This was not the Pão de Queijo I sought

Imperfect paoI only realized this morning that today was the 27th, which is also known as Daring Bakers Reveal Day. This month’s challenge was a Brazilian cheese roll called pão de queijo. From what I understand, they’re supposed to be light and chewy and reminiscent of a gougère, which I’ve successfully made in the past. So I thought I’d make a batch of pão de queijo this evening to serve with our red beans and rice.

I used the pão de queijo recipe from Our Best Bites, which specifically said that there was no substitute for the tapioca flour for which it called. But because our local grocery store doesn’t have tapioca flour and I am a rebel without a clue, I bought a small box of gluten-free rice flour blend and hoped for the best.

The dough/batter was gluey, just as the recipe had said it would be. My final product, though, was neither light nor chewy nor particularly flavorful. It wouldn’t be fair to say I don’t care for pão de queijo, seeing as how what I made didn’t follow the recipe precisely. I think it is fair to say, though, that rice flour doesn’t do the job when you’re trying to make the dish. I know there are grocery stores around here that sell tapioca flour, so I might give this another shot sometime. This effort, though, was a bust.

I just want a Disney food court installed in my kitchen

Dancing with BelleWe spent last week at Disney World, where the dining plan spoiled me entirely. We just picked our meals and scanned our little wristbands and shazaam dinner was on the table!

This week’s planning took a little more effort on my part. Between the having to cook and clean and the not spending hours at the pool in the afternoon? I think I might be feeling a good bit of Disney nostalgia this week.

Monday: Baseball food!
We went to our first baseball game of the summer this evening. The kids had pizza, Rockford had chicken tenders and I had a hot dog.

Tuesday: Red Beans & Rice
Pete and I were reminiscing the other day about how I used to make a big pot of red beans & rice when Rockford was out of town and the two of us would eat it every night for dinner. I realized I hadn’t made any in a long time, so we figured it was time to revisit one of our favorites.

Wednesday: DIY Big Macs
Every now and then I get the urge to try to recreate a “restaurant” dish at home. Last time it was the Taco Bell crunch wrap. They were really, really good. I’m hoping the Big Mac is great, too.

Thursday: Chicken sausages & macaroni and cheese
You know what’s great about Memorial Day? All of the sausages are on sale.

Friday: Pizza
We’ll either be ordering pizza or going the frozen route.

I’m linking this up with OrgJunkie.com’s weekly Menu Plan Monday thing.

In which we make Thiebaud-inspired art at co-op

"Great American Artists" Wayne Thiebaud projectI first became aware of artist Wayne Thiebaud a little more than a decade ago, when Rockford’s sister worked at The Phillips Collection. They only have one of his paintings in their regular collection, so they must have had a special exhibit or something. Or I could be entirely misremembering where I first saw his work.

Thiebaud is my favorite artist either way, so I knew when I saw that MaryAnn Kohl’s “Great American Artists for Kids” included a project based on his work that we’d be doing it in our art class at co-op.

Although he’s made paintings with lots of other subjects, Thiebaud is best known for his paintings of cakes, pies and other desserts. “CBS Sunday Morning” aired a nice piece on him back in 2002; he seems like a nice, self-effacing kind of guy:

The “Great American Artists” Thiebaud project focuses on his dessert paintings, so I took a couple of baking cookbooks with me to co-op yesterday for the girls to flip through before they got started on their watercolors. The book suggests adding flavor extracts to the painting water to provide a little extra sensory inspiration, so I took in what I had on hand: almond, lemon, peppermint and butter.[ref]“Didn’t you have vanilla?” my co-teacher asked. Yes, but I forgot about it because it isn’t stored with the other extracts. It’s in the giant vanilla jug.[/ref] Not only was our classroom the most pleasant-smelling in the building, but the girls really enjoyed painting with the scented water.

After they finished sketching and then painting their cupcakes, the girls spread white glue over the frosting areas of their paintings and poured real baking sprinkles over it. That was definitely their favorite part of the project, and it really made their paintings pop with color and texture.

This would’ve been an awesome project even if I weren’t so fond of Wayne Thiebaud!