June Daring Bakers’ Challenge: Baklava!

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Erica of Erica’s Edibles was our host for the Daring Baker’s June challenge.  Erica challenged us to be truly DARING by making homemade phyllo dough and then to use that homemade dough to make Baklava.

Like always, I completed this challenge last minute. And since it was last minute, it was hurried, done with zero patience- thanks to the heat, and sans key ingredients that would have made a whole lot of difference to the end result.

By now, I am pretty sure you would have guessed that my challenge outcome wasn’t too great! I goofed up with the syrup as I was too lazy to measure anything for it and just made it with approximations resulting in less syrup to soak all the baklava. Also, I skimped on the butter – which I think resulted in slightly harder and drier sheet layers. The filling did not have pistachios (because I did not have any and forgot to pick them up on my last trip to the store), which I feel, would have definitely added to the flavors in the filling. The phyllo dough though was pretty easy to roll out thin, barring a few sheets that did get tears- but Erica said that’s ok as long as the top layer doesn’t have any holes.

It wasn’t too bad either. But, I don’t think I’ll be trying my hand at Baklava in the near future. This is my second not-so-great attempt at Baklava. The first one was almost a year back but that time I had used store bought phyllo. The Baklava then didn’t turn out too great. This time too the results were just average. Oh! How I crave for the baklavas I had during my Dubai trip!

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Yellowstone and my Superpower(s)

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I have a superpower!

Or is it supposed to be superpowers and the term “superpower” is used only for a country?

But what if I have a single superpowers/superpower (?!), then also would it be called superpowers?

Well, for now, lets say I have a superpowers-nope doesn’t sound right, then let’s say I have a superpower- nope doesn’t sound right either, what if I just use extraordinary ability-yeah I guess that will sound better,so  lets just say I have an extraordinary power. And with great power comes great responsibilities (Ok! I couldn’t help using this line- it just flows when one talks about superpowers!)

So, I think I might be exhibiting a mild form of precognition.

Ok! I might be jumping the gun here but what if I have- won’t it be so cool! Oh the possibilities! (For the uninitiated who do not know what precognition is do check this out to know how cool having such a superpower(s) is!)

Anywho, the reason why I “believe” that I have a mild form of precognition is as such:

Recently we went for a vacation to Yellowstone (and that is why I have been MIA from the blogging scene). On our flight back from Bozeman, Montana to Salt Lake City, Utah I asked V what happens if lightning strikes a plane. And, V was like it shouldn’t affect the plane too much and then the discussion went to me trying to show off my vast knowledge on lightning, talking about ground to cloud lightning and blah blah blah..snore. Anyway, this discussion would have been irrelevant had it not been for the spooky turn of events that happened once we reached Salt Lake City, our layover destination.

We were supposed to catch our connecting flight to Phoenix from Salt Lake City. But once we reached SLC, we found our flight to Phx was cancelled because, and here is the spooky part- it was struck by lightning. Yeah I know spooky, right?

Nope? Well, the only reason you did not find it spooky is because I did not tell it right- if I had the story telling power of Steven Speilberg this incident had all the making of a Sci-fi movie- yup, I do live in my own dream world- don’t we all?

Apart from the excitement of the revelation of my superpower(s) (!), the overall trip to Yellowstone was great. I would definitely recommend a visit there if you live in US or even if you don’t, try visit the place- its breathtakingly beautiful! (And if you do, take me along- now that I have precognition powers I’ll prove real handy!:))

For now I leave you with pictures of our trip.

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Jalapeno Cheddar Bread

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It’s that time of the month again- the Secret recipe Club time. Amanda from Amanda’s Cookin’ started this fun club as a way to try other recipes and help introduce bloggers to each others’ blogs. Every month, each member is assigned another member’s blog and he/she has to try and post about a recipe from that person’s blog. My assigned blog for this month was Heather’s Hezzi-D’s Books and Cooks.

Heather has a great blog with a lovely collection of recipes. She is a special education teacher and loves reading and of course, cooking. Occasionally she also posts reviews of the books she reads as part of her book club. Though she likes cooking, but baking is where her heart lies, much like me. So it had to be a baking recipe of hers that I decided to give a try.

I haven’t made bread for the longest time ever- been too lazy- not too lazy to make bread but extremely lazy to clean up after the baking is done. I hate that part of doing anything in the kitchen. I do not mind the cooking or baking but hate the utensils that pile up after I cook or bake, and that makes me lazy to make anything. And, being careless as I am, I make a whole lot of mess in the kitchen while I am at it, so the clean up just puts me off before even starting. But Heather’s Jalapeno Cheddar bread caught my eye and I knew this was what I wanted to make. So out with the lazy bones.

The only change I made to Heather’s recipe is that I substituted a part of the bread flour with whole wheat and reduced the cheese used to 1 cup instead of 1 1/2 cups (I love cheese but sadly, my waist and hips don’t)

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