The Kitchen Playground

Some days I should just get the hell out of the kitchen. In my defense I was distracted more times than usual by a not very well little boy which made me more hurried and slapdash than usual.

I had intended to make stuffed mushrooms for dinner with a ricotta based stuffing. Not real ricotta, a sort of faux ricotta made of soft milky curds. True ricotta is a cheese by product made of whey and the whey has to be fresh so I only make the real thing after a bout of cheesemaking. Anyway, I pulled some milk out of the freezer last night to defrost but when I got home from work today I found that only 1 liter had defrosted. Silly old me decided to plough on with scant regard for the fact that the total expected yield of cheese from 1 lite of milk is about 1/2 cup. What a waste of time. Disaster number 1.

So I quickly defrosted some steak for dinner tonight and the mushrooms can wait until tomorrow when I will have sufficient yield of cheese to make them. Steak and salad is clearly as much as I can handle today.

The next disaster was the crackers. I thought I’d quickly throw together a batch of some form of savoury crackers. What I did throw was caution to the wind and added too much water too quickly and didn’t have enough flour milled to soak it all up. By this time I was feeling too distracted to clean the thermoix and mill some more so I went hunting in the pantry to see what I could substitute and avoid wasting the dough. All I could find was almond meal. I’ll post the recipe as a cautionary tale. Actually the result was quite OK, edible, but certainly not a perfect marriage of flavours. I hedged my bets by using the dog shaped cookie cutter. That way I knew the kids would eat them even if they tasted like horse dung. Like I’ve mentioned before, waste is a dirty word around here.

How Not To make Crackers
200g spelt flour
110g butter
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoon tandoori spice
1 thermomix mixing cup water
115g almond meal

Mix first 4 ingredients until it resembles breadcrumbs. In the thermomix 6 seconds on speed 5. Add water. Mix again (another 6 seconds on speed 5) Kick self for adding too much water to quickly. Add almond meal. Mix again (another 5 seconds on speed 5). Roll out to 1/2 cm thickness and cut with cookie cutters. Bake in moderate oven for 10 – 15 minute (I didn’t pay much attention to time either) or until a smell from the kitchen indicates they’re ready. If crisp and slightly browned, they are. By a miracle I didn’t burn any of them.

Now leave the kitchen before you cause any more trouble!