something new to bake
August 11, 2015, 3:03 P.M.

It was a rather boring, dreary weekend. We stayed home and vegged out a lot. Did the minimum necessary running around, and ditto the housework. We were both beat after a long week.  We cooked a lot:  I made Spouse a nice Friday-night  dinner of homemade meatloaf, mashed potatoes & gravy, and fresh green beans, steamed & buttered.  He returned the compliment on Saturday  night, with fantastic BBQ ribs & baked potatoes, which I rounded out with scalloped corn.  Sunday, he made eggs, potatoes and SPAM for breakfast, and a Pressure Cooker Pot Roast for dinner. We've been too tired to do anything but pickup meals after work lately, so I think we were both jonesing for some real food.



The most exciting part of the weekend was when I got pissed during another fruitless trip to the pet store for B's treats.  Never finding what I need finally got me steamed to the point where I came home from shopping and baked him a homemade batch of wheat-free peanut butter biscuits my own damn self.  And you know what? I will be doing it again, too. He loves them, and I would rather spend my time doing that than searching in vain, all over hell and gone, for a treat that meets all the criteria: they're wheat-free, he LIKES them, and  I can AFFORD them! Pretty simple, too. 



The recipe called for whole wheat flour, but I just substituted  1 for 1 with a rice-flour based baking blend. Take 2.5 cups of rice-flour blend (I used Betty Crocker), 1 cup natural peanut butter (thank goodness I had my big jars of Costco natural PB), 2 tablespoons of honey, 1 egg, 1 tsp. baking powder, and 1 cup or so of water, bung it all together and smoosh it around till it looks like cookie dough. The directions said to roll out and use cookie cutters, but I just make it like I would people peanut butter cookies, only smaller (rolled into balls and flattened with the crossed tines of a fork). Bake at 350 for at least twenty minutes, until golden brown and very firm. Cool completely on wire racks, and fill up the biscuit jar!



The rice-flour blend was pricey (nearly $4 for a pound of it), so I think next time, I'm going to buy some store-brand rolled oats, and make my own oat flour in the food processor. I have a carrot cookie recipe I want to try, or maybe make some with mashed banana.



Yeah, he's spoiled. But I like to bake, so I do get something out of it myself.



Oh, yeah--I stayed home on Monday, because I felt like I  needed to. I just didn't have the oomph I needed to blast myself out of the house. Sometime the black monster gets on top of me, and I can't fight it off.



READING:

Too down to read anything but the easy stuff, so I'm re-reading: The Tucker Twins series, by Nell Speed. Just finished book 2: "Vacation with the Tucker Twins" (1916).



LISTENING:

U2, Jake Bugg, Amos Lee, the Cars.



INKED UP:

Re-filled a Pilot cartridge with Waterman Tender Purple (sample), and popped it into the Metro. I think I've found the purple I was looking for--true, clear, deep, and well-behaved.