MMM BAKING. Basic cooking questions.

[cjsmith]

I came home last night to discover that Rob, when tidying up to leave for the weekend, had tossed three perfectly good squishy brown bananas into the trash. Those are now in a big loaf of banana bread. (It turns out they weren't quite squishy enough yet, but they were fine after sufficient violence from me.)

Then I pulled out the Northern beans I was soaking for soup [original typo: soap] and tried to figure out what to do with them given that the local grocery store didn't have a ham bone. Seriously. They had ham hocks... SMOKED ones. Last time I substituted meat-that-had-had-something-done-to-it for meat in a recipe I was very sorry. So I turned that into a sort of Tuscan white bean and sausage soup. Do you have any idea how hard it is to concentrate on chopping up stuff for soup when the aroma of banana bread is taking over your brain?

Now I could start a yeast bread dough rising, and I should, soon, if I want fondue tonight, but I'm restin' my feet for a bit.

Time for a poll:

[Poll #1143214]

Comments

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Nah, there's one here in Fremont, about four blocks from my house. There's *definitely* at least one in San Jose, on Winchester.

You want ham bones? Email me, I'll get you ham bones :):).

(Although I actually prefer smoked ham hocks in split pea soup and in white beans.)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Huh. I'll have to keep an eye out.

Now that I know you'd use a smoked ham hock, I'll give that a try next time. This particular soup (it was going to be Senate bean soup) didn't seem to "want" to be smoky, but I guess I don't truly know, never having made it or eaten it before. I admit I'm a little intimidated/annoyed by the smoked ham hocks being sold in packs of four. What the heck does a non-cook do with three extra smoked ham hocks? (My freezer needs room for soup!)

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Split pea soup!!

How big is your freezer? Because I could *so* hook you up with soups made with ham hocks, split peas, potato leek, white bean...

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

It's a regular fridge/freezer combo with the freezer on the top. Rob gets half for his stuff, I get half for mine, and I use the door for ice packs. I keenly desire more freezer space.

Off topic: WOW is it ever raining out there.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

As my darling Uncle Horace would have said, it's *pissing* rain.

[bendoutdoors.livejournal.com]

There's a Honey Baked Ham in Palo Alto on El Camino, walking distance from Mark & Tim's.