How did your pasta salad turn out, @starkat? It sounds yummy. I've been thinking I need to learn how to make noodles, so we can make pasta salad regularly. Whole wheat noodles from the store are just too expensive. Every time I see someone mention pasta salad or lasagna, I'm like ooh that sounds so good...but we don't have the noodles.   We do get egg noodles from the farmers market in the summer, but those are for beef and noodles.

I made hamburger buns this week. fourth or fifth time I've made this recipe and I think I finally figured out the right weight and shape for them. My family likes hamburgers that 4-5 oz, so this week I made buns that were 2.8-3 oz. My cousin's recipe said 3.5-4 ounces, but we found that to be too much. A kitchen scale is so very helpful when making buns or rolls. This was also the first time I made the buns with flour from wheat that had been sprouted, they had good flavor and texture.  

I also made vanilla ice cream for a birthday party and although it turned out okay, it was not my best. I'm not sure if I needed more cream in the ice cream, rock salt on the ice, or if the wooden bucket leaking the ice water was the problem, or maybe some combination of the three. But for now I can't make more ice cream until I figure out how to reseal the bucket.  

@snowangel it actually turned out really good. I'm going to change a few things for next week. Broccoli instead of peas, avocado lime ranch, and maybe Italian seasoning. 

Yesterday for Pi day, one of my sisters and I made sour cream black raspberry pie and java cheesecake brownie pie. The black raspberries (locally grown, frozen from last summer) were small, but had a lot of flavor and the flavor was even better today...note for next time make the pie the day before serving. The java cheesecake brownie pie was a recipe I had found on pinterest years ago, made it once in 2013, and still had the recipe in my file. It was pretty good, so glad I hadn't ditched the recipe.  

Today I made pizza rolls for tomorrow's lunch, always makes for a lot of work on Saturday, but it makes meal setup and cleanup on Sunday after church so easy. Plus the house smells terrific.  

Posted by: @snowangel

Yesterday for Pi day, one of my sisters and I made sour cream black raspberry pie and java cheesecake brownie pie. The black raspberries (locally grown, frozen from last summer) were small, but had a lot of flavor and the flavor was even better today...note for next time make the pie the day before serving.

 

Ooh, I'd never heard of black raspberries (I've just looked them up and I see they're a slightly different species from red raspberries and are native to North America, which probably explains why we don't have them over here), and I'd also never heard of sour cream pie, but that sounds delicious and exactly the sort of thing I like!   I've found a few recipes online and may have to see if I can make it myself. 

That reminds me, last week for Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday) I decided to make some pancakes for myself, which is something I've only tried once before and it wasn't very successful. This time though, I remembered a recipe I once had for Thai-inspired pancakes with bananas and coconut and lime juice, which I wanted to try years ago and never got around to it. The cookbook in question is back at my parents' house in Australia, but I remembered enough about the recipe to go searching for it online and I soon found a very similar one, so that's what I set about making. They turned out completely delish. Happy to share the recipe if anyone else is interested! 

@courtenay, sour cream pie is super easy to make and is great leftover. My dad loves berry pies, so nearly every time we have pie, we make a sour cream berry pie. It's been at least ten years since we started it making regularly and there was no going back to plain berry pie once we started. The few times we have made a plain berry pie, we wish we had just made this recipe.  

This is my recipe:

Sour Cream Berry Pie

9 inch unbaked pie shell
2 eggs
1 1/3 c. sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. sugar 
1/3 c. flour
Pinch of salt
3 c. fresh or frozen berries (raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, basically any berry or a combination of them will work)

TOPPING:
1/2 c. flour
1/4 c. chilled butter
1/2 c. loosely packed dark brown sugar
1/2 c. chopped pecans, optional

Beat eggs and whisk in sour cream and vanilla. Mix sugar, flour and salt; add to egg mixture. Gently stir in berries. Pour into pie shell and bake at 400 degrees for 30-35 minutes, until center is almost set. Mix brown sugar, flour and nuts. Cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over hot pie and bake 10-15 minutes more. Can be served warm, but the berry flavor is more intense if chilled.

Note: I do often get frozen berries out when I start mixing up the pie filling, so they aren't as cold. But I don't always and it still works out fine...just has to bake a few minutes longer.

Chili today! Black beans, cannelini beans, ground beef, beef broth, onion, garlic, canned mild green chilis, chopped cilantro/fresh coriander, cumin powder, red chili powder, salt, lime juice. Topped with extra cilantro and a dollop of plain yogurt in lieu of sour cream, served with cornbread on the side.

Having bacon/corn/potato chowder and garlic toast tonight!