Cookies at 8100 feet elevation

Oh yeah, there are a bunch of new rules. No wonder the last batch turned out flat and weird. Hard too. I’m a great cook. My grandmother, a renowned cook herself, would be proud. I still have and use her cookbook (among others.) But my foolproof batch of choclate chip cookies? Lucky if you could chip this batch with a hammer and chisel!

So tonight, in the midst of a batch of Snickerdoodles (it IS the season) I thought to check on high altitude cooking tricks. OMG! It’s a wonder we have food up here at all! There are SO MANY THINGS you have to do differently. Baking—you have to add to several and reduce many other ingredients. The recipe is really just a list of clues. You know all that stuff goes in—but you have to add to or subtract from virtually all of the ingredients! In some cases, literally all of them. Amazing.

Then there’s the boiling point of water. Who remembers this from science class? 212 Farenhiet at sea level. Up here? It’s about 196 to 197 degrees. That’s a 15 to 16 degree difference! It boils at a lower temperature so it takes much longer to boil that 6 to 8 minute pasta. Slow cooked stews? An extra HOUR for every 1,000 feet elevation over 4,000 feet. That means my usual beef stew...I did wonder why it took FOREVER....takes about 5 to 6 hours to cook. My husband loves to cook beans. They say over 7,000 feet it is virtually impossible to cook them to doneness without a pressure cooker. (We also had an afternoon’s worth of “why isn’t the pea soup ready yet?” recently. That would be why.) So we’ll probably get a pressure cooker as that many hours of propane just ain’t worth bean soup.

I’m a little confused as in the old days, beans were one of the staples of the diet up here. I guess they just put the bean pot on top of the wood stove that goes on in October and the fire burns until May. So—you plan your meals a few days ahead. This pot is ready Sunday, this next one on Monday, and so forth.

Woo Hoo! We got the new door up on the new place. AWESOME, totally awesome. Yes, I will do a new pix post on Trishtown soon, I just have about 9 thousand things going on right now.

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