Getting to Know My Watch

My fitness tracker and I have developed an interesting relationship. She sits on my wrist and whispers to me every now and then. 

Move around for a minute to earn an hour towards your stand goal.

Almost there. Close your exercise ring. An 25 min brisk walk should do it.

She often says these things at inopportune times. In the middle of a meeting just as I have raised my hand to make a point. When I'm in the middle of making dinner. Close to midnight. Her passive-aggressiveness is barely concealed. 

In the early days, as with any relationship, things were rosier. The goading felt like genuine encouragement. On the rare days that I closed all three "rings" - move, exercise and stand goals - she would set firecrackers off in the only way she knew. Three shiny rings spinning on the face of my watch, bursts of sparks flying out in all directions. It may sound mundane but I actually paused a moment when it happened to watch the show. The fireworks have since stopped. These days she's matter of fact in telling me I have closed my rings. "Congratulations. You closed all three rings today". Bewildered (and injured), I asked my husband about this sudden change in tone, fitness tracker veteran that he is. "Oh, the sparks thing is only for beginners. They stop after you've had the watch for a while". Only a brute would build this sort of aloofness into a watch. 

The relationship is not what it used to be (with the watch, not the husband). Still, I don't like losing to a watch. So I do what I can. It doesn't help that we now live in a foggy part of town. Looking out of the window, it's hard to muster the energy to step out. 

Turns out, cooking actually burns a reasonable number of calories. She registers all that mixing, kneading, stirring and rolling. It's been a good side benefit of spending time in the kitchen. 

It's been a while since I showed up here. There's so much cooking and baking I've done over the last few months, but I haven't had the chance to say anything about it. It is one of those rare mornings. I have woken up very early, the sun is not yet out (it's especially foggy outside, in any case), and the house is quiet. So here I am. 

A few things I have been churning out in the kitchen:

First, a vegetarian stromboli. Stromboli. How can you come across a recipe for something with such an intriguing name, and shelve it away. I was itching to make a yeasty dough and watch the yeast do its thing. I feel a sense of accomplishment when I get the yeast to behave. I didn't want to make bread so I hopped on to the King Arthur Flour website - a treasure chest of baking recipes. Once I spotted the stromboli recipe, I knew I had to make it. 

How is it different from a calzone, you might wonder. Calzones are shaped like empanadas or samosas. You roll out a circle, and fold it to create a semi circle after adding the filling. For a stromboli, you roll out a large rectangle instead, the edges of which are sealed after filling is added. There's more to it, but this is one major difference.

I midread the instructions (tend to do a lot of that lately) and ended up with too little filling for the dough but I can see this recipe has potential. I will bake this again

Here's what went into the oven:

And here's the finished product(s) fresh out of the oven.

On to the second thing I baked, also savory. A deconstructed samosa tart. Again, a name that calls out to you. The deep frying that a samosa calls for puts me off. What a waste of oil. So much of it. Easy to end up with a greasy outcome. High bar having eaten samosas in Delhi.

The deconstructed samosa tart recipe makes things easy because it calls for a roll of readymade puff pastry. A recipe that starts with puff pastry can do no wrong. With the right treatment, it guarantees a flaky, crunchy outcome.  

Here's the finished product. As you can see, I took a bite, and then paused for a photo, realizing this is too good to not be documented.

As usual, I baked a bunch of sweet things too. But I will leave that for another post. 

It feels good to be back!