Beanz

In which, undeterred by last night's mishaps, I return to the kitchen and improvise as if I knew what I was doing.

Two cups of Safeway's Small Red Beans, soaked overnight in six cups of water. In the morning I threw out the soaking water and added six fresh cups, which was not included in the instructions on the packet but seemed like a good idea. Then I brought the pan to the boil and let it boil briskly for ten minutes (also not mentioned on the packet) while I sliced up and fried a large onion and hacked up a couple of tomatoes. Added onions, tomatoes, 1/3 cup molasses (which is sort of like black treacle, but runnier), and a sprinkle of salt and powdered paprika to the pan; brought back to the boil; covered and simmered until the total cooking time was about two hours, stirring and testing occasionally and otherwise pottering around the apartment, picking up and doing a bit of vacuuming. Divided up into seven small containers, froze six and saved the last one for lunch. It smells good, anyway. (Edit: and tasted good, too, on hot raisin-bread toast, just to further commingle the two sides of the Atlantic.) Texture a little on the hard side, possibly a side effect of the additives, but perfectly edible.)

Cookie report

It may have been a mistake to try doing two batches back-to-back, given my inexperience and limited space. Also? The molasses jar lied when it said I could substitute (1 unit granulated sugar+1/2 unit molasses) for 1 unit brown sugar; I'd have been better off sticking with just granulated sugar as I did last time. The chocolate chip walnut cookies didn't rise, they just spread and burned, leaving me with a couple of square feet of rich, dark, crispy, chocolate cinders. (The leftover dough was tasty, though!)

The oatmeal raisin batch, in which I cut back the molasses to about half, went better than it did the first time; key being the spooning out with a desert spoon rather than a tablespoon, I think,
and putting the top tray in a few minutes ahead of the bottom one. They're cooling in the bathroom now, to leave me space for dinner, which will be nothing elaborate. (Baked salmon fillet with pepper and basil, multicolored potatoes, and steamed veg.)