More Stuff to Make This Week

Funfetti Cookies

These freeze and thaw incredibly well. Sameer has a potluck at work on Tuesday, and this recipe is the one I'd recommend making for it because it's easy, you don't usually see it at potlucks (unlike brownies and chocolate chip cookies), and it's delicious. I'd make them on a cool weather day this week and freeze them until Monday, then let them thaw till Tuesday, at which point they'll taste like they were just baked (I found some in the back of the freezer once months after I'd made them, and they were still wonderful). It's going to be in the 90's next week, which is why I'd make them in advance.

Baked Potato Skins

The high will be in the 60's tomorrow, so I'm going to use the oven without fear of making the house too hot. I'll be making pav bhaji for dinner, but I will still have leftover russet potatoes, so I'm going to bake however many are left and make them into potato skins for one component of a nice junk food dinner this weekend. I eat the scooped out potato centers with butter and sour cream, which I already have in the fridge. 

Granola

Sim has already almost finished the entire batch of granola I made the other day. I think she'll finish it at breakfast tomorrow. I have all the ingredients to make another batch while it's cool out tomorrow, so I'm going to do that.

Foaming Hand Soap

I made another batch today to fill up my various foaming hand soap dispensers in my various bathrooms. I put 1/2 cup avocado oil (I normally use sweet almond, but avocado was the one I had the biggest surplus of today), 1 cup unscented liquid castile soap, 3 cups filtered water, and 25 (too many? we shall see) drops of lemon essential oil and it pretty much filled a large Soft Soap refill bottle. I've been refilling the same Soft Soap refill bottle with my own DIY foaming soap for a few years now. I'm still figuring out how to make scents I like as much as expensive foaming soap, but the quality is just as good.

Let's Use Some Stuff Up

It's cool enough to cook with the oven today and tomorrow without it negatively impacting the temperature of my house, but next week is going to be hot, so I'm doing some cooking right now. I have been going through my pantry and have some things I want to use up. Plus snack food is super expensive right now (everything is super expensive right now, but processed foods are worse), so I might as well save a few dollars by making my own. Here is what I'm making:

Granola

Because I have more nuts and dried fruit than I know what to do with (I went with pistachios and craisins this time), plus half a jar of unrefined coconut oil whose days are numbered and a jar of honey that has already started to crystallize. This used up most of my old-fashioned rolled oats, but that's okay. I can get more. [Edited: 5/20/23: Sim said this is the best homemade granola she's ever tasted and tied for first place ever with the granola served at the hotel restaurant where we breakfasted in London. She ate a bunch as a snack when she got home from school yesterday and had two platefuls for breakfast this morning. This will definitely be a repeat recipe.]

Crackers

I have a variety of flours that could go into this, plus dried herbs. And the last time I made crackers, they all got eaten right away. I made this batch with 1 cup AP flour and 2 cups rye flour, and I seasoned them on top with onion & herb Mrs. Dash, sesame seeds, and sea salt. [Edited 5/20/23: These came out fine. We'll eat them. But next time I should use parchment paper because my silicone baking mats don't get hot enough to make the crackers really crispy. And maybe more salt (I used way less than the recipe dictated) and a different herb blend that doesn't have onion or garlic pieces in it because they're a bit bitter. These will be great with vegan snacking cheese though. Especially the cheddar pub cheese one.]

Rye Bread (Bread Machine Recipe)

I have so much rye flour from when we were in a pandemic and I was trying to make sourdough rye bread and I could only buy rye flour in bulk online. I try not to use the oven too much during hot weather because I want to limit how hard I'm making my air conditioner work, but I do have a bread machine that goes from ingredients to baked bread loaf in one little machine that doesn't heat up my house, so I'm going to try this recipe. Not today, but definitely soon. 

Mocha Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

Because I have more ripe bananas than can comfortably fit in my freezer banana bag at the moment, and these muffins are delicious and freeze really well when there are leftovers.

Hot Cocoa Mix

I don't love this as hot cocoa, but when I use something along the lines of 1 part cocoa mix to 2 parts unsweetened soy milk, and blend it in my blender with about 16 oz of ice, it makes really fantastic frozen hot chocolate. I have some dry milk powder in my pantry that needs to be used up, so it's becoming (a scaled down, small amount of) frozen hot cocoa mix.

Cleaning Out the Fridge

Yesterday I got bored and made a couple things to use up leftovers in the fridge/freezer.  Clearing out leftovers is the goal that brings me joy between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Yesterday I made:

 

Cherry Pie Wontons

 

I made these from leftover wonton wrappers, about 1.5 cups frozen tart cherries (which I only ever buy because it's hard to find a bag of all sweet cherries anymore), some sugar and a tiny bit of corn starch. I basically just made a scaled down amount of cherry pie filling, put it in the wontons, sealed them with a mixture of equal parts water and flour, and fried them in a shallow amount of oil.

 

Cream Cheese and Green Onion Wontons 

 

I didn't have enough cherries to use up all the wonton wrappers on cherry pie wontons, so I used package of cream cheese, a little garlic powder, and a couple extra green onions I had on hand for making one pot peanut sauce noodles next week. Successfully finished off the wonton wrappers.