5 January, 2023

Notes on a recipe

Category: Food — Moose @ 8:46 am

Up far too early this morning (this is becoming a bad habit that I need to break), so I decided to try my hand at adapting a biscuit recipe (Butter Swim Biscuits) to my particular dietary needs. Substituted Buttery Sticks for the butter (my favorite margarine – doesn’t have a lot of excess water like some others do), and Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour for the all-purpose stuff, because that’s what I had on hand (we try to keep King Arthur’s Gluten-free Measure For Measure in the house, too, but we haven’t done a good BJ’s run in a while). And last but not least, almond milk with apple cider vinegar for the butter milk (and for posterity, the ratio is one teaspoon vinegar per cup of milk, which works with both dairy and non-dairy milks when you don’t have buttermilk around the house).

Made it this time according to the recipe, and cooked it for the maximum time (25 minutes). Not bad, the flavor bones are definitely there, but a little too gummy/moist at the end. It did have a lovely thin crust on the edges. I’ll try cooking them for longer next time, and letting them sit for a little bit in the pan before I cut them to let the bake finish. Gluten free biscuits are something of a holy grail, because the flour just doesn’t react in the same ways that wheat flour does. This, though, came closer than most other recipes I’ve tried. I think with some tinkering of the baking times, and perhaps a tweak to the amount of liquids (butter and milk), that we’ll have a winner.

2 January, 2023

Small steps

Category: Habits — Moose @ 7:31 am

I’ve gradually moved away from the giant lists of previous years (remember über lists?), and while I am doing a short list of things I’d like to accomplish this year, I’m more focused on small changes rather than grand announcements. Like adding an additional exercise to my morning mobility routine, or using the electric toothbrush before bed. Things that are easy to try out and see if they’re worth working into my routines or not. I’m very much a creature of routines, and I like Fogg’s Tiny Habits method. I’m also a sucker for a good checklist, and I love gaming, so Habitica scratches those itches well. I did take some time this past week to weed out a couple of things there that were no longer useful, and add some new ones to try out. So far so good, two days into the year. 😉