the extra help and just stay soft. I shaped and retarded the buns in the fridge overnight, but that's a whole other post.
Dinner with Sheka was yum
It was delicious, and by the time I'd finished cooking it, we were both starving, so there were no photos: steamed butternut squash and turkey sausage cooked in homemade tomato sauce (onion, garlic, thyme, rosemary, oregano, salt, tomato paste) with spinach. Sheka, a photographer, was playing with my new camera, and she took these last two photos. After 15 minutes of playing with it, she'd found out more features that I had after more than two weeks of fussing with it.
Butternut squash--Sheka was excited to see how easy it was to cook it. She'd never really had squash, and I chose it after she told me she liked sweet potatoes. I just halved it, seeded it, peeled it, cubed it, salted and seasoned it in a microwave(gasp)-proof bowl, covered it with plastic wrap punctured with a dozen steam vents, then nuked it for twenty minutes. It's one of my favorite quick-and-easy sides.
The turkey sausage in the raw
***
Edit: I had leftovers. =D
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