Cooking with the Optimist

I've spent virtually every minute of the last two days cooking and baking. For once, not because I have to.

I'm trying to figure out how to make bagels. I'm working with Phil Reinhart's baking methods. He is the author of several books, all of which are very helpful. He's a good writer and really appreciates the art as much as the science of bread making.
The bagels we made had an overnight fermentation, but I either proofed them for too long, or I squished them (or both) because most of them were incredibly flat when I took them out of the fridge this morning. We boiled them for one minute on each side and then baked them for a total of ten minutes (rotating the pan halfway through).
The result - More bread-y than bagel-y. Tomorrow we're going to shape them after the fermentation as opposed to before and try a different shaping method. Wish me luck!

In between bagel mixing and bagel kneading, my friend and I decided to bake a cake. And what would be more fun than cake!? CAKE WITH NO RECIPE!!!! Yeah. No recipe cake is the best! Only.... Not.
It was supposed to be a lemon cake. We measured very little, added things without telling each other and forgot the sugar entirely.
We were very proud and a little haughty when it came out of the oven looking very cake-like, only to be deflated in our glory when it was brought to our attention by a third party that our cake was rapidly deflating.
.... Whoops.
It compacted so hard that you could hold it in one hand with no pan. It was much more like a quick bread than a cake.
We decided to follow and actual recipe for the frosting. I had what I thought was our secret family Butter Cream Cheese Frosting recipe, but what actually turned out to be a cream cheese glaze. Apparently "frosting" is no the key word, but "butter" is.
We weren't quite sure what to do with our runny concoction, so we did what any great scholaristic baker would do.... We added more powdered sugar until it looked like the right consistency. We also threw in some extra lemon peel.
But apparently frosting is not built on powdered sugar alone, so it just became slightly thicker, lumpy runny glaze.
So we did what any scholaristic bakers would do.... We added the leftover whipped cream from our Christmas Chocolate Cream Pies.
What came out was a whippy sort of frosting-like (frosting enough anyway) substance which we impatiently slathered onto the cake while it was still hot.

But please do not judge. More cake tales to come! Because this evening, sans the friend, I made a lethal chocolate cake. A completely made up cake. And then I ran it around the house making everyone who made fun of me yesterday try it.
Seriously. Perfectly light and fluffy and chocolate-y.
I might have ruined it with our leftover lemongoop, but whatEVER.

I made fresh pasta for the first time almost completely by myself (I had a little help with the rolling. And I made a (very acidic) wine sauce with balsamic vinegar, tomatoes and cream.
It was amazing. No seriously. I'm a so-so baking recipe inventor, but I'm very good at savory foods. Just sayin'.

I'm probably scaring you all off from my cooking with these tales, but don't be scared. Adventurous Eating is what it's called. Some people travel the world documenting their Slug-Pig gut-sheep bladder eating adventures, and the rest of you just come to my house.