Chocolate stout cupcakes

These cupcakes set a dangerous precedent.

I am not one of those bakers who enjoys precision. I try to measure things accurately and follow the recipe, but the urge to just eyeball it, and change things on the fly is just too hard to resist.

Anyway, the day I made these cupcakes on the spur of the moment, I surprised even myself in how far I strayed from the recipe. I didn't have tofu or sour cream, or self raising flour. I used less chocolate, and more sugar. And yet they worked out beautifully. The flavour combination of chocolate, prune and stout is just perfect.

Mapo doufu

I hate it when Chinese restaurant menus have a tiny vegetarian section, with say, fried rice as the most exciting option, and then they have a whole tofu section which is decidedly nonvegetarian. The Szechuan dish mapo doufu is one of those that I've always wanted to try, and this week I made a version with crumbled tempeh in place of the meat. It was great.

I used this recipe, following the suggestion of one of the commenters to reduce the oil by omitting the chili oil, and infusing the 1/4 cup of oil with both chili and szechuan pepper. (I think that worked okay, but next time I might use the chili oil. I didn't find my chili infusion hot enough.) I also added a bit more water because the tempeh seemed to soak up a lot of liquid.

Artichoke tea

I bought this because... well, I like artichokes and I like tea. In fact, I think artichokes sometimes taste a bit like tea. But after I bought it, the box sat unopened for weeks because it scared me. Maybe it was the artichokes looming over the tea cup, like triffids.

But I finally got up the nerve to try it, and the verdict is: quite nice. It's a very gentle, vaguely sweet flavour.