(e:terry) and I channeled our inner Chetna (e:joe,60410) and did a bake. We made these cheesy flakey pastries filled with dill, goat cheese, leeks and potatoes. Recipe hier:

Hot goat man cheese was involved (e:joe,59060)

We rarely bake anything so it was a crap shoot on whether we were doing the dough right - but it was buttery and perfectly cooked.

Frying up the leeks

If you go by the recipe picture, we were supposed to spread the filling more and leave the potatoes exposed. This worked fine though. All the galettes got an egg wash.

Cheesy goat man goodness

Finished project

At (e:uchina)'s house we watched a ton of baking shows. One was Cupcake Wars. The other was the Great British Bake off. The latter was much classier.

The bake off has 12 contestants competing in a weekly elimination in three different baking contests. Inexplicably, they're also cooking in outdoor kitchens on the lawn of a giant British estate. The judges aren't mean, they hug the losers and the host Mary Berry says things like "Your sponge is perfectly moist! Bang on, pussy!"



You quickly come to love/hate most of the bakers real quick. Norm is the boring grandpa you love. Ian is the beardy one. Diana is the cheating grandma, and Chetna is just my absolute traumfrau. She is from India and always has the best sounding dishes (onion and pine nut rolls). She's also the most beautiful contestant, so I'm obsessed.

She has a website where she teaches you how to make all sorts of cakes and desserts but also Indian food.




Terry and I made her chana masala. Suprisingly it wasn't as hard I thought it was going to be. I always was afraid of cooking Indian spices but we followed the video and it turned out amazing.



Browning the onion with coriander, cumin seeds, salt, garam masala, bay leaves, cinnamon and cloves.

(e:terry) chopping up garlic and tomatoes

Cook until brown


Simmer chickpeas in the mix until soft.

Amazing. I was so sad we ate it all

(e:terry) and I adapted a recipie for spicy potatoes out of the Indian food book. It used potatoes, dried chilli, peppers, onions, garlic and some cumin. Our ratio was a little off - too much potato and not enough spice - but if you scraped some of the chili seeds off the bottom of the pan it added enough heat. He also cooked up some mushrooms to go with it.










The view from the backyard while we were cooking.