On Monday, I roasted vegetables - peppers, zucchini, onion, carrots and the baby potatoes along with a large chicken breast that I had pounded very thin. I just used olive, salt & pepper.
Tuesday I made chicken salad with the chicken I didn't use for my dinner (most of it) with celery, toasted pecans, dried cranberries, whole milk yogurt & mayo, which I also enjoyed tonight and will have more for tomorrow
Perhaps it is time for all of us to once again delve into the cookbooks lining our shelves which we rarely or have never opened? I'll submit my effort of this morning here. I would be interested in what others have to say about the spices, which I will reduce when I bake these muffins again.
I baked a new recipe on Wednesday morning: "Pumpkin Muffins with Crystallized Ginger," which appears in Year Around Cookbook, by Sarah Leah Chase (New York: Tess Press, an imprint of Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 1990), pp. 262-263. It combines two of her cookbooks, Nantucket Open-House Cookbook and Cold Weather Cookbook that sprang out of her Nantucket shop, Que Sera Sarah. I picked it up in 2001 on sale at a bookstore but had never cooked any of the recipes. I was looking for a new pumpkin muffin recipe (and they are surprisingly not easy to find) and decided to try this one, as I have apple cider on hand. As always, I made some changes. I halved the recipe, which made a nice dozen muffins, not the 13-14 the recipe noted, but muffin pans vary in size. Here are the ingredients from the halved recipe with my changes:
1 ¾ cup AP flour (I substituted whole wheat flour)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt (I reduced it to ¼ tsp.)
2 ¼ tsp. cinnamon (I reduced to 2 tsp.)
2 ¼ tsp. ginger (I reduced to 2 tsp.)
½ tsp. nutmeg
¼ tsp. cloves
2 Tbs. Bob's Red Mill milk powder (I added)
1 Tbs. flax meal (I added)
7.5 oz. canned pumpkin puree (I used my homemade pumpkin puree)
1 cup light brown sugar (I reduced it to ½ cup)
½ cup (one stick) unsalted margarine, melted (I substituted 1/3 cup canola oil)
2 large eggs
¼ cup apple cider
½ cup minced crystalized ginger (I added to the combined wet ingredients rather than adding at the end of mixing.)
I whisked together the wet ingredients in a bowl, then added the combined dry ingredients. I baked, with sprayed muffin liners in the pan at 350 F for a little more than 18 minutes, when they tested done, not the 20-25 minutes in the recipe.
I had wondered about the amount of cinnamon and ginger, but as I was using whole wheat flour, I just reduced each by ¼ tsp. After eating two warm muffins for breakfast with my coffee, I would cut back the cinnamon and the ginger to 1 tsp. each, as I think they overwhelm the pumpkin and the cider. It is as if the recipe developer wanted to cover up the pumpkin taste! I don't usually bake a recipe again so soon, but when we finish eating these muffins, I will try the recipe again with less spice. I need to do it while the apple cider is still good.
I agree with Joan--it would be lovely to have a potluck or progressive dinner with the Nebraska Kitchen group.
I decided to experiment with Monday night's dinner. I used as my basis the recipe for chicken braised in white wine with artichokes, which I have used before with mushrooms replacing the artichokes that my husband does not like. This time, I replaced the white wine with 2 cups of apple cider. I also peeled and cut up two small butternut squashes which I roasted at 375 F for 45 minutes. After coating the four chicken thighs with a mixture of ¼ cup flour, ¾ tsp. smokey paprika, ¼ tsp. onion powder, and some freshly ground pepper, I browned them in olive oil, for 5 minutes per side, then removed them and added the apple cider and scraped any bits off the bottom of the pan. I added the roasted butternut squash, then nestled the chicken thighs into the pan and simmered, partly covered, for 15 minutes. Once the chicken was done, I stirred in some cooked faro (1/3 cup dry cooked in 1 cup chicken broth and let it rest for about eight minutes. We had half of it for dinner. The flavor is good, but the butternut squash, even roasted, was not as sweet as I expected, and its flavor was a bit overwhelming. I will try the recipe again, but next time, I will go back to using mushrooms.
We had leftover shrimp and pasta. Earlier, at "teatime" (well, my husband had tea; I had coffee), we sliced into the pumpkin pie. The Fairy Tale pumpkin makes an awesome pie.
On Thursday, I adapted the recipe "Chewy Oatmeal Cookies" from King Arthur's Whole Grain Baking, 1st edition (p. 314). I replaced ¾ cup of butter with ½ cup avocado oil plus 2 Tbs. buttermilk. My only other change was to add 1 Tbs. of milk powder. I used dates as the dried fruit and walnuts. I used a #30 scoop and got 39. I made a mistake by putting 20 on the baking sheet. They were fine when I turned them around after 7 minutes, but at the end of another 7 minutes, they had run together. Oops. Even if I were making them with butter, I think that would have happened. (So much for 2 baking sheets for 50 cookies.) I redistributed some of the scooped batter on the remaining baking sheet onto yet another, so that this time they were properly spaced. On the first sheet, I was able to cut the cookies apart and only two fell apart, which of course meant that I had to eat them. I really like the flavor and the chewiness: oats, dates, and walnuts are a wonderful combination. The cookies need to cool on the pan until firm enough to move. I will definitely make this version again, although I will probably add another tablespoon of powdered milk.
After dinner, I made the levain for another loaf of my Rustic Wholegrain Sourdough bread.
Since I had to go in at 7 this morning to open the store at 8 (our opener had a doctor's appointment) and was able to leave at 3, I decided to make the Warm Vegetable and Grain Bowl from Ina's Go To Dinners - it was easy but quite a few different parts. It is really good - filling but not heavy. Another planned over dinner - I have several meals left.
The salted butter does help, as does dipping the bread in tomato soup.
BA, I'm always jealous of your waffles - I'm usually too lazy to make waffles or pancakes (don't even own a waffle iron). But, then again, y family was never up to eat them when I'd want to make them.
I made 2 pork tenderloins (about 1 pound each) on the BBQ for today and the next several days. I also made some meatballs on the BBQ to go into the freezer for future meals.
I made tomato soup. It was good with the Irish brown Bread (see baking thread).
I made Ballymaloe Brown Bread from Simon Pearce's cookbook. His mother had given the original recipe to the Allens (they lived nearby) and then Mrs. Allen adapted it. Simon Pearce's restaurant uses an Irish wholemeal from Ireland, but says you can substitute KAF Irish-Style Flour. The KAF is lower in protein so I subbed in a cup of bread flour for one cup of the Irish-Style
This version is made with yeast and it was supposed to have a quick rise. It started out great in the oven. After I took the loaves out of the pan and put them upside down on the rack for the final phase of baking, I noticed they had shrunk. As I turned around, I glanced at the recipe and noticed that I had forgotten the salt 🙄 which explains a lot.
Good news is the texture and flavor are fine, but the salt will certainly enhance it next time.
On Saturday, I used the Rubenette apples I bought from a local grower to make two recipes of apple filling for my apple sweet rolls. I had enough grated apple left over to also make a half recipe, which I will freeze to use in a braided bread. I love how well these apples work for the filling, and I still have a supply of Clear Jel. (Does it ever go bad? Mine is likely about nine years old.) I had hoped to pick up more of these apples at the farmers market today, but she did not have any.
For dinner, I roasted two large bone-in chicken breasts. I cut up some red potatoes, tossed them in olive oil, and let them bake along with the chicken. We also had microwaved fresh broccoli from the farmers market.
I baked Rustic Wholegrain Sourdough Bread in a Cloche on Friday. It is one of the most beautiful boules that I have baked. I tried a new shaping method of just going around the edges of the circle of dough and folding in the edges before flipping it over. Baking this bread again is another indicator of autumn, since it goes into a cloche, which goes into a cold oven which is then set at 425 F for 55 minutes (actually needed 58 minutes to get to 198 F). I adapted this recipe from King Arthur, but mine has more wholegrains and is backed in a Rommertopf bowl with a cloche lid (the one from the set I bought from Skeptic about three years ago) set on top.
For Thursday, I had some thawed chicken tenders in the fridge so on my way home I picked up some asparagus (on sale) and some tiny Yukon gold potatoes. I made a sheet pan dinner. I tossed the asparagus and potatoes in olive oil and roasted them at 425. I tossed the tenders in some of my honey mustard dressing and added them to the pan for another ten minutes. It was all perfect - I just added a little S&P for serving. I have dinner for the next couple of nights.
The OP on Reddit does suggest making sure it is fully mixed/hydrated before starting the kneading/rolling process, but says it tends to eliminate dry pockets over time. I was more concerned that the lid might pop off, some Cambro-style containers don't have a very tight seal. It's a very slow roll, slower than 1 RPM (the video is sped up), so gravity would tend to pull it down as it rolls around.
I'm not sure I've got the woodshop skills to make one of these, though. Maybe someone will do a kickstarter to make these. I'm also not sure how often I'd want to make more than 4 pounds of dough, which is about the upper limit on my 4.5Q KA.
I mixed up Potato Raisin Rolls yesterday and will be baking today. I finished up computer learning last weekend and now will have time to do some fun baking. Well that is if I can find flour. I was at the grocery store(s) yesterday and they didn't have 5lb KAF all-purpose. They did have 10lb and organic but not 5lb. I want to make some pepperoni pizza and I already bought 2 lbs of beef pepperoni. Last time I froze this in packages of 15 slices which is not enough. I think I need 22 or 24 slices to completely cover a 9x13 pizza.
