Recipe Reduction 173...170

Baked Apple Chips

This recipe could have been reduced to a short paragraph: Slice apples thinly, sprinkle cinnamon. Bake at 230 F for one hour. Flip, resprinkle, bake another hour. Turn off oven and let them cool for two hours.

There's no way I could mess that up, is there?  But here's the killer last sentence:
    They will crisp up in this time.
Mine didn't.





Last Saturday's cooking started off with:
Balthazar's Cream of Mushrooom Soup.
(Adapted from The Balthazar Cookbook by Smitten Kitchen)

It was heavenly of course, although I was cruely deceived on the mushrooms. The store packages shitake in the same size carton as white button mushrooms, but they only put 3.5 ounces of the shitake compared to 8 ounces of the button.  Plus, the stems of shitake are sometimes tough and unusable--there goes another third of the weight. 
(Note to me: next time, cut off the stems and soak them in some warm water. The water can then be strained and added to the soup.)

Next came these
Beer Marinated Baked Sweet Potato Fries
from Yup, it's Vegan
The recipe did not include salt, but for once, I could imagine someone eating these without salt. Especially with lots of ketchup.

It's an interesting idea--slice up your sweet potato, soak it in beer for 20 minutes, then bake. I hated wasting an entire can of beer for this and it makes me wonder...would the fries have tasted the same without the sacrificial beer?


Then I burned a rib-eye steak for the husband's dinner. Picture withheld.






I finished up with an almost inedible Orange-Cranberry Crisp. Cranberries are just too blame sour for me. I've made crisps before--crisps can be delightful. This one just tasted like baked oranges and cranberries with dry oats and pecans sprinkled on top. D-

(I'd give it an F but decided to use it as a topping for my breakfast oatmeal next week. I'm okay with breakfast being a little on the tangy side.)