When the news is all bad, the kitchen can supply some respite

So I was wondering yesterday about that leftover phyllo dough from the salmon mushroom thing I made (very successful, by the way, to my surprise after all the mixup over the oven temp), and looked up any recipes that could use any flaky dough or anything. And started some yogurt cheese in case that would be needed.

And friend G. came over last evening and installed my new kitchen light, multitasking as always, since he was on a corporate conference call at the time!  also my eye doctor sent a reminder about getting my vision checked about now.  So things are moving along quite well on those two fronts. 

About the third resolution, to read the recipes more carefully, well, I did fall down on that a bit, forgetting to put parchment paper on the baking sheets, which resulted in some serious scrubbing after the baking was done, because, cherry jam and high temp.

I found a few ideas about making danish. Why danish, I wonder? do Danes like them?  Well, you really need puff pastry for this, and phyllo isn't it, but what's a few flakes between friends.  So I decided to go for cheese danish.  Then I realized that I still had a little package of cherries from my cherry bushes, in the freezer, awaiting jam.  So it could be cherry cheese danish.

I was saving them for strawberry and cherry jam,  but I decided just to make a little recipe of cherry jam right now.  

Sugar and cherries, nothing else needed, plenty of pectin in the cherries, but I added in almond essence.  I didn't pit them, they're tiny, but removed the pits as the cherries boiled, worked fine. You see the jam here at the unboildownable stage.

Then I made a filling using the yogurt cheese I made yesterday using vanilla yogurt, plus some confectioner's sugar, a fresh farm egg, bit of cornstarch, drop of vanilla essence, sorry don't know exact quantities, just shook the packets in, guessing.  

I think I'm channeling my mom who never seemed to measure, but when you asked how much of something to put in, would say, "Oh, enough, not too much, you'll know."  very helpful to a beginner...but she was far from a beginner and was so used to how much was enough that measuring wasn't an issue. 

Anyway I tasted the filling (yes, I know there's a raw egg in there, but it's from a very clean farm), and it was just great.  

So I cut out squares of the dough, put filling then a dab of jam on each, turned the ends over to seal, using a pastry brush with water, and that was that.

Two batches see here, each baked at 400F for 20 minutes, and came out very acceptable.  This is several breakfasts now.  And maybe a little something for afternoon tea.  And some for friends, if they get lucky.  The pastry sort of explodes when you bite in, great fun, but you wouldn't want to eat this if you're with anyone you'd like to impress.  

And there was jam and filling left over, but no pastry left, so I took the cook's privilege and just ate it.

The world is still rapidly going to hell but at least I can have a nice breakfast.  And do my part in speaking up to the right people, and doing what I can to make the world better not worse.