Lily’s Blog, Dragon Absconded!
Baking Until I Drop

As I may have mentioned before, Insha Allah انشاء الله Chennette and I will be making Hajj (pilgrimage) this year (November/December).

To document our adventures, we’ve launched a new blog! Our Hajj Blog: Lilandra and Chennette make Hajj.

I know, I know. I have so much readers at this blog that I think launching a new blog is the way to appeal to my large audience (hahaha! well maybe Chennette’s readership will visit…or at least our family who won’t be in Saudi Arabia at the time).

Anywayz, I just did the whole backlog of posts that I was supposed to do since APRIL!.
Here’s the first post.

A slice of Lemon Meringue Pie, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

I made Rose Levy Beranbaum‘s Lemon Meringue Pie from The Pie and Pastry Bible this weekend.

Oh my lord. So many instructions. So many details.

Will I do it again? Who knows.
Mom says next time it will be quicker (as I’ve done it already).

I’m perfectly willing to make lots of crust ahead of time and freeze it.
However, I need to figure out what I did wrong.

Now…what went wrong – this of course doesn’t mean the recipe’s bad…just the poor lowly follower of instructions.

Lemon Meringue Pie Crust, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

She had 3 lists for her flaky pastry and I followed the second (deep dish 9″ pie). I made it on Saturday.
I think I needed more crust. It was a bit too thin. And yes I had a leftover ball (tiny so wouldn’t've been enough for more crust) but maybe if I measured the thickness I would’ve needed to make more crust.
I also like crisper crust. Maybe I didn’t bake it enough? The crust itself? I was scared of burning it. Maybe I needed to shield the sides.
Also, I didn’t have pastry flour. And mom says we had all-purpose flower. But who knows about protein content of our flours. Not me. Anywayz, I did 2/3 all-purpose flour and 1/3 whole wheat flour. I’m not sure if it tasted how it was supposed to. I will reread the book.

Lemon Meringue Pie Filling, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

The lemon filling was awesome. I did this Monday evening. It wasn’t brightly yellow like mom’s. It was very very very tart. I could taste a hint of sweetness (but not always) but VERY VERY TART. Yum. I don’t think I would change a thing about it (except for convenience…there’s a limit to how much washing up I want to do).
I should experiment, less corn starch, more corn starch; less egg yolks (mom had a fit over 8 egg yolks. Dunno why. As Chennette reminded me, I’ve used that many eggs for brownies already).

The Meringue, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

The meringue (she calls it an Italian meringue?) was very light and very nice. And not very sweet. I’m thinking since the filling was soooooo tart maybe I could’ve done with a sweeter meringue. Not very sweet mind you, just a little bit sweeter. Although I had issues with the crust, the taste of crust + meringue was very good, as good as I ever want it to be.

Now, on the whole, well…maybe it weeped. Or maybe the meringue dripped. Or maybe the powdered sugar I sprinkled over the top melted and dripped. While it was resting (okay! we didn’t have any patience, we waited 1 1/2 hours as opposed to the 2 1/2 to 3 hours…maybe that’s why it didn’t come out so cleanly…hehehe…) around half of it there was liquid pooling.

But, I really liked the pie. The flavour of the lemon filling and the meringue was great. It was really just the crust that disappointed. Maybe it was the whole wheat. Maybe it was the baking. Maybe it was the protein content. But, I shall try again (with the crust!!! who knows about the pie).

Now, 3 people and 1 pie?
*sigh*
fattening

You can see the rest of the set here.

Hops Bread, Baked, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

This is how our evening started.

Mom: Lilandra, what you doing? Come downstairs with me, nah. I going to make hops.
Me: Okay then well I will come make the crust (for my lemon meringue pie).
Mom: (as she’s going down the corridor) and print out TriniGourmet’s recipe. You just have to copy and paste the recipe into TextEdit and print it.

So, I did.

Anywayz, mom and dad’s coolpix was downstairs (I brought it down so she could take pictures of her orchids but…is she willing??? NOOOO!!!). And I was tired. So I took pictures with it. I told her she could post them as hers but she told me to blog them.

But she only used it as a guide…or…to see how different hops go. This is mom’s recipe:

Hops Bread

Ingredients

• 1 package dry yeast
• 2 tsp sugar
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 8 cups white flour
• 2.5 cups warm water
• 1 tsp salt

Method

1. Dissolve sugar in warm water.
2. Dissolve yeast in sugar and water; mom let it stay a minute or so after dissolving.
3. Add flour, baking powder and salt to the liquid.
4. Stir and knead until it was smooth and elastic (5 minutes or so).
5. Pour some water over the dough and cover it and let it rise until it doubles in size (20 minutes).
6. Punch down dough and knead again and cover and let it rise until it doubles in size again.
7. Grease tray with shortening.
8. Punch down dough and pinch and shape into balls (mom made 15) and place on the tray.
9. Let it rise until it fills the tray (or gets to a suitable size).
10. Preheat oven (say 375F – 400F)
11. Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until nice and medium brown.

The rest of the set is here.
But, look at the nice inside texture!

Hops Bread, Inside, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

I like baking (except the hot oven).
I like desserts and pies. Stove top is nice but but I don’t think I really know what to do with meat.
I love the oven.

I’m amazed whenever I see a bread dough rise (well I guess when I make the dough) and I feel the different texture.
And then it comes out how I want it.

Making bagels were fun. I wish they came out better.

I’m not sure about cakes. They’re okay. But they have to be seriously interesting.

Maybe if I bake myself through many interesting recipes I’ll learn something.

How do you graduate from someone who can bake (or cook for that matter) by recipe to someone who can do it without a recipe…just on knowledge?

I want to be that person…who can bake nice breads without needing recipes…pies and sweet desserts.

Maybe I just need to dedicate myself.

Well I searched.
The last post I made about our ISP was in January 2007…when we downgraded our package from 256k/64k to 128k/64k.

Whoa it’s been a long while.
Well eventually we sorta got okay service. I mean it was around the 128k download. The upload as usual sucked…it was closer to say 40 if I was lucky.

Some months ago (February? or was it end of last year? … hmm February when the babies left the house and I went to Guyana) they started offering their TT$201/month for 128k/64k package. It was a promotion. Mom said lots of people at work signed up.

Well we were then paying TT$316.25/month for the same so we got a call about the new pricing (wow!) and did we want to remain at 128k or stay at TT$316.25 for 256k. Mom said wait til I get home but let’s try your 256k for a month.

So we tried it for a month and it was okay. Faster. They did things to try to get our upload okay. They also did things to try to get our download okay. (Anthony?)

So we’ve been on it for a few months. I’ve never felt compelled to check after the first month. But i did a speed test tonight.

And as usual the upload sucked. It sucks worse now tho. So I will check it a few times.

Here it is!

I was considering upgrading to a higher package for the “summer” influx of people to the house. We shall see.

I guess we might have to sort out all our billing issues first.