In the last two days I have made cookies and soup in addition to
squeezing three large oranges and zesting the skins.
If my children read this (not likely) they will be convinced
someone else wrote it. When my children think of me, it has nothing to do
with my cooking.
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| There are two more containers in the back |
First the soup.
I made a batch of Quinoa Vegetable soup. I didn't have the
required paprika (what? That has to be remedied immediately) and I used
shredded carrots not called for in the recipe (I bought them to use in the
cookies and had left overs). It takes time to sauté, boil, simmer, add, simmer
some more, cool and package. I had a yield of eight containers. There are only
six in the freezer, because I gave one away and consumed another. That took up
the morning.
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| I can count. There are not 9 cookies on that plate...but I know where the missing ones are! Yum. |
On to the cookies.
I found this recipe from a Facebook link. Anything calling itself
CARROT CAKE in whole or in part will get my total attention. As unbelievably
beyond delicious these carrot cake sandwich cookies are...way too labor
intensive for such a small yield.
First the carrots have to be tenderized with brown sugar.
Then the batter is prepared and the carrots added. The batter is
supposed to make 28 cookies. No way. I got 19...which means nine and one half
cookie sandwiches.
While the cookies are baking the filling is made.
Cookies baked and cooled. Filling spread on one cookie and capped
with another cookie.
Now the tasting. Out of this world good. BUT...for all this work,
and all I had was 9 1/2 cookies? It's late afternoon...I'm exhausted from a
whole day of cooking.
I have soup in the freezer and cookie sandwiches on a plate. After
a couple hours rest, I was able to appreciate life is good.
Now for the orange zest.
And here we are today (Wednesday). Because I needed orange zest
for the cookies, I bought three large navel oranges on sale. I needed one
teaspoon of zest. (Oh, come on. I bet you've done the same thing). I took my
one teaspoon of zest yesterday so today I needed to zest the rest of the
oranges.
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| Mmmmm. Look at all that delicious pulp! I actually ate it. |
First I squeezed the oranges for their juice. Not going to let
that go to waste and I don’t like to eat oranges. Then I proceeded to scrape
the skins. In retrospect I should have done it the other way around.
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| A little messy. |
It took me a few tries to get the hang of zesting an orange and
not my wrist or knuckles (It won’t take long for them to heal).
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| My kitchen smells amazing! |
The zest is currently drying on a paper towel so I can package it
in small amounts and freeze. An internet video I saw, stated that you cannot
buy zest in the grocery stores. If you think I'm ever going to do this again
you have another thing coming! I probably have enough to sell for a hefty
profit!
I hope you enjoy the pictures. I took these not so much as a
show-and-tell, but as a warning to anyone thinking of doing the same thing.
Think twice!
I slept in this morning. I earned it. Now, will someone please
keep reminding me that just because I said I’m going to accomplish such and so
all in one day, doesn’t mean I really have to. Just because I said I was going
to do this all in one day, I felt obliged to. Now I get it. I need to
acknowledge when enough is enough. Ok. I have enough soup and nowhere near
enough cookies!
