Over the past while, I've been experimenting on all kinds of things. I made my first layer cake. Can you believe that? I'm pretty old, and I made my first layer cake. And I really thought it was going to be all screwed up, the angel cakes were too short to trim down, and my pastry cream (pistachio) just seemed way too thin (at first/fine when it had time to chill). But honestly, it came out pretty well, it looked nice, made everything from scratch, now the cursive on the cake itself looked like fifth grade, but otherwise, I was really delighted with it And it tasted really good, especially the pastry cream.
Got a silicone mold and made candy, that came out good. I evidently DID temper my chocolate correctly, it was nice and hard and shiny the way it should be, like a shell. Have made truffles before, this was my first foray into actual shell chocolate. Used the pistachio butter from the cake in the candy, needs nuts next time.
Finally got a sharp knife for my sushi. Made another batch of hummus, that was REALLY good. This homemade hummus, it really is so much better than the store stuff, and it's not anything I'm doing, it's just the ingredients, it's pretty basic. They just taste good and it's hard to mess it up, all I had to do was spring for some quality chickpeas, lol.
Am trying to figure out what I can make tonight with the strangest assortment of ingredients EVER seen. Think I'm going to do cheddar and broccoli soup. I've got cream, cheddar, some other cheeses for backup singers, and broccoli. Agreed this has been one strange winter, soup seems like a good idea.