Weekend adventures in baking

I had an unusual amount of free time this weekend, as I only had to drop into lab briefly on Saturday morning to maintain some cells. I made an ambitious list for the apartment, the garden, although the kitchen ended up dominating my time. When I have a few hours on Sunday (and I've been successful in my grocery shopping), I like to make lunches for the week and portion them out ahead of time - a trick my sister taught me, and one that makes me much more likely to bring my lunch to lab instead of buying it (saving me money and probably healthier as well). So I made herb dijon salmon (which is totes delicious, but I can't claim credit for it - I love Trader Joe's selections of pre-marinated meats that come with clear and easy-to-follow instructions, so even a recovering semi-vegetarian like me can follow them).

Lunches for the week! It uses almost the same number of leftover dishes I would if I separated the meal parts, but so much easier to just grab and go.

To accompany, I sauteed some frozen green beans I had (also from TJ's) and decided to roast some baby potatoes as well (also from TJ's, if you notice a theme). I tossed them in around a tablespoon or so of garlic-infused olive oil (from...well, you get the idea), and then cut up and threw in some dill, thyme, rosemary, and one sage leaf from my window. The first official use of my herbs! I was overly delighted by this. The potatoes came prewashed (much appreciated!) and after some good tossing in a bowl, I simply threw them in the oven in a pan for thirty minutes at 400F. I probably should/could have roasted them for less time - for potatoes this small, twenty minutes would be plenty. But they came out smelling delicious and looking lovely. As a side dish, it couldn't get any easier - no measuring, very little cleanup, and quite fast. For larger potatoes, I would cut them into pieces, but these are the perfect size bite whole. I can't claim originality for this idea - found through supercook.com - although the dill was my idea as I thought it would accompany the salmon well. Next time, I would throw in some sea salt and pepper as well to help spice it up more.

Setting the stage - an overabundance of all things Trader Joe's. I would highly recommend the olive oil for anyone who enjoys garlic - it adds great flavor to just about anything.

Just before the oven - my, what wonderfully chopped herbs you have.

I also put my three herbs (minus the dill) to good use in a buttermilk biscuit recipe I found online. I love biscuits of any kind, so this recipe was right up my alley. I was liberal with the amount of herbs I put in, and I also tossed in a good handful of grated sharp cheddar - because how could cheese not go with this? I didn't do drop biscuits, instead rolling out the dough and cutting them with my improvised biscuit cutter (classy, I know).

Butter, pre-melting. It already smelled delicious, although I wondered why the recipe didn't just put all these herbs directly into the dough.

Sometimes you gotta make it up as you go. As long as the edge is floured well beforehand, this actually works quite well.

Smeared with butter and ready to go in the oven!

You can see the cheese now that it's baked and melted. I paid for early sampling with a burnt tongue, but it was totally worth it.

Next time I would add significantly more cheese and also put more of the herbs actually in the dough. However, the texture of the biscuits turned out beautifully and they would be wonderful with soups, stews, or eggs for breakfast. They weren't good enough for me to convert from my standard baking powder biscuit recipe (the one adapted to produce this berry shortcake), but I'm glad I tried them.

That was the end of my window garden-based cooking adventures, but I didn't stop there. Jenn, a friend whose baking I can only aspire to, gifted me a donut tray some time ago, and I was eager to try it out. I ended up trying out this recipe, with more vanilla and a dash of cardamom added (I have a slight obsession for cardamom, so I will toss in a pinch with just about any dessert I make).

First time use of the donut tray! I had no idea what to expect....

...but they turned out pretty near perfect.

The donuts fresh out of the oven reminded me of bagels, which have now gone on my list of "some day" baking. They were a wonderful, light texture but a bit tasteless pre-sugar. And after sugar - well, how could they not taste good?

Doused in butter and rolled in cinnamon sugar! I have no idea how the missing bite came about from the top donut. Must've been the dog.

 I ended my baking adventures with this recipe for what claimed to be "homemade oreos." They ended up being somewhere between a whoopie pie and the classic sandwich cookie - not a bad thing! I took the cookies out of my oven at exactly nine minutes as the recipe called for, even though my oven usually takes a few minutes longer. This left the cookies chewy (delicious - I much prefer soft cookies to crisp ones). I didn't have any vegetable shortening, so I only used butter for the filling - next time I would definitely use a lighter, fluffier filling, more akin to whoopie pies than this recipe. Overall, though, a wonderful baking weekend, and now I have lunches and sweets to spare!

Vodka + vanilla beans = cheap vanilla for baking (you can also use other alcohols). This bottle had been sitting in my room at my parents' house for years (not for drinking but as a centerpiece for the ads I used to collect), and I finally opened it up and put it to use.

The cookies just out of the oven, cooling. I was pleased that they remained soft, even the next day.

My presentation may be lacking, but they certainly tasted delicious. And quite like oreos, though strangely the individual components did not. It's a mystery.