[luvpyrpom]

Tonight's dinner will be leftover corned beef with sides of carrots, cabbage, and potatoes.

[luvpyrpom]

I remember cooking spaghetti squash many years ago - at first I liked it but then when I made it again, there was an aftertaste I wasn't too keen on. It's like butternut squash, loved it a couple years ago and now can't stand the taste of it.

[luvpyrpom]

Did more cooking than baking this past week. Made pork meatballs w/brown sugar BBQ sauce (had some sauce frozen from previous attempt) to me, the BBQ sauce tasted more sweet and sour sauce than actual BBQ. Also ham fried rice, sauteed shrimp and ham in an attempt to use up a slice of ham steak. I like the Costco Ham Steaks - 3 slices individually packed per package. Last night I made corned beef w/baby potatoes, carrots, and instead of cabbage, I tried cooking some baby boy choy (it needed to be eaten first) in the corned beef liquid. Not bad as I had inadvertently rinsed the meat before cooking it. I think next time I boil the beef, I will add some extra spices and salt. And definitely de-fat the liquid as it was way too fatty and they were sticking to all the potatoes and veggies.

[luvpyrpom]

Not much baking this past week.

Joan - sorry for your family' loss.

BakerAunt - glad that you like the pan grease. I absolutely love that stuff for baking anything. That and parchment paper pretty much keeps anything from sticking. Except for that one time I made Bernard's Chopped Apple Bread - that was an awful mess and took me days so soak the pans clean. I also love the KAF Favorite Fudge Chocolate cake. That's my go to chocolate cake.

I had some leftover crossiant in a can so made bacon croissants - had some brown sugar mixed with chopped bacon - sprinkled it in between two of the crossiant shapes and rolled them up. I think next time I'll leave out the sugar as the crossiant dough was already sweetened. I also made cornbread biscuits, froze them individually for work lunches. I had already made and froze single servings of chili so the biscuits will be a nice little addition to go with for lunch.

[luvpyrpom]

Now that I've gotten a chance to go back and read -

I love the pan grease! I use it for almost all my baking. Like Wonky, I do have to stir it every once in a while. I keep mine in the frig so it doesn't get bad. I have to chuckle because it's in a Cool Whip container and I'm sure someone will be shocked to open it and see something totally different. Plus I like to wash all my pans.

My favorite baking pans for breads are these 9 x 5 pans that were handed down to me by my mother. I think they're aluminum, dented in some places but they bake beautifully and nothing sticks. They're made by King USA which I have found to be out of business. Now I'm trying to build up my baking pans with the USA ones.

[luvpyrpom]

Not much baking this week. The only thing I did was the KAF Soft cinnamon rolls with these changes - instead of whole milk, used heavy whipping cream, 1 extra tablespoon of butter, and cream cheese frosting.

Another topic - I met a new coworker who claims to be a baker. She asked for some of my sourdough starter and she wanted to add it to her no-knead dough to make some bread. She asked me how to add the sourdough to her dough but when I tried to explain it, she said that she was going to add more flour. Why ask how to make it then?

My question, has anyone ever done that - add starter to a no-knead bread?

[luvpyrpom]

This week we had braised beef shank w/daikon radish, ground pork w/lotus root stir-fry, copycat Whole Foods curry chicken salad, sauteed Napa cabbage w/ham and rice noodles. I find that the Costco roasted cashews are a bit too salty so I bought their unroasted and unsalted cashews, roasted them on my own at home and then mixed the two together.

[luvpyrpom]

Last week I had made Chinese BBQ pork (or chau siu) after marinating the pork for a few days. Had a lot of leftover so made chow mein with it. Added tons of veggies (mushrooms, bean sprouts, baby corn, bamboo shoots, bell peppers). Last night I sauteed chicken thighs (boneless and skinless) w/fresh soybean sprouts. Today made a huge pot of beef & barley chili and did a quick fry of beef tri- tip strips so I can use them with tortillas.

Joan - a happy belated birthday! Sounds like you had a fun and wonderful day.

BakerAunt - it's been a very long time since I roasted a whole chicken. And when I do, I often have to look online to find instructions how. When I do cook chicken, I'm usually cooking parts separately. I do want to try to roast a chicken eventually in a Bundt pan and see how it turns out.

[luvpyrpom]

This week I did a bit more baking - dug up an old recipe for Finnish rye bread (it was given to me by a coworker over 20 yrs ago) made only half recipe and baked it in my Dutch oven to give it a nicer artisan look. Also made KAF sourdough buns w/almond schmear with no icing, KAF 12-grain raisin sourdough loaves (I guess they no longer have the recipe online as they don't have the main ingredient - 12 grain flour) and I had substituted the grain flour with harvest grains. Also made ATK popovers to try to use up some milk and had them for lunch. Today I wanted to try to convert the KAF Sourdough cinnamon raisin bread into a vegan style - substituted the butter with vegan butter, added 2 tbsp potato flour instead of the one egg and just didn't brush the dough before putting the cinnamon filling down. I thought I would melt the vegan butter to brush it on but I couldn't tolerate the smell after melting it. Totally off-putting. Will be cutting a slice later tonight to see how it turned out.

[luvpyrpom]

Wonky, I love your story about canning. I had started canning a few years ago - mainly jams. In the last batch, I also included canning fruit syrups. It's taken me a while to eat them, so in the last year, I had stopped canning. I hope to get back into canning some jams this year but we shall see how fast I can consume the jam/syrups this year.

[luvpyrpom]

I mainly cook with Kosher salt and bake with idolized salt. And when I do bake, I use less salt than what the recipe states.

[luvpyrpom]

Bakeraunt - I love the Cider donuts from KAF website. I usually make them as muffins or in the cake pop machine so they come out like donut holes. I skip the maple glaze, just toss them in cinnamon-sugar once I get them out of the oven. I also have made the KAF Baker's grains sourdough bread - not my favorite either but have been making it occassionally to use up the Ancient Grain flour.

I didn't do much baking - mainly eating all the baked stuff I had in the freezer. I did make the KAF Peanut Butter Energy bites. Probably will do more baking next week as I have to feed my starter.

[luvpyrpom]

This week was more focused on Chinese dishes for the New Year - red bean dessert, roasted salmon w/Brussels sprouts, deep fried tofu w/Buddha's Delight, ham steak w/petite green beans, tapioca pudding, beef smokies w/BBQ sauce, ham sandwich, homemade chau siu (Chinese barbecue pork).

I love reading about the different ways of roasting meats. I love making pot roast but now my mother doesn't like to eat the meat as much. I haven't cooked pork tenderloin for a long time - I remember my mother using it to make sweet and sour pork as a child.

[luvpyrpom]

LOL, no salmon for this week. Does shrimp count? I had made spicy beef curry at the beginning of the week, ran out of the beef before I could finish the veggies and sauce so added shrimp as the protein for the leftovers. Then made oven roasted potatoes and Brussels sprouts to go with the rotesserie chicken I had picked up from Costco. Today I made Buddha's Deilight or jai as it's pronounced in Cantonese. It's a vegetarian dish - made with mushrooms, rice noodles, tofu, and other vegetables. We only make it once a year for Chinese New Year.

[luvpyrpom]

Not much baking this week - sourdough cinnamon raisin bread with my sourdough discard (it made 2 loaves and I gave it away). I tried using the KAF fudge cake recipe with the mini Maryann pan I had recently purchased. The frosting didn't come out as smooth as I thought. I had made several pans of KAF Sourdough
Cinnamon Crumb Cake and froze them a couple of weeks ago. Took one out on Thursday and been slowly eating away on that. Hopefully will be able to bake some more next week.

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