Tonight I made my first meal in a gas oven, and it went well! I am pleased that I own an oven thermometer, though; it certainly came in handy. I made the Cheater Baked Beans from Veganomicon (“cheater” because made with canned beans)–and admittedly baked beans are not incredibly photogenic, but these were tasty, if a little sweet for my taste. I make a lot of things from this cookbook, but I feel like I’ve barely made a dint in the recipes I want to try from it! Then I made the strawberry rose water cobbler with poppy seed lemon crust from the same book. I’ve not made many cobblers: my family was always more of a crisp-making family when it came to fruit desserts. I was kind of expecting a biscuit-like crust, but it called for oil instead of Earth Balance or shortening, jarring me out of my biscuit/pastry-method comfort zone, and ended up needing far more flour than called for. The end result was more of a muffin lattice than a biscuit lattice, but I enjoy lemon poppy seed muffins as much as the next guy…
The natural lighting was gone by now, and I find that my new apartment doesn’t have much in the way of food-appropriate lighting after dark.
Tags: beans
