New Book of Days

Assorted lifehacks and oddities. NO KINGS

Category: Cooking

  • The Fake Wine Attempts Continue

    March 17, 2025 by HTV9 Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been trying a mix of cranberry and grape juice, equal parts of each, or on their own, or diluted in a lot of water to help me drink more of it. So far so good, but it does not taste remotely like wine.…

  • Sandwich Spread

    March 17, 2025 by HTV9 This was an experiment to try to replicate the flavor of the mayonnaise I tried in Japan. On that front it was wildly unsuccessful. However it did improve my turkey sandwich. Here’s the recipe:1/8 cup (2 tbsp) mayonnaise, I used a vegan brand1 pinch of sugar1 tsp grated apple, I…

  • Fizzy Ginger Tea

    March 3, 2025 by HTV9 On a hunch, I added some ginger ale to this pitcher of iced tea. It’s better than I thought. Ratio is about 2 parts iced tea to 1 part ginger ale. This pitcher happened to be half-sweetened half-unsweetened iced tea, which probably equates to 4 tablespoons sugar per 7 cups…

  • Wine Analog 1

    Feb 6, 2025 by HTV9 This is not wine. It’s nonalcoholic. It consists of:1/3 c. pomegranate juice1/3 c. cranberry juice cocktail3 tbsp ginger ale1 tbsp black teaIt’s passable. Next time I’ll add some grape juice and skip the ginger ale in favor of 1 teaspoon of juice from grated fresh ginger. Since this has ginger…

  • Fail

    Jan 14, 2025 by HTV9 Ah yes, an auspicious start to the New Year. My husband brought me a glass of orange juice with this inch-high froth on it. Apparently he’s been shaking each bottle of orange juice up like crazy before pouring it ever since he was a kid since it amuses him. I…

  • Beans

    Dec 20, 2024 by HTV9 Beans, or as I see them, the sadist of the kitchen. Superfood, really good for you, and absolute nightmare to cook. I had this idea of combining all the softening methods for beans I’d heard of into one and it worked to make the total cook time 1 hour, including…

  • Dried Orange Peel In August

    Aug 14, 2024 by HTV9 Hey, it dried! Look at it! Doesn’t happen in any other month in Texas for us because of the weather patterns, so I think I’ll be restricting my herb-drying endeavors to just this month in the future. I’m not really sure what I’ll do with it, but in my experience…

  • Orange Pineapple Juice Ice Cubes

    Aug 6, 2024 by HTV9 Here’s what I did. I added some pineapple juice then orange juice to this ice cube tray after taking out the electrolyte cubes in there and rinsing it out. Chopped the top and bottom off an orange, put shallow slits down the side of it and peeled off the peel…

  • Less Simple Cheese Plate

    Jul 25, 2024 by HTV9 This cheese plate builds on the original cheese plate https://abrandnewbookofdays.com/2024/07/25/simple-cheese-plate/ with some toast, honey, applesauce, crackers, olives, a pickle and a can of soda. This one really was a “let’s clean out the fridge” plate © http://www.abrandnewbookofdays.com 2024

  • Simple Cheese Plate

    Jul 25, 2024 by HTV9 This is an affordable and tasty cheese plate that’s relatively easy. The hardest part is figuring out what goes well with other stuff. I like the notion of doing this kind of thing to clean out the fridge and that’s what I did for this one. © http://www.abrandnewbookofdays.com 2024