Search Results for '("C'

[Mike Nolan]

That was a very good deal on tenderloin.

Our son, David, bought about a 4 pound prime rib at Fareway Beef (the best butcher shop in town IMHO), and cooked it sous vide for about 24 hours then put it in the oven to brown the outside a bit.

It was quite good, he didn't use as much rosemary as last year, so it wasn't overwhelmingly ROSEMARY this year.

We also bought a 6 ounce filet for Diane, because she's not fond of prime rib.

We also had roasted Brussels sprouts with Dijon mustard and maple syrup, hash brown potato-cheese casserole, green bean casserole (DGBC) and trifle for dessert. Nobody went hungry!

We'll probably wait until tomorrow, but David has been asked to make his potato-leek-baked potato soup. We'll use the leeks that Diane grew in a pot on the back patio this year.

[cwcdesign]

I got an incredible deal on a tenderloin at Harris Teeter. I ordered Angus which is their middle tier of quality and they prepared and tied it for me. I paid $32 plus change for 4 pounds (7.99 per pound, usually 17.99). I slow roasted it a la Ina Garden and it was perfect! I made bérnaise sauce, mashed potatoes and green beans. We did not have dessert, but we really enjoyed our dinner and will continue to enjoy it. Tonight I will make a green salad to go with leftovers.

[Mike Nolan]

I got a 5 pound loaf pan (5 x 4 x 10) and a 15 inch square baking steel.

I also got a set of 6 Govee temperature/humidity sensors. I've got them placed around the house, including the back patio, the garage, one freezer and several rooms. The base unit will handle up to 10 sensors and you can read them on your cell phone remotely. (According to the one on the back patio, it actually got up to 38 around midnight, but it's back down to about 12 now.)

Diane got a new iPad Air, an LED light that hangs around your neck for reading or doing puzzles and a floor lamp with a large magnifying glass.

[Mike Nolan]

Hartshorn (ammonium bicarbonate) is heat activated, but I don't know if it would remain in dough for a long time, it tends to evaporate out of the bottle over a few months if not well sealed.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks again, BA. I read through this and it is pretty interesting. Hansel and Gretel popularized gingerbread houses so that is probably a reason not to make them taste good. Keep the kids away lest they end up in a witch's oven!

I have a question about one of the recipes that uses a powder from deer antlers (red stag I believe) as a leavening agent. It says it is supposed to sit for several months but if you use a leavener that is activated by acid how long will the rising strength last? Six months seems a long time.

On his pancake episode Alton Brown says to make all your pancakes immediately before the baking soda dissipates. Mr Brown has obviously never made pancakes for teenage boys or else maybe I am supposed to keep making up small batches of batter. But at any rate wouldn't the leavening power of stag antler or baking soda for that matter be gone after six months?

[RiversideLen]

We had snow the other day. It wasn't a whole lot but enough to have to deal with it. I started to shovel the driveway and then decided it was heavy enough and deep enough where it drifted to fire up the snow throw. However, I could not remove the gas cap, apparently is must have been slightly cross threaded (easy to do with the plastic threads). So I left it alone for a couple of days. Went out there today and took channel locks to the cap, I got the sucker off and the driveway cleared. It's supposed to get into the 40's for a few days later this week.

[Mike Nolan]

We haven't had a lot of snow, but it has been cold enough that what we did get hasn't gone away, so technically it is a white Christmas. It's currently 14 and supposed to get to 30 today, that's a heat wave compared to the last several days. (When you have a day where the high is 5 below, that's COLD!)

[cwcdesign]

I just used up the last of my sparkling sugar coating my third batch of Bourbon Balls - the cookie crumbs are also used up. The best by date on the sugar (from KAF) was 2015 - but it's sugar and no one has gotten sick from either of the last two batches - a little tipsy maybe.

[Mike Nolan]

Today I've made a cherry pie, a triple batch of pastry cream (for assembling a trifle for tomorrow), and have a big pot of chili on the stove for supper, which will also include oyster stew.

[RiversideLen]

Aaron, I have used butter flavor shortening and it will give it a buttery taste but I can tell the difference between the artificial and real thing. But when I have used it, I have gotten compliments on the cookies. Yesterday, I used Nutiva organic which is a blend of Red Palm and Coconut oils. It has no butter flavor but the cookies have a good chocolate and vanilla flavor (I used double the amount of vanilla called for).

[Mike Nolan]

My mother's chocolate chip cookie recipe (https://mynebraskakitchen.com/wordpress/forums/topic/oatmeal-crisps-chocolate-chip-cookies/) uses both baking powder and baking soda. They tend to rise and have a lot of internal air spaces, which makes them great for dipping in milk, but they're crisp, not chewy.

I think the sugar/fat ratio has more to do with crispness/chewiness than the leavening.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Mike - Thanks. I looked up gingerbread house kits and found a bunch too. I mostly stay away from Amazon these days unless I know exactly what I want. It's just too complicated otherwise. Walmart has some as does Michael's (not sure if Michael's is in the Midwest) as well as Etsy. I think I still may make my own to give as gifts with a gingerbread mix. Fun project for after the holidays.

Len - those look beautiful. I looked up the recipe and they have baking powder instead of baking soda and shortening to make them puffy. Did you use butter-flavored shortening and if you did does it really add butter taste?

I remember the episode where he made these and made chocolate chip cookies four ways. I read something recently - I think on Test Kitchen but I cannot find - and they talk about using baking powder AND baking soda in cookies to make them chewy and give a rise. I may have to try that.

[BakerAunt]

My husband used the last of the bread for lunch on Thursday. I had anticipated it would run out, so I began a levain last night and today baked Rustic Wholegrain Sourdough Bread, using the Romertopf glazed bowl and the cloche top from the set I bought last year from Skeptik. (The bottom only fits bread loaves of about 3 cups flour; this recipe is 5-cups of grains.) I played with the recipe, which I had only baked this way once, by adding a tablespoon of flax meal and half a cup of the King Arthur 6-grains flakes. Although I deleted a half cup more of the bread flour, the dough needed another ¼ cup of water, and possibly could have used a little more. As I was shaping it, I sprayed it with water after each fold, I sprayed it before the second rise, and I sprayed it after I slashed it, put the cloche on, set it in the cold oven, then turned on the oven. I checked at 50 minutes, but it was only 190F, so I gave it another 3 minutes uncovered. I think that the second rise should have been a little longer, given the coolness of the house, but the rise in the oven was good, and it certainly looks rustic. I look forward sampling it at lunch tomorrow.

I am making my sourdough pan pizza for Thursday night's dinner. My plan is that we eat half tonight and the leftovers for Christmas Eve dinner. That, of course, depends on not having any power outages tonight or tomorrow. So far, the wind has not picked up, but it likely will later this evening.

[chocomouse]

Today I made broccoli soup, using broccoli frozen from last summer's garden. We'll have it tonight along with onion-wild rice rolls that I made the other day.

We're going to get another big storm tonight through Friday (thanks for sending that on to us, BakerAunt!) Rain, sleet and freezing rain, snow, but most worrisome are high winds, with gusts around 60 mph. We were without power much of last weekend, and not looking forward to more of that. We do have out of state and Canadian electric company trucks coming into the area already; they were a tremendous help last weekend.

I'm not sure what will happen to our family Christmas gathering planned for Saturday evening. My son does have solar power and a back-up battery system, so we could prepare all the food there, but that means more traveling for some people. We could gather next week!

[Mike Nolan]

There are several gingerbread house cutter sets out there, a search on Amazon finds multiples of several of them. (That's all too common these days, sellers create multiple vendors for the same products, with identical pictures, often at various price points.)

The largest of them that I saw makes a house that is about 9 inches tall at the peak.