you won’t believe how much aubergine there is in a single aubergine

Introducing American+Icelandic friends to Smash:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ3nnn7-JO0

For more, there’s a compilation.

Eating inaugural new-apartment hot chocolate out of a jar, exhibits interesting elasticity gradient from near-liquid at the top to properly gelled at the bottom — possibly a result of the heat conducting properties of glass vs ceramic?

Good pre-travel baking: Granola with @brennannovak of @rvkgranola, and Germknödel second attempt — first try wasn’t much good, this time they worked perfectly, expanding to twice their original size! First time I’ve managed to make a boiled dumpling with a bready texture.

This evening’s Icelandic-Austrian fusion cooking: Kaiserschmarrn with rabarbara sulta (rhubarb jam). No photo because I ate it already.

We regret to report that even after extensive, delicious research we have been unable to determine how soba noodles can possibly taste as good as they do.

We remain undaunted.

First attempt at #skyr making resulted in some rather nice cheese curds and a tonne of whey, but nothing resembling skyr. Followed julesfood.blogspot.com/2011/04/skyrhomemade-icelandic-yogurt.html going to try simnet.is/gullis/jo/Miscellaneous.htm next as it’s quite a bit more detailed.

First attempt at Buchteln with vanilla sauce, an Austrian recipe picked up during recent travels:

Made wonton soup variant of taste.com.au/recipes/31255/fragrant+chicken+wonton+soup, wrappers from allrecipes.com/Recipe/Wonton-Wrappers — turned out pretty good, with enough leftover soup to use for soba noodle soup tomorrow

My new diet:

• granola
• granola
• granola
• sourdough aubergine pizza
• granola
• granola
• GRANOLA

A food mailing list closed to anyone under 21? That’s a bit weird, @tastingtable:

Not to mention the requirement of a zip code with no indication of why or how it’s used.

Made pasta+chicken+tahini+peanut+cucumber+chili thing based loosely on seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/02/cold-sesame-noodle-salad-shredded-chicken-easy-recipe.html, was the tastiest thing I’ve cooked in a while. Now attempting some red bean soup + wholegrain glutinous rice balls for dessert.

Also last night: second try cooking horse meat from kolaportið — attempting to make edible via boiling on low heat for 4 hours. Afterwards it was significantly more tender but still fairly disgusting — would not recommend buying. Maybe as dogfood.

Now comfortable with Pizza, Dim Sum is my next food project. #tabdump:

• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dim_sum
• rasamalaysia.com/black-sesame-dumplings-tang-yuan/2
• rasamalaysia.com/red-curry-shrimp-dumplings/2
• jeanetteshealthyliving.com/2011/04/gluten-free-recipe-for-chinese-dumplings.html
• tianmatur.is/pages.php?idpage=2796

Hungry after walk so tried making black sesame seed paste dumplings — similar to previous mochi but almost no sugar, with the dough boiled instead of baked. Interesting texture, would certainly add some honey to the paste next time as it needs a little more sweetness.

Followed these ingredients: rasamalaysia.com/black-sesame-dumplings-tang-yuan/2/, going to try making justonecookbook.com/recipes/black-sesame-ice-cream next

Finished off a tiring 15000 step day with my best Spanish-style hot chocolate yet: milk, cornstarch, vanilla, dark chocolate, cinnamon, himalayan salt, a little licorice, masala curry powder and crumbled walnuts. mmmmmmmm.

Acquired today: one pizza stone and a paddle! Hopefully this will push my pizza quality to the next level now that I have a decent dough technique.