I have been finding great baking apples (Spy Gold) and pears at the farmers' market. When I saw a link in last week's Washington Post recipe email to "Apple and Pear Cake with Citrus and Nuts," from Becky Krystal, I knew that I wanted to bake it. I also knew that I wanted to make a few changes. I used half barley flour and half King Arthur AP. I added 4 Tbs. Bob's Red Mill milk powder. I used ¼ tsp. sea salt in place of twice that much kosher salt. I reduced the sugar from 400g to 375 g, and I left the peel on the apples and the pear. The recipe requires commitment, as after zesting an orange and lemon, they must be peeled, any seeds removed, coarsely chopped, then combined with a stick blender.
Instead of using a 12-15 cup Bundt pan, I used two 6-cup Bundt pans, coated with a new batch of The Grease. One is the traditional shape, and the other is swirled. I baked for 48 minutes, and possibly could have baked slightly less. After ten minutes, the traditional Bundt pan easily gave up its cake, The swirl was a bit stubborn but eventually came out clean. I think that with the swirls, it might need to bake slightly less due to the sharp edges. The cakes are cooling on racks on the counter. One will go into the freezer, and the other (the swirl) will be sliced for desserts, starting tomorrow evening.
The yellow pears we have been getting for the past month have been delicious. The grower offers a variety of vegetables, but apples are his major crop, along with unpasteurized cider. He has two pear trees are on his property, but he does not know what kind they are, so they must have been there when he bought the land. The pear I used for the cake is more of a green pear. I have not seen many people buying them, but that may be because many people do not realize that pears need to ripen off the tree and be eaten as soon as ready.
I made a big batch of piperade (sweet peppers, onions and tomatoes) today, then used a little of it with some mozzarella cheese to make some pizza bread for me for supper. I think Diane is going to have some soup, she was worried it might be too late in the day for the piperade.
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For dinner, I cooked some mushroom noodles that I got at T, J. Maxx (from Germany) and tossed them with mushrooms sauteed in avocado oil, the bit of gravy I made from the chicken I roasted last week, the rest of the chicken, and steamed broccoli. It was a good dinner for a cool, rainy day, and we have leftovers for tomorrow.
Of the tomatoes I've grown regularly, First Lady (sometimes sold as First Lady II) is still my favorite. There's a First Ladies that isn't the same tomato, but seems similar. I had both this year, neither did especially well, though I think that was just how the season played out. I will probably do both again next year, if I can find First Lady seed, usually Reimer Seeds has it.
My Fourth of July plants were, once again, the most prolific tomatoes I had, but they only get about the size of ping pong balls or smaller. They make good tomato juice, though.
Having a tomato mill helps a lot, I can process 20 pounds of tomatoes in 60-90 minutes, including setup and cleanup. I do blanche them in boiling water for several minutes, that's supposed to help keep the juice from separating by deactivating an enzyme, but it doesn't always work.
For large tomatoes, I like Italian Heirloom and Amish Paste, both are determinates and are late ripeners and tend to ripen at the same time.
I've given up on Mortgage Lifter and Brandywine, they seem to shut down blooms faster in hot weather and crack a lot. My wife still likes Rutgers, but they weren't that productive this year, and the Celebrity were kind of a mixed bag.
The hydroponics teacher at UNL was harvesting some of his test crops, most of which usually go to the food bank. But he did bring some butter crunch lettuce over along with what I call frisee (see below), but my wife isn't sure that's what it is. (I might add it to the list of lettuces I grow in the Aerogarden, I'm also thinking of trying some dwarf pea pods.)
She also brought a couple of tomatoes, the one below is nearly a pound.
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I see articles that say you can cook and freeze spaghetti squash, I've never tried it. I think you need to let it drain before freezing it, it does weep in the bottom of the bowl after you shred it. (I usually line the bowl with paper towels.)
I'll be making a double cheeseburger (provolone) tonight (2.5 ounce patties, each), and I have a big salad made up. A medium baked potato will round it out.
I'm not sure about the shelf life of spaghetti squash either, Mike. Last year was my first year growing them. I somehow am thinking I tried to use them up more quickly than my other winter squash varieties, which I know will keep perfectly until Jan-Feb. (We have a cold cellar built into our basement). But I've recently read on a gardening forum that they keep as long as other winter squash. I haven't determined yet if I can bake and scrape them into strands, and then freeze them for later use. I'm not sure the texture would then be very good, probably mushy. I think I got 6-7 of them, way more than enough for us, so I'll give away a lot of them.
The tomato season was late getting started, no tomatoes until mid-July and not many until mid-August, but turned out decent, and I might still get another 2-3 weeks of tomatoes if the weather cooperates. (The two week forecast now has 5 days in mid 30's.)
The white eggplants were very productive, the purple ones much less so. Still not sure why I got so many yellow ones, though.
Both types of melons were something of a disappointment, but at least I've demonstrated that I can grow melons in the area to the north of the tomato plants.
I might try spaghetti squash next year, they say you get 3-5 squash per plant. Not sure what their shelf life is, though.
I'm thinking about Emma Zimmerman's The Miller's Daughter. I do not live close enough to any bookstore to check it out. I rejected buying Mother Grains because of the author's insistence on butter. My cookbooks are in two locations--a large bookcase in the kitchen (and yes, that limited cabinet space and storage), and two bookcases in our Annex.
Hey Mike. Stella Parks did some comparisons of buttermilk substitutes over on Serious Eats.
Violet and I both have COVID so we baked together. Duff Goldman's rainbow blondie recipe.
I picked 3 big bowls of tomatoes, most of them are ripe but maybe as much as a quarter of them that would be better if they had a few more days, total weight is well over 20 pounds. If we don't get a frost tonight, there are still enough green tomatoes for another good picking in a week to 10 days and possibly another a week or two later if the weather holds up. (There have been years when we were still picking tomatoes off the vines in early November.)
This should give me enough tomatoes for another 6-7 quarts of tomato juice, which would put me well over last year's yield.
I also picked at least 6 pounds of eggplant, taking everything larger than my little finger. A lot of the white ones had turned yellow, but even a lot of the smaller ones are yellow so I don't think it's just a question of being too ripe, not sure what causes them to go yellow.
That'll give me another research project for the winter, I guess. My major research project will be to delve into categorizing layers of bread crust as part of my 'bread shapes = bread flavor' project, possibly with the aid of a microscope. And hopefully I'll even get back into the rye project.
Calling the cultured stuff 'buttermilk' comes close to being food fraud, but I guess if we can have almond milk and soy milk and vegan meat patties, anything's fair game these days.
Cultured sour cream also is a far cry from the original, which was made from cream that had soured. If you've ever had it, the cultured stuff is probably an improvement, certainly better on a baked potato. But low-fat cultured sour cream still strikes me as an oxymoron.
It would be interesting to do some comparison baking for products made with cultured buttermilk, buttermilk powder and real buttermilk, which I'd probably have to make myself.
I have Diane St. Clair's book: The Animal Farm Buttermilk Cookbook: Recipes and Reflections from a Small Vermont Dairy , it even has recipes for making your own creme fraiche. (The most important part of the book, IMHO, the first chapter on how to make buttermilk, creme fraiche and cultured butters, is available in the free preview on Amazon.)
Now, if could just find 55% butterfat cream, I could try to make Devon clotted cream. Its hard to find anything above about 38% butterfat in the USA. Some 'whipping cream' packages don't even list the butterfat content, though if it is under 30% it won't whip properly even if you nearly freeze it first.
Nice schnecken, Aaron.
I tend to think of schnecken, the word is German for snails, as more like Danish, but any baked good that is coiled could probably be called that.
If I understand correctly, Saco buttermilk powder is made from real buttermilk, which is the stuff left over after butter is churned.
What's generally sold in the stores as buttermilk is a cultured product. I suspect the closest it has been to a butter churn is being in the same building.
When I was young, you could get buttermilk brought to the house by the dairyman, I remember it being kind of weird looking, sort of like watery milk, and it was not something I'd drink. (My mother liked it, though.)
I can vouch for Allen (I know you two have talked on the BBGA). We grew neighbors back in Chicago.
