ate-teen

First things first - brownie/blondie dessert duo for breakfast in bed shot in daylight looks much better.

The real breakfast was a thick slice of olive bread with olive oil. Eaten tucked in while trying to understand the overarching message in Frozen II.

On today's episode of 'weird eats in desperation,' I carried a bread pudding salad gravy bowl thing to the top of what everyone affectionately calls the treehouse.

The components:

meat... Chinese sausage, thickly sliced and crisped up in pan

carb... leftover brioche, toasted in remaining sausage fat + a bit of pork fat

veg... carrot pickles from Ugly Pickle Co goodies I got at farmer's market volunteering

sauce... oat milk gravy made from the drippings and stuck on flavor bits left in the pan and I couldn't in good conscious just scrub it all away in the sink

I know. Really fucking weird.

But it fucking worked. The sweetness of the sausage, the toasted bread with the occasional roasty chili bite, the tangy dill-y pickles, all enrobed in the thick creamy gravy. Adding this accident to the list of recipes to refine.

The main event of today though were these mushroom buns (生煎包) with 'confetti' wrappers.

the outsides:

2c flour

3g yeast

1/2t sugar

3/4c warm water

2t corn meal

1t parsley

1t buckwheat

1t paprika

-mix mix mix

-knead knead knead

-rise rise rise

-cut cut cut, roll roll roll, fold fold fold

the insides:

button mushrooms, sliced and sauteed to cook out moisture

rehydrated dried shiitakes, sliced

rehydrated dried mushrooms of two other types that I randomly picked out at my usual Asian market for zongzi but really any variety of mushrooms will do, sliced

onion, garlic, ginger (aromatics)

shaoxin cooking wine

cumin seed, fennel seed, Sichuan peppercorn, chili peppers, toasted and ground (Xi'an spice mix)

frozen peas

fermented black beans

rehydrated dried mussels, chopped (option to add dehydrated shrimpies too)

sesame oil

-sautee aromatics

-dump in all mushrooms and mussels with some of soaking liquid and shaoxin wine

-add in generous amount of spice mix + salt to taste

-blend all that up with black beans and more soaking liquid

-fold in frozen peas and drizzle in sesame oil

Ugh, literally sooooo good. So yum. I wish I had a billion more of these. And I would swim in them.