Freezer Food – Don's House of Fine Patisseries

August 11, 2026

Making (Simple) Meat Lasagnes — Photos

This is another recipe focusing on a simplification — in fact, two separate simplifications — allowing for easy assembly of as many or as few units that you are willing to mount at once, as well as depending on the number of containers and freezer space you have, or to which you have access.

In the process of mounting this post, a separate, overarching narrative from how I originally viewed the recipe emerged: I originally thought that I had a recipe for (what now used to be) four lasagnes, using commercial tomato sauce in a jar. I eventually realized that I actually had a recipe for one lasagne, which happened to be particularly convenient for making four units at a time, specifically tailored to some conveniently-sized baking pans I possess, measuring 7-1/2″ x 5-1/2″ x 2″.

This led me to calculating the surface area of the particular baking pans, about 41 square inches (266cm2) each, which I realized was about half the 81 square inch surface area of somewhat more common 9″ x 9″ (22.9cm x 22.9cm) baking pans; I further realized that the fairly common 9″ x 13″ (22.9cm x 33cm) baking pans, with a surface area of 117 square inches, have almost three times the surface area of the baking pans I use.

With this realization, the core recipe and process of making my lasagnes emerged from the base unit of my small pans:

about one pound (about 450g) of ground beef;
about 600mL (about two to two and a half cups) of sauce;
about five to six sheets of oven-ready lasagne sheets;
ultimately making four layers of lasagne, and five layers of meat and sauce;
about 100g (about 3.5 ounces) of grated mozzarella cheese;
for a lasagne of about 41 square inches, allowing for about up to four modest but hearty servings.

Having realized this and adjusted my recipe accordingly, this leads to the easier scaling of the recipe either to the number of pans I would be making at once, or to one or more other baking pan size(s).

And to be clear: The two simplifications to this recipe lay in:

the use of commercial spaghetti sauce in commonly available jars of 600mL (20oz) or thereabouts, which forms the basic unit of the lasagnes, and,
the use of oven-ready lasagne sheets, which require no precooking or soaking before use, making the production of any number of units or even larger units vastly easier and quicker.

Note that I think that you should use a tomato (or other) sauce that you like, be it a commercial tomato sauce in whatever size format that suits you, or your own (or your grandmother’s) homemade tomato (or other) sauce. I can only imagine that making extremely large amounts of lasagne — especially several large format units — may well favour the use of larger commercial formats of tomato sauce, or the outright making large pots of your own tomato sauce!

Lastly, a small handful of photos may have been reordered and/or re-taken afterwards for the sake of the narrative.

Making the lasagnes:

On cooking day, I decided to make two units of lasagnes in my small baking pans.

First, all the ingredients were gathered together. I will underline (given the prominent “reduced price” sticker) that the beef was purchased at a clearance price a couple of days before its due date, “a couple of months ago”, and kept in the freezer; it was defrosted overnight in the fridge before use.

An electric frypan was taken out and plugged in, as well as a spatula / egg flipper being taken out:

Electric frypan taken out and plugged in, and spatula / egg flipper taken out

The defrosted (overnight in a fridge) ground beef was taken out:

The ground beef package was opened with some scissors:

Onions and a kitchen knife were taken out:

The onions were trimmed:

The onions were cut in half:

The onion halves were sliced into half-coin shapes:

The onions were coarsely chopped:

The ground beef and the onions were placed in the electric frypan:

Onions and beef placed in electric frypan

A spatula / egg flipper was taken out, and the electric frypan turned on:

Spatula / egg flipper taken out, and frypan turned on

As the ground beef and the onions were cooking, I started breaking up the ground beef, and turning the mixture over:

Ground beef broken up and mixture turned over while cooking

Ground beef broken up and mixed with onions

While the ground beef and onion mixture was cooking, I added some salt:

Salt added to ground beef and onion mixture

While the ground beef and onion mixture was cooking, I kept on breaking up the pieces of ground beef.

Once the ground beef and onion mixture was cooked …

… I separated the ground beef and onion mixture in two, for when I’d be mounting the lasagnes:

Cooked ground beef and onion mixture separated in two

The frypan containing the cooked ground beef and onion mixture was transferred to the nearby counter where I was going to start mounting the lasagnes:

Since I had decided to make two lasagnes of the size I was accustomed to making, two baking dishes were taken out:

A serving spoon was taken out to start transferring the cooked ground beef and onion mixture to the first baking pan:

Serving spoon taken out to transfer cooked ground beef

Cooked ground beef and onion mixture was picked up with the spoon:

Cooked ground beef and onion mixture picked up with spoon

The cooked ground beef and onion mixture was transferred to the first baking pan:

Cooked ground beef and onion mixture transferred to baking pan

The cooked ground beef and onion mixture was spread evenly over the surface of the bottom of the baking pan:

Cooked ground beef and onion mixture spread over base of baking pan

A jar of commercial tomato sauce was taken out:

The jar of tomato sauce was opened:

… and a portion of the tomato sauce from the jar was spread over the cooked ground beef and onion mixture:

Tomato sauce poured over cooked ground beef and onion mixture

A box of oven-ready lasagne sheets was taken out …

Box of oven-ready lasagne sheets taken out

… and the box was opened:

A sheet of lasagne was taken out of the box:

… and it was gently broken to size in order to fit in my baking pan:

Sheet of lasagne broken to fit in baking pan

I began layering the lasagne sheets in the baking pan on top of the cooked ground meat and onion mixture:

I began to repeat the layering with the cooked ground beef and onion mixture …

… until I had four layers of lasagne sheets, and five layers of cooked ground beef and onion mixture and tomato sauce:

I should note that despite the lack of a photo, some of the layers of lasagne sheets were composed of varying amounts of the broken off pieces of lasagne sheets.

At this point, as planned, half of the cooked ground beef and onion mixture had been used up, and half remained:

Half of cooked ground beef and onion mixture remaining

Because I had planned on making two small lasagnes, I continued by taking out the second baking pan, and starting the layering process again:

Cooked ground beef and onion mixture layered in the second baking pan

I continued with the layering of the second lasagne in the second baking pan — on the left — until I also had four layers of lasagne sheets and five layers of cooked ground beef and onion mixture and tomato sauce (yes, sometimes sauce distribution was somewhat uneven amongst the layers — although each lasagne contained a full jar of 600ml of sauce):

Again, at this point and as planned, the other half of the cooked ground beef and onion mixture had been used up:

Frypan of cooked ground beef and onion mixture emptied of its contents

The frypan was brought over to the sink for washing later.

A box grater and a large soup bowl were taken out:

… and the box grater was placed in the soup bowl:

A block of mozzarella cheese was taken out:

The package was partly removed to facilitate grating about 200 grams of cheese:

Approximately 200g of cheese, estimated visually as about two fifths of the 500g block, were grated off of the block of mozzarella cheese:

Approximately 200g of cheese grated off the block

The bowl of cheese was brought over to the two baking pans of lasagnes:

About half of the cheese, approximately 100g, was transferred to the top of a lasagne:

About 100g — about half of the grated cheese — were placed on one of the lasagnes

The rest of the cheese was transferred to the other lasagne, ensuring that each unit received approximately the same amount of cheese:

Two freezer bags were taken out, and identified and dated:

Freezer bags taken out and identified and dated

The lasagnes were individually placed in the bags:

The lasagnes were then placed in my deep freezer for when I’ll want to take them out and bake them:

Are they tasty? Of course!

A little postscript: Canada — where I live, in the province of Québec — has this funny equilibrium about the spelling of a bunch of words due to simultaneous historical and current day British English and American English influences, as well as our own Canadian conventions (and even regional ones too!) In the case of this post, I use the spelling of “lasagne” due to British influence, as well as French influence, since Québec is a French-speaking region in Canada, instead of “lasagna”, the American spelling. Hence, please don’t write in telling me that I spelled “lasagne” wrong throughout this post. 🙂 (And, we also have lots of fun with measuring systems, too.)

August 9, 2026

Making (Braised) Pulled Pork — Photos

Following having enjoyed a friend’s pulled pork a few times at church functions over the years, I asked her for her recipe in late 2023 / early 2024. I successfully made her pulled pork … and shelved the idea, because her recipe featured star anise — meaning, there was what I considered a weird black licorice taste to the otherwise tasty pulled pork. Also, I asked my friend “what do you do with the braising liquid afterwards?” to which she responded “Oh keep it in the freezer for the next time, or add corn starch to some of it to add to the pork.” These responses didn’t sit well with me either. I resigned myself to enjoying pulled pork whenever my culinary adventures happened to meet with it at restaurants and the like.

In early 2026, I saw pork shoulder on sale, and decided to buy some “so that one day I can try again to make pulled pork.” A couple of months later, I looked up pulled pork recipes on the internet, did my own experimentation on the spot, and decided upon keeping my friend’s basic method; but instead using a 2:1 mix of commercial BBQ sauce (I settled on Kraft) and molasses for the flavour base to the braising liquid, to which I have kept ever since. Once exception was to have found a generic taste-alike recipe for Kraft BBQ sauce on the internet, which I integrated into the recipe, and which I used to partly make up the BBQ sauce portion in this session. (As a side note, I did *not* show extra photos for this makeup, in keeping with the spirit of the recipe that intentionally simply calls for “barbecue sauce” — meaning, you should use your favourite barbecue sauce.) And, as shown below, I reduce the braising liquid down to a sauce to mix in with the pulled pork. 🙂

Extra note: In a few instances, my photos from the session have shown some kitchen surfaces that were in need of some cleaning, and the aluminum foil lining at the bottom of my countertop convection oven needing changing. All the “extra cleaning” and foil replacement were performed after the cooking session, and during the course of mounting this post. I think I’m going to claim “Welcome to real life!”

Extra note #2: “A photo or two” may have been slightly presented out of order compared to their having been taken, and at least one make-up photo was staged after the cooking session, both for the sake of the narrative.

Making the pulled pork:

First, some frozen pork was taken out — in this case, some pork loin (instead of pork shoulder, which I concede is still more appropriate for the job — but pork loin does well too) — because I had bought a lot of pork loin a few months ago at a not-as-great-as-I-thought-but-still-good sale price given how thick the fat layers were in some cases:

The pork was placed in my microwave oven using the “defrost” function, entering the pork weight that I had marked on the plastic wrap before freezing:

Frozen pork placed in microwave oven for defrosting

The time for defrosting was automatically set based on the weight I’d entered:

Defrosting time automatically set based on weight

In the meantime, an oven-proof cast iron pot with a lid was taken out:

Critically, the use of an oven-proof pot that can be covered, be it with a lid, or aluminum foil, is important — in my case, I use a cast iron pot with a lid that happens to fit in my countertop convection oven, and which allows for pre-heating on the stove.

An onion and a kitchen knife were taken out:

The onion was trimmed:

The onion was cut into rounds:

The onion rounds were then chopped coarsly:

The chopped onion was transferred to the pot:

Olive oil was taken out and added to the pot:

Once the pork had defrosted, I started trimming off excess fat with a particularly sharp knife:

The pieces of fat trimmed off the pork were put into a bucket for disposal through the municipal curbside composting programme.

The pork was cut into three pieces, which would fit into my pot:

The pieces of pork were placed in the pot with the chopped onion and olive oil:

Pork pieces placed in pot with onion and olive oil

The stove burner was turned on — and oh my, it’s a bit dirty:

I also turned on my countertop convection oven:

The oven rack was placed on the bottom level of the oven — and oh my! again, a bit of cleaning is needed, including replacing the aluminum foil at the bottom of the oven:

Back to the pork on the stove, the pork was turned over:

Molasses was taken out and measured out:

The molasses was transferred to the pot with the pork and chopped onion:

Molasses transferred to pot with pork and onion

Some barbecue sauce as well as some ketchup to help make up the volume were measured out:

The barbecue sauce was added to the pot with the pork, onions, and molasses:

Just a reminder here: Since my recipe for pulled pork and this post are predicated on the notion of “use the barbecue sauce you want to use”, although the ingredients for a taste-alike replacement of Kraft BBQ sauce are in my recipe for pulled pork, showing the makeup ingredients won’t be done here. Also to note, the apparent measure above takes into account the following steps, which washed out the rest of the barbecue sauce and ketchup clinging to the insides of the bottles used.

Water was added to the pot with the other ingredients, enough to cover the pork pieces:

Water added to pot with the other ingredients

At this point, the stove burner was turned up to maximum:

The pot was brought to a boil:

The lid was placed on the pot:

The pot was placed into the countertop convection oven — the pot just fits!

Pot placed in countertop convection oven

The door to my countertop convection oven was closed — and again I noticed something that needed a cleaning!

After about an hour, the pot was taken out and checked, and the liquid was indeed just bubbling:

Liquid in pot just at the point of bubbling

A timer was set to an hour and a half:

While the pot with the pork and braising liquid was returned to the countertop convection oven:

Shortly before the timer was to run out, a heatproof container was taken out:

And at less than a minute before the timer ran out …

The pot was taken out and placed on the stove beside the counter:

The lid was taken off the pot:

A piece of pork was taken out of the pot with a slotted spoon, and its tenderness was tested: The pork definitely pulled apart easily with a fork!

So I continued “pulling” — shredding if you prefer — the pork with some forks:

The shredded pork was transferred to the heat proof container, and another piece of pork was removed from the pot and braising liquid using a slotted spoon:

The piece of pork taken out, as well as the other piece of pork, were both shredded with the forks, and transferred to the heatproof container:

Pulled pork transferred to heatproof container

Throughout the pulling / shredding of the pork, bits of fat and grissol were separated out and put aside, to be put into a bucket for disposal through the municipal curbside composting programme:

Fat and grissol separated for disposal in composting programme

In the braising pot, a layer of rendered fat had risen to the surface:

Braising liquid with layer of rendered fat on top

A soup ladle was taken out to skim off the rendered fat:

The rendered fat was skimmed off the top of the braising liquid:

Rendered fat skimmed off top of braising liquid

The skimmed rendered fat was transferred to a fat separator with a slotted top:

Skimmed fat transferred to fat separator

The braising liquid at the bottom of the fat separator was poured off:

The ladle was then used again, this time to transfer some of the braising liquid from the cast iron pot …

… to a frypan, in order to help reduce / thicken the liquid more quickly than all at once just in the pot:

Braising liquid transferred to pan for reducing / thickening

Two stove burners were turned on to maximum:

Stove burners turned on to maximum under frypan and pot

The frypan and pot were brought to a boil to reduce the volume and concentrate the ingredients, by evaporating off excess water:

Boiling braising liquid to reduce the volume and concentrate the ingredients

After a time, as can especially be seen in the pan on the left, the reduced liquid with become what I will characterize as “gloopy”, and the bubbling will be more audible:

Braising liquid especially on the left thickened

Thickened braising liquid becoming a sauce

The now thickened sauce in the pan was transferred to the pork in the heatproof container:

Of course, the pan was scraped to get all of that goodness to put on the pulled / shredded pork!

The rest of the braising liquid was reduced to the desired thickness and transferred to the container with the pulled / shredded pork:

All sauce transferred to container of shredded pork

The (now cleaned) slotted spoon was taken out to distribute the sauce throughout all the pulled pork:

Slotted spoon taken out to redistribute the sauce in the container

Plastic containers of a one-cup capacity were taken out (this is the recreated photo):

The pulled pork was transferred to the plastic containers:

And lids were placed on the containers:

The containers were placed in the freezer for my future enjoyment:

Fortunately, there was a taste, albeit small, of pulled pork left in the container:

The tasty leftover bits were served on a plate, ready to eat:

Yummy!

And as an extra note … I have been asked to bring my pulled pork again to the next church pot luck meal, along with one of my tiramisu cakes!

July 28, 2026July 28, 2026

Making Date Squares — Photos

This recipe was developed and added to my collection of recipes as a result of chatting with an online AI chatbot discussing church culture, during which the chatbot listed at one point some typical desserts to be found at church potluck luncheons. It listed the item which is the subject of this post as “Matrimonial Squares”. My interest was piqued because I did not know what “Matrimonial Squares” were, as well as said name telling me nothing of what the dessert was. As such, I bemusedly asked whether it was a dessert to be typically served as part of a wedding feast, or if there was something somewhat more prurient to them along the lines of being considered an aphrodisiac! I got a response along the lines of their description — date squares! — and how the name was a florid and traditional name meaning how well all the parts “marry together to make an ideal dessert”, an absolutely church-safe name. 🙂

Incidentally, this recipe is vegetarian tending toward vegan if you use margarine (as I did) instead of butter.

This batch was the second batch made at the cottage during my holidays, and will likely be served at the lake association BBQ later this week.

Setting up:

First, I decided to take out all the ingredients:

Although I actually did this a little later, now is a good time to preheat the oven:

An 8″ x 8″ baking pan and a piece of paper towelling were taken out:

Paper towelling and baking pan taken out

The paper towel was taken over to the tub of margarine, and some margarine was scooped up with my hand and the paper towel:

Paper towel taken over to tub of margarine

The paper towel and margarine were taken over to the baking pan:

Paper towel and margarine taken over to the baking pan

… and the margarine was slathered onto the surfaces of the baking pan:

Margarine slathered over all surfaces in the baking pan

The baking pan was put aside.

Preparing the date filling:

Dates and a knife were taken out — in this case dates I had been keeping in the freezer, hence the fuzzy condensation on the bag:

The dates were pitted:

At this point, I took out a kitchen scale and a bowl, and set the reading to zero with the bowl on the scale …

… so that I could weigh out the required amount of pitted dates, which I kept on pitting until I had enough pitted dates:

At this point, I should have chopped the dates up a bit, but I forgot, and no matter.

The pitted dates were transferred to a pot:

Transferring the pitted dates to the pot

Water was measured out:

The water was transferred to the pot with the pitted dates:

Transferring water to pot with pitted dates

Lemon juice was taken out:

The lemon juice was measured out:

The lemon juice was transferred to the pot with the pitted dates and water:

Lemon juice transferred to pot with pitted dates and water

A burner on the stove was turned on to medium heat:

The pot of pitted dates, water, and lemon juice was placed on the burner:

The pitted dates were largely left alone for the next several minutes, although I kept an eye on the pot and occasionally stirred it.

Making the oat crumble base and topping:

Flour was taken out:

Flour was measured out:

The flour was transferred to a mixing bowl:

Oats were taken out:

Oats were measured out:

The oats were transferred to the mixing bowl with the flour:

Oats transferred to mixing bowl with flour

Brown sugar was taken out:

Brown sugar was measured out:

The brown sugar was transferred to the mixing bowl with the flour and the oats:

Baking soda was taken out and measured out:

The baking soda was transferred to the mixing bowl with the flour, oats, and brown sugar:

Salt was taken out and measured out:

The salt was transferred to the mixing bowl with the flour, oats, brown sugar, and baking salt:

Another bowl was placed on my kitchen scale, and the display set to zero:

Bowl placed on scale and tare weight set

Margarine was measured out:

The margarine was transferred to the mixing bowl with the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt:

An electric mixer was brought to the mixing bowl:

The ingredients were mixed thoroughly:

The ingredients in the bowl were roughly divided into two parts:

Ingredients in bowl divided into two parts

Mounting the date squares:

About half of the oat crumble mix was transferred to the baking pan:

The oat crumble base was spread out over the whole surface of the baking pan:

Oat crumble spread over base of baking pan

The oat crumble base was flattened with an egg flipper:

At this point, after having only occasionally glanced at and stirring the dates in the pot on the stove, I took the pot off the stove, the mix having turned into a nice jammy consistency:

Cooked date filling with a jammy consistency

The cooked date filling was transferred to the pan with the oat crumble base:

Cooked date filling transferred to pan with oat crumble base

The date filling was spread roughly evenly over the base with a spoon:

The rest of the oat crumble was transferred on top of the date filling:

Second half of oat crumble transferred to baking pan

The oat crumble topping was spread roughly evenly over the date filling:

I gently patted down the topping with my hand; note that I said “gently”:

Gently patting down the oat crumble topping

Baking the date squares:

The pan was placed in the preheated countertop oven, and a timer was set to about 35 minutes:

Baking pan placed in countertop oven and timer set to 35 minutes

When the baking was finished, the baking pan was taken out of the oven and placed on a cooling rack:

Once cooled (I did move the cooling along by placing the pan in the fridge for a while), the whole large date square was removed from the pan. Yes I tasted the bit of the base that was left behind: It was yummy!

Large date square removed from baking pan

I began cutting the large piece off-center, with a goal of cutting a 5 x 5 grid for a total of 25 pieces:

Cutting the date squares, starting from off-centre

Three more slices were made, in order to have five long bars:

The cutting board was rotated 90 degrees so as to continue with four more cuts, to have a total of 25 squares:

… and since I implied that I still had a few leftover from last week, and that I outright suggested that this batch would be placed on a dessert table at this week’s lake association BBQ, I bagged up the freshly-baked date squares, and placed them in the freezer for later in the week:

And yes, of course they’re yummy — I got to taste a bunch of crumbs while I was cleaning up!

July 24, 2026August 3, 2026

I’m a lumberjack and that’s okay …

(In case you’re wondering, here’s the link to wikipedia (and my archive), and to youtube (and my archive).)

During my holidays at the cottage this year, I had the usual plans: A lot of relaxing, maybe a bit of boating, possibly some cycling on some nearby cycling trails, definitely a lot of cooking especially at the beginning, mostly of desserts to be frozen for eating during my stay at the cottage, and of course, some wood splitting to fill up the wood pile. No matter that said wood shed is already three quarters full after last year’s work and what I did burn over the winter.

View of my wood shed that is already three quarters full

Side view of my wood shed that is already three quarters full

As you can see, I already had a lot of wood on my woodpile.

Part of my plans, nonetheless, involved cutting up a couple of big birch trees which we had had felled by a real lumberjack last autumn, because the trees were liable to fall any time, possibly the wrong way.

One of two birch trees felled on the property

I also had some branches and pieces of another birch tree we’d asked the real lumberjack to trim, for fear that said branches would eventually tear down our electrical and phone entry to the cottage:

More wood ready to be cut up, before I would start cutting up the felled trees

Early on during my vacation, I met friends at a flea market somewhat nearby to the cottage, and afterwards I welcomed them at the cottage for an afternoon meal and visit. However, that day, 21 July 2026, we had a little bit of weather at the cottage (here’s my archive).

My friends were ready to pack up anyway as it was starting to rain heavily, and there had already been a few rounds of lightning and thunder at that point. As it turns out, they had to drive through the worst of the weather!

In the meantime, the cottage lost power from 20260721 at 17:41, shortly after my friends had departed. I was slightly beside myself without power, receiving advice to pack up not even five days into my holiday to go home … but I waited it out, and I won my bet in sticking through it all. Yay Hydro-Québec! … but, I have just jumped a bit ahead of myself.

I almost immediately started making a lot of calls back home (good thing old fashioned phones usually work during power outages!) to get Hydro-Québec (the power company here in Québec, where I live) updates on the storm. Said updates went from:

19:45 power return a mere couple of hours after the storm;
to noon on the following day;
to noon on the second day after the storm;
to still noon on the second day after the storm, but because crews had “finished” a lot of the work in the grouping around my address and the number of affected clients had dramatically dropped, it seemed that on said second morning, a work crew hadn’t yet been assigned to fix the branch of wires my cottage was on.

But again, I’m getting ahead of the story.

During the storm, I heard a tree fall; I figured it came from our spare lot beside the cottage. As it turned out, it was indeed from our spare lot, and it fell onto the road!

After the storm had passed, I went out onto the road to investigate, particularly since I could hear other people talking, and in fact said persons were walking down my driveway.

On the road, we found the following:

As can be seen above, people were hoping to pass, and the person who usually deals with events such as this had appeared on site and began to cut up the tree, in order to clear the way.

Cut up tree placed on the side of the road, for later, collection of the long pieces for milling, and cleanup of the rest

The power came back on on 20260723 at about 11:35. ~~As of this writing, we’re still waiting on~~ Update 20260724: According to La Presse (here’s my archive) (yeah it’s in French, deal with it) and CBC news (here’s my archive) ~~Environment Canada~~ Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP) t~~o announce whether~~ has confirmed that it was indeed a tornado.

At this point, this story is going to take a bit of a detour.

During the power outage, I learned that my two Ryobi 7.5 Ah batteries for my lawnmower, using a Ryobi converter, can each power my cottage fridge for a bit over an hour on a full charge.

Ryobi 7.5Ah battery from my lawnmower on an inverter, which was used to power the fridge

To state what may be obvious, I had to protect two weeks’ worth of food and groceries and already-done baking in the fridge and freezer.

Fridge full of food (photo taken after power restoration)

After the storm but long before the power came back on, I learned from people with whom I’d spoken on the road, that the effects of the storm was worse but a kilometre or two north of me. I didn’t drive there, but I hear that it was like a disaster zone and would take several days to a week or more to repair everything.

Stories from neighbours convinced me to embark mid afternoon on a folly of a trip to secure a generator, something I could not fully convince myself that I’d need after a hopefully short period of time.

I went down to a nearby city (Lachute) to get a generator for the fridge … but between gasping at the prices, trying to figure out what I’d do with a generator after the power came back (or after I evacuated if it were to be too long), and remembering that I used to have an inverter for my car which I had used before to power the same fridge, I decided to buy a new inverter instead. Immediately prior to leaving on the folly of a trip, I brought with me my lawnmower batteries to recharge at the community centre as a backup plan, since I had also learned that the power had already been restored there.

Inverter meant to be attached to a car battery

On the way back to the cottage, I stopped at the community centre, and I spent about two and a half hours at the centre charging my two lawnmower batteries, and then I made it back to the cottage at approximately 8pm.

As it was starting to get darker (and outright dark by 9pm) I found myself a bit befuddled and I couldn’t quite grasp how to get the inverter to work; as such, I was pleased with myself that I had spent the time earlier to charge my lawnmower batteries, and one was set to work to get the fridge going for another hour or so before the battery drained, and in the process I also went to bed.

The next morning, I managed to get the purchased inverter working perfectly on my car engine, and the fridge was running for a bit over two hours before the power came back on.

At this point, I had a couple of priorities:

take a bath, which I couldn’t do during the power outage because the water system is a private system on the property dependent on electricity, putting aside the possibility of taking a swim in the lake beside the cottage — and when the power came back on, I was pleasantly surprised that the water in the hot water tank was still relatively hot after roughly 42 hours of no power, and therefore requiring little time for it to get back to temperature;
and wash the dishes from my entertaining on Tuesday!

Dishes from the previous two days, including a large number from my visitors on Tuesday, after washing

… And at this point, the little detour has come back to the wood story.

After finishing up the dishes, I could tell that there was activity going on on the road where the tree had fallen: I ended up helping the person who maintains the roads clear up the tree that he’d cut up a couple of days earlier, mainly during the part when he was shredding the branches less than 3″ thick.

I asked what he was going to do with the rest of the wood, viz. the branches larger than 3″ but which were not the main trunk wood that he had recovered; I already knew from a couple of days earlier that he’d said he’d take the main part of the tree trunk so that he could season the wood, and then mill it and dry it out for lumber. As such, I said I’d take the rest — which was substantial — that he would have otherwise driven to the local ecocentre (here’s my archive) (yes, it’s in French, deal with it.)

Here is a photo of the branches packed into my car:

A little note at this point: The person who was leading with clearing the road noticed my car filled with the wood, and “strongly suggested” (jovially, though with an air of being serious along the lines of “they may feature your story, and perhaps even give you a credit”) that I take photos in order to send to the manufacturer to tell a story of how I use my car … whether I end up doing this remains to be seen, but in the meantime, I mounted this post. 🙂

And, now I have this pile of wood to cut up to place in my wood shed … while you can see on the left of the photo, just behind the propane tank, one of the birch trees that was felled last year, that at this point will at best be cut into logs for seasoning for another year, and hopefully be kept somewhat out of winter snow and spring wetness!

Now larger pile of wood to be cut up and split

A second post “I’m a lumberjack … — Part Deux” was mounted to showcase the actual woodcutting and splitting, and stacking of the split wood, that for the purposes of this post, are left to the implied and unseen.

And as for the rest of the Monty Python sketch … well it’s as old as I am, and it’s still funny!

May 15, 2026

WordPress updated again, more recipes added, and recipe updates

Yet another note to underline that WordPress on www.malak.ca has been updated, this time to version 6.9.4. And, when I was checking, I deleted 3,344 pending comments — I have long since stopped inspecting them 100 at a time for the possibility of a legitimate post; though I did notice that this time around, about 1,400 (presumably) spammy comments were lined up for my post on making Sour Cream Muffins! 🙂

New recipes:

Savoury Pork Custard: A recipe developed with — actually initially proposed by — ChatGPT to create a pork based dish that is very soft.
A Tiramisu-inspired Layer Cake: A recipe based off a “quick tiramisu” seen on a “30 minute meals” show, and reworked again with the help of ChatGPT. Tasty! (Optionally) Uses the loaf cake version of my Plain Cake. At this moment, the recipe is still an early draught along the lines of a “Release early, release often” model (here’s my archive).
Pulled Beef: Basically, beef cooked in the kitchen braising or stewed beef method. The first time I made it, it was a spot on recreation of what one would expect! (Adapted from my pulled pork recipe for beef, with … the help of ChatGPT.)

Updated recipes:

Pulled Pork: A recent addition, but listed as “updated” because I had already transferred this recipe to malak.ca/food several weeks ago. Pulled pork cooked in the kitchen braising method. This has become a recent favourite! The second time I brought it to a church dinner, it was sufficiently popular for it to be characterized as “Don’s Famous Pulled Pork” — much to my amusement, given that in those circles it is more my vegetable soup that would be characterized as “famous” when associated with me, while another parishioner’s pulled pork would best characterized as the “famous pulled pork” in those circles. 🙂
Vegetable Soup: Updated a couple of months ago; I don’t recall the latest updates.
Bacon Wrapped Chicken Pieces: Updated to suggest pairing their preparation with my turkey stuffing / dressing should the latter be prepared for its own sake sans turkey.
Turkey Stuffing / Dressing: Updated to include a cooking section, including to suggest pairing with the bacon wrapped chicken pieces if cooked for its own sake sans turkey.
Barbecups: General updating, the specifics of which I no longer remember, after making them a few weeks ago.

Enjoy!

December 24, 2025January 5, 2026

WordPress updated and recipes added

Just a quick note to note that:

www.malak.ca blog:

The WordPress on malak.ca was updated from 6.8.3 to 6.9;

Food / recipes:

The following new recipes were added to my collection:
- goat cheese omelettes, which is effectively an evolution of the ham and cheese omelettes I used to make for Mom; I started making goat cheese omelettes after Mom preferred a goat cheese omelette my brother bought for her at a high-end pastry shop and bakery;
- goat cheese muffins, an addition (developed at my mom’s behest, after having one of my goat cheese omelettes) to my growing collection of muffin recipes that I serve to my mom, to cater to her evolving tastes;
- scalloped potatoes;
- 20260105 updated: My lasagne recipe was added yesterday.
The following recipes were updated:
- stewed apples;
- chocolate buttercrunch (“English Toffee”); along with among other things generally updating the recipe text, a section was added stressing the importance of and outlining the mise-en-place (here’s my archive) that I find to be crucial to this recipe (as in, “of course mise-en-place is always a good practice and a good idea and really helpful when cooking, however in the case of this recipe, mise-en-place is essential to the success of, and simply, the execution of this recipe“);
- plain cake, mostly adding for the addition of the optional use of fruit and stewed fruit, the use of either a loaf pan or a square cake pan, and allowing for the distinction between the use of either the “old fashioned” greasing and flouring of the pan method and the parchment paper method;
- ham and cheese omelette, updating principally as a function of also using the recipe as a base for the above-mentioned goat cheese omelette;
- chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake squares, mostly for minor turns of phrase, as well as any updates I may or may not have done (oops bad memory, it’s been a while!) since the previous version;
- shortbread cookies, again mostly for minor turns of phrase, as well as dividing some “multi-step” instructions, and fleshing out a number of implied steps (call my recipe style ridiculously verbose and overly detailed … in order to … live up to a lesson learned at a computer conference I attended in 2011. 🙂 )
- 20260105 updated: The recipe for roast potatoes was updated yesterday.

Happy cooking!

PS: as a personal reference, I have made seven batches of chocolate buttercrunch — representing 3-1/2 pounds of butter, over 4-1/2 pounds of chocolate, over 3-3/4 pounds of sugar, and over 200mL of maple syrup — over the past roughly two weeks, to plan for Christmas giveaways. That’s about 90 to 91 bags of 60g of crunch each!

April 14, 2025June 1, 2026

Making Plain and Easy Sour Cream Muffins — Photos

I started making these tasty and easy to make muffins as a result of trying to make another kind of muffin (here’s my archive) for my mom, to add a bit more variety to the muffins I make for her. The story to the recipe, for me, had an alluring appeal that seemed to fit the bill. They turned out mostly nicely; however, the experience unfortunately taught me that when a recipe calls for unsalted butter — such as for the topping, especially since it also calls for a “pinch of kosher salt” — one should use unsalted butter. The resulting topping had just enough saltiness, however mild that it was, such that while of course the muffins were really nice, the slight saltiness was a distraction that did not appeal to my mom. (I enjoyed the rest of the muffins, but I agreed with her regarding the distraction.) In the process, I decided that the amount of effort required to execute the recipe was a bit more than I cared for.

As a result though, I had some sour cream for which I had no further use, since I don’t have a taste for sour cream by itself, nor does my mom ask for it for other dishes. And, I was still in the position of needing another muffin recipe to add a bit of variety for Mom. I looked up “sour cream muffins” or somesuch on the internet, and I landed on a recipe here (here’s my archive), which I adjusted down to a half-batch of six muffins that can be easily and quickly made in a countertop convection oven, and which of course scales up to a dozen or more muffins at a time.

Note: Some of the photos were taken somewhat or a bit more out of order, or were outright recreations — albeit all during the preparation of, or immediately after baking, the same batch of muffins, including separately preparing the wet and dry ingredients the night before baking them fresh the morning of for breakfast for Mom — but are presented here in the order presented below for the sake of the narrative.

Making the muffins:

The countertop convection oven was preheated to 350F:

A baking tin and paper muffin liners were taken out:

Baking tin and paper muffin liners taken out

Paper muffin liners were placed in the wells:

Paper muffin liner placed in baking tin well

Paper muffin liners placed in baking tin wells

Flour and a measuring cup were taken out:

Flour was measured out:

The flour was transferred to a mixing bowl:

Sugar and a measuring cup were taken out, and sugar was measured out::

The sugar was transferred to the mixing bowl with the flour:

Sugar transferred to mixing bowl with flour

Baking soda and measuring spoons were taken out:

Baking soda and measuring spoons taken out

Baking soda was measured out:

The baking soda was transferred to the mixing bowl with the flour and sugar:

Baking soda transferred to bowl with flour and sugar

Salt and measuring spoons were taken out:

Salt was measured out:

The salt was transferred to the bowl with the flour, sugar, and baking soda:

Salt transferred to bowl with flour, sugar, and baking soda

Nutmeg was taken out:

Nutmeg was measured out:

Nutmeg was transferred to the bowl with the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt:

Nutmeg added to bowl with flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt

A fork was taken out:

The dry ingredients were mixed with the fork:

Sour cream and a measuring cup were taken out:

The sour cream was measured out, and since I was missing a very small amount, I topped it up with a bit of milk:

Sour cream measured out and slightly topped up with milk

The sour cream was transferred back to the plastic container:

Sour cream transferred back to plastic container

Vegetable oil and a measuring cup were taken out, and the oil was measured out:

Vegetable oil and measuring cup taken out, and oil measured out

The vegetable oil was transferred to the container with the sour cream:

Oil transferred to container with sour cream

Eggs were taken out:

The egg was cracked with a spoon:

The egg was transferred to the container with the sour cream and vegetable oil

Egg transferred to container with sour cream and oil

Vanilla extract and measuring spoons were taken out:

Vanilla extract and measuring spoons taken out

The vanilla extract was measured out:

The vanilla extract was transferred to the container with the sour cream, vegetable oil, and egg:

Vanilla extract added to container with sour cream, vegetable oil, and egg

The wet ingredients were mixed together:

(As mentioned earlier, at this point, the container had been sealed and placed in the refrigerator overnight, and the dry ingredients had been sealed and kept on the counter overnight; as well, immediately prior to the next step listed below is when the countertop convection oven had actually been turned on and preheated.)

The wet ingredients were brought over to the dry ingredients, and a clean fork and spoon were taken out:

Wet ingredients brought to the dry ingredients

The wet ingredients were transferred to the bowl with the dry ingredients:

Wet ingredients transferred to bowl with dry ingredients

The last bits of the wet ingredients were scraped into the bowl using a spoon:

Wet ingredients transferred to bowl with dry ingredients, and last bits scraped into bowl using spoon

A fork was taken out to start mixing the wet and dry ingredients:

Fork taken out to mix wet and dry ingredients

The wet and dry ingredients were mixed together with the fork:

The baking tin with the paper muffin liners was brought over to the bowl with the mixed ingredients:

Baking tin with paper muffin liners taken out

The muffin dough was transferred to the paper muffin liners in the baking tin:

Muffin dough transferred to paper muffin liners

The muffin tin filled with muffin dough was placed in the preheated countertop convection oven …

Muffin tin placed in preheated countertop convection oven

… and a timer was set to 22 minutes:

While the muffins were baking, a cooling rack was taken out:

At about half-way (after about 11 minutes), the baking tin was rotated in the countertop convection oven, to help ensure even baking:

Almost 11 minutes passing, the rough halfway point during baking

… and at this point, the muffins had clearly begun to rise:

Muffins rising at roughly halfway point in baking

At the end of the baking period, here are the fully baked muffins, which had begun to brown:

Fully baked muffins while still in the countertop convection oven — note the light browning

The muffin tin was taken out of the countertop convection oven and placed on a board, ready for the muffins to be removed from the baking tin, and placed on the cooling rack:

Fully baked muffins taken out of countertop convection oven

The muffins were immediately — hot! hot! hot! — removed from the muffin baking tin …

… and placed on the cooling rack:

… which was continued until all the muffins …

… had been transferred to the cooling rack:

Here’s the bottom of a muffin that had sufficiently cooled in order to safely handle it:

A still warm and definitely fresh! muffin was placed on a plate, and the paper liner was carefully removed (so as to not tear off pieces from the muffin):

Muffin paper liner removed from fresh muffin

… and the muffin was ready to serve to Mom, along with a cup of coffee:

Fresh, still warm muffin ready to be served

Of course, Mom said that the muffin was tasty!

After the muffins had completely cooled, a plastic freezer bag that was previously used for freezing sour cream muffins was taken out:

The bag was opened, and a cooled muffin was placed inside the bag:

Cooled muffin placed in identified freezer bag

… and the rest of the cooled muffins were placed inside the bag:

The freezer bag was sealed, and placed in the freezer, for future enjoying by Mom!

December 21, 2024December 22, 2024

Making Strawberry Jam Muffins — Photos

As an effort to diversify my offerings of muffins for my mom, I learned how to make these delicious muffins containing strawberry jam, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Mom likes them so much that she declared that she likes them a lot better than both the bran muffins and the yoghurt muffins I make for her!

Note that while this recipe can be easily multiplied several times to make more muffins at once, this recipe is intentionally tailored to a half dozen muffins instead of the usual custom of a dozen muffins, since the original recipe on which it was based allows it to be halved and therefore be baked in a countertop convection oven.

In addition to this recipe, the following recipes can (usually, depending on oven size and specific dimensions) be made directly without adjustment in a countertop convection oven:

As well, here are a number of my other recipes which allow for adjusting by half to be made, or can otherwise easily be made (sometimes in shifts), in a countertop convection oven:

Making the muffins:

First, my countertop convection oven was turned on and set to 350F (yes, the photo says 86F, it’s preheating!):

Countertop convection oven turned on to be preheated

A muffin baking tin and some paper muffin liners were taken out:

Muffin baking tin and paper muffin liners taken out

Paper muffin liners were placed in each of the wells of the muffin baking tin:

Paper muffin liners placed in muffin baking tin wells

A mixing bowl, a fork, and a spoon were taken out:

Flour and a measuring cup were taken out, and some flour was measured out:

The flour was transferred to the mixing bowl:

Sugar and a measuring cup were taken out, and some sugar was measured out:

The sugar was transferred to the mixing bowl with the flour:

Baking soda and a measuring spoon were taken out, and some baking soda was measured out:

The baking soda was transferred to the mixing bowl with the flour and the sugar:

Cinnamon and a measuring spoon were taken out, and some cinnamon was measured out:

The cinnamon was transferred to the bowl with the flour, sugar, and baking soda:

Nutmeg and a measuring spoon were taken out, and some nutmeg was measured out:

The nutmeg was transferred to the mixing bowl with the flour, sugar, baking soda, and cinnamon:

Salt and a measuring spoon were taken out, and some salt was measured out:

The salt was transferred to the mixing bowl with the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg:

A fork was taken out and used to mix the dry ingredients:

A box of eggs was taken out:

An egg was taken out of the box of eggs:

The egg was cracked on the edge of the mixing bowl with the dry ingredients:

Milk and a measuring cup were taken out, and some milk was measured out, but the milk was not yet transferred to the mixing bowl:

Milk taken out and measured out but not yet transferred to mixing bowl

Vegetable oil was taken out, and some oil was measured out in the measuring cup while the milk was still in it, but the milk and oil were not yet transferred to the mixing bowl:

Oil taken out and measured out but not yet transferred to mixing bowl

Strawberry jam was taken out, and some strawberry jam was measured out into the measuring cup with the milk and vegetable oil:

Strawberry jam taken out and measured out

The milk, vegetable oil, and the strawberry jam were transferred to the mixing bowl with the dry ingredients and the egg:

Milk, oil, and strawberry jam transferred to mixing bowl

The ingredients were mixed together with the fork:

The batter was transferred to the paper liners in the muffin baking tin, using a spoon:

Batter transferred to paper liners in muffin baking tin

The filled muffin baking tin was transferred to the pre-heated countertop convection oven:

Muffin baking tin with batter placed in countertop convection oven

A timer was set to 23 minutes:

While the muffins were baking, a cooling rack was taken out:

Here’s a picture of the muffins rising while baking:

At the end of the 23 minutes when the muffins were baked, the muffin baking tin with the muffins were taken out of the countertop convection oven:

Muffins taken out of countertop convection oven

The muffins were taken out of the muffin baking tin and placed on the cooling rack:

A muffin (in the case of this photo, from a subsequent batch) was taken out to serve to mom:

Mom loves these delicious muffins a lot these days!

… and I froze the rest of muffins in a freezer bag, as I did with muffins from a subsequent batch:

Extra muffins placed in freezer bag for freezing

Mom now says that these are her favourites!

December 16, 2024December 23, 2024

Making Bierocks (Stuffed Bread Rolls) — Photos

I came to enjoy a type of convenience frozen pizza in the early 1990’s while in residence at university; of course I enjoyed them then, and continue to occasionally enjoy them to this day. However, what really fascinated me was how the manufacturer managed to produce what amounted to a bun stuffed with a filling, in this case pizza toppings, without an apparent seam or other apparent entry point for the contents (such as the small hole one would see on the size of a jelly doughnut). While said fascination remained, it was not strong enough for me to actually try to figure it out.

Fast forward to late 2023, and a snacks table offered bierocks (here’s my archive), which immediately caught my attention. Before I even picked one up and looked at it, including inspecting its bottom, I immediately realized how they had been made. I definitely ate some, and asked the person who had made them for the recipe. Due to delays in setting up a cooking lesson with said person, I eventually just followed the recipe instead of waiting to be shown how to make them.

(And, I am assuming, the manufacturer of the commercial pizza treats uses some kind of mechanical method analogous to the relevant section(s) below, or, a precisely timed continuous dual extrusion system that minimizes seams, and in either case a dough recipe tuned to be susceptible to the process; ultimately, whichever process is used appears to assure that the edges stay sealed, and the filled units are moved along an Archemides’ screw or the like to the next step, in such a way that smooths out any seams.)

Note that in the following narrative, while the photos are principally from a single session, a few are from two other sessions in order to complete the narrative.

Making the bierocks:

One of the common ingredients in bierocks is chopped cabbage; so cabbage was taken out:

A piece of cabbage was cut off to make chopping easier:

Piece of cabbage placed on a cutting board

The cabbage was chopped up somewhere between coarsely to finely:

As the cabbage was chopped, it was placed in a bowl:

I continued to chop cabbage, and froze the excess for future use, since a typical cabbage is far larger than the roughly half pound needed for this recipe.

In the case of this session, frozen cabbage from a previous chopping session was used; as such, a plate was placed on a kitchen scale, and the latter set to zero, so as to only be measuring the cabbage:

Bowl placed on kitchen scale, which was set to zero

About half a pound (about 227g) of frozen chopped cabbage was placed in the bowl:

The cabbage was put aside in order to allow it to defrost.

Frozen ground beef was taken out, and weighed to make sure that the appropriate amount of two pounds (911g) would be used:

The ground beef was put aside to allow it to defrost.

The basket from my bread machine was taken out and cleaned:

Six ounces of water were measured out:

The water was placed in the microwave oven (1100 watts) …

… and heated for 45 seconds.

The warmed water was poured into the bread machine basket:

Warmed water poured into bread machine basket

Eggs were taken out:

The eggs were cracked into the bread machine basket with the warmed water:

Egg cracked on edge of bread machine basket

Eggs cracked on edge of bread machine basket

Flour and a measuring cup were taken out:

The measured out flour was transferred to the bread machine with the warmed water and the eggs:

Flour transferred to bread machine basket

Sugar and measuring spoons were taken out:

Six tablespoons of sugar were measured out …

… and transferred to the bread machine basket with the water, eggs, and flour:

Sugar transferred to bread machine basket

Salt and measuring spoons were taken out:

The salt was measured out and transferred to the bread machine basket with the water, eggs, flour, and sugar:

Salt transferred to bread machine basket

Oil and a measuring cup were taken out:

The oil was measured out (oops twice as much as I should have used):

The oil was transferred to the bread machine basket with the water, eggs, flour, sugar, and salt:

A little note at this point: Since this recipe calls for using a bread machine, I strongly recommend using bread machine yeast; standard bread yeast behaves differently — although not necessarily badly — and in a bread machine, will produce a strong yeasty odour and taste, no doubt due to different timing required for it to act properly. Should you be making bread dough another way, including using standard bread yeast, of course I do not have any advice on that front. 🙂

Bread machine yeast and measuring spoons were taken out:

Bread machine yeast and measuring spoons taken out

Two teaspoons of bread machine yeast were measured out:

The bread machine yeast was added to the bread machine basket with the water, eggs, flour, sugar, salt, and oil:

Bread machine yeast transferred to bread machine basket

The bread machine basket with all the ingredients was placed in the bread machine, and the unit was set to the dough only cycle, which in the case of my bread machine is setting #8, with a cycle time of 1h30:

The bread machine was turned on:

While the bread machine was preparing the dough, baking trays were taken out:

Parchment paper was taken out:

Sheets of parchment paper were cut off the roll and placed on the baking sheets:

Parchment paper placed on the baking sheets

The baking sheets were put aside for later.

An electric frypan was taken out:

The electric frypan was plugged in, and the ground beef was placed in the electric frypan:

Ground beef placed in electric frypan, and electric frypan plugged in

The chopped cabbage was placed in the electric frypan:

Chopped cabbage placed in electric frypan

Salt was added to the electric frypan:

An onion was taken out and weighed to be sure it was enough (“about” a quarter pound of chopped onion in the end):

The onion was placed on the cutting board:

The onion was trimmed:

The onion was cut in half:

The onion half was sliced into half coins:

The onion slices were chopped:

The rest of the onion was chopped, and the chopped onion was transferred to the electric frypan, and the ground beef was cut up with an egg flipper:

The ground beef was broken up further, and the ground beef, cabbage, and onions were mixed together:

Ingredients broken up and mixed together

Cheese was weighed out:

The cheese was grated:

The grated cheese was transferred to a bowl, and put aside for later:

Once the meat mix was cooked, the electric frypan was unplugged:

At this point, I took out a large serving plate and a kitchen knife in anticipation of the bread machine dough cycle completing:

The bread machine finished its dough cycle:

At this point, I started to preheat the oven, set to 350F, and one of the racks was placed in the top position (photo taken after preheating):

The dough was taken out of the bread machine basket:

At this point, to get 24 roughly similarly sized balls of dough, I am using what I call the “Jamie Oliver Method” because I saw Jamie Oliver use this method on one of his shows with bread dough:

Cut the dough in half (2 pieces);
Cut each half into three pieces (2 x 3 = 6 pieces);
Cut each “third of a half” into four pieces (6 x 4 = 24).

I concede that Jamie Oliver would have you roll the dough into a long log first to further help with estimating making the sizes relatively even.

The dough was cut in half:

One of the dough halves was cut in three:

One of the pieces was cut in four:

The rest of the bread dough pieces were cut up, resulting in 25 pieces, which eventually were reduced to 24 pieces:

25 bread dough pieces (which will be integrated into 24)

A bread dough pieces was placed on the cutting board, and flattened and stretched out:

Bread dough piece flattened on cutting board

Some shredded cheese was placed in the centre of the piece of flattened bread dough:

Shredded cheese placed on flattened bread dough

Some cooked meat mix was placed on top of the shredded cheese on the piece of flattened bread dough:

Cooked meat mix placed on flattened bread dough

I began to stretch the edges of the flattened bread dough, pulling them together and covering the filling:

Bread dough edges stretched and brought together

All of the edges were brought together and the edges were pinched together:

Stretched bread dough edges brought together

The resulting ball of stuffed bread dough was placed on the parchment paper on one of the trays, pinched edges face down:

Stuffed bread dough ball placed edges down on baking tray

The process was repeated with more pieces of bread dough and more cooked meat mix and shredded cheese:

Stuffed bread dough balls placed edges down on baking tray

The process was continued until there were 24 units:

Margarine, a bowl, and a spoon were taken out:

The empty bowl was placed on the kitchen scale, which was set to zero:

Kitchen scale set to zero with bowl on it

Margarine was weighed out, about five tablespoons’ worth, in the area of about 70g to 73g:

The bowl of margarine was placed in the microwave oven (1100 watts):

The microwave oven was set to 15 seconds:

The margarine was partly melted:

The microwave oven was set again for 15 seconds, and the margarine was mostly melted:

A food brush was used to brush the melted margarine on to the bierocks …

… until all units had been basted and all the melted margarine had been used:

The trays of bierocks were placed in the oven:

Baking trays with bierocks placed in oven

The stove timer was set to 22 minutes:

Cooling racks were taken out while the bierocks were baking:

Pot holders were taken out:

At about halfway through the baking, the trays with the bierocks were rotated back to front within the oven:

Baking trays rotated back to front part way through baking

At the end of the baking period, I turned on the broiler to brown the tops of the bierocks:

… and the oven timer was set to two minutes:

Here’s a photo of the bierocks as they were browning under the broiler:

After the two minutes under the broiler, the bierocks were taken out of the oven:

Baking trays with bierocks taken out of oven

The bierocks were transferred to the cooling racks:

A bierock was picked up to check the bottom where the pinched edges of the dough had been brought together to show how it baked (but … not seamlessly! 🙂 )

I bit into the fresh bierock … yummy!

A bierock was placed on a cutting board with a kitchen knife:

Bierock and knife placed on cutting board

The bierock was cut into four pieces:

Bierock sliced into four pieces for freezing

Several bierocks were cut up into quarters, because bierock pieces have become part of my usual breakfasts:

Bierocks sliced into four pieces for freezing

… and the cut up bierocks were placed in a freezer bag for freezing:

The bag of bierock pieces was placed in a freezer for future eating as part of my daily breakfasts.

I find these bierocks to be yummy!

July 27, 2023December 22, 2024

Making Bagel and Cream Cheese Pieces Bites — Photos

This post is a bit of a gratuitous post to pass the time during my holidays, while showing a bit how I leverage freezers as useful tools for day to day cooking and eating, and highlight how, beyond the strictly obvious (or conversely, as an example of the obvious, whichever you prefer 🙂 ), my cooking efforts actually do fit into and serve everyday life — literally!

Yes, the breakfast shown at the end of this post is a very typical daily breakfast for me these days, barring the days, often on weekends or holidays, when I might choose to make other breakfast foods from my collection of recipes (or of course, something else completely.)

Note: I must confess that despite claiming to be a proud Montrealer, for these breakfast bites, I favour a commercial, industrially baked bagel typical of the fluffy, New-York style (here is my archive), instead of Montreal-style bagels (here is my archive).)

Making the Bagel and Cream Cheese Bites:

After coming home from the store and having bought bagels and a cream cheese spread flavoured with “herbs” and roasted garlic, I took out a cutting board:

A bagel slicer, basically a serrated edge attached to a wooden guide, and a table knife, were taken out:

A bag of commercially produced bagels, purchased earlier in the day, was taken out:

The bag clip was taken off the bag in order to open the bag of bagels:

The bagels were taken out of the bag:

The empty bag was kept and put aside:

A bagel was sliced (be careful, some industrially produced bagels may be partly pre-sliced):

… and the rest of the bagels were sliced:

A 227g (8oz) container of a commercially prepared cream cheese spread, in this case flavoured with “herbs” and roasted garlic, purchased earlier in the day, was taken out:

The lid was removed from the cream cheese container …

Plastic seal to be removed from container

… and the plastic seal was also removed from the container:

The knife was used to pick up some of the cream cheese:

A couple of bagel halves were placed on the cutting board, and the knife holding the cream cheese was brought to them …

… and cream cheese was spread on one of the bagel halves:

The two bagel halves were put back together:

Cream cheese was spread on a few more bagels, and after spreading cream cheese on half of the bagels, the container was about half empty:

I continued to spread cream cheese on the rest of the bagels; I scraped the last of the cream cheese out of the container, and I spread the last of the cream cheese onto the last of the six bagels:

Scraping the last of the cream cheese from the bottom of the container and spread onto last bagel

At this point, all six bagels were filled with cream cheese:

At this point, a clean knife was taken out, and a bagel was cut at a single point:

… and then the bagel was cut in two other places, resulting in three pieces:

The bagel pieces were placed back in the bag:

… and as I continued cutting up the rest of the bagels, I placed the bagel pieces in the bag:

… until all the bagel pieces were in the bag:

A tie wrap was taken out:

The tie wrap was used to seal up the bag again:

The bag of bagel and cream cheese pieces was placed in the freezer:

Bag of bagel and cream cheese pieces placed in freezer

The next morning, I took out a bagel and cream cheese bite, and defrosted it along with a mini raisin bran muffin, made earlier in the week using my mom’s bran muffin recipe, a pickled egg, some cheese, and some peanut butter scooped from the jar:

Yummy!