I haven't heard much about steam cleaning features, but I've been told it is the very high heat (> 550 degrees) in a self-cleaning feature that is the appliance-killer.
I've heard that if you put a half cup of vinegar in the oven, set it at 300 degrees, and let it boil away (it takes about a half hour), it makes the oven easier to clean after it cools. Its one of those ideas I keep meaning to try, but usually I wind up cleaning the oven just before using it, and this require some planning ahead.
Tonight's soup was a major disappointment. I don't think I put in enough vegetables. The lamian noodles didn't pull very easily and they were gummy after they were cooked, with kind of a strange taste, probably from the nutritional yeast and they probably needed more salt. If I try making them again, it'll be with a different recipe.
The chicken leg quarters that I used were probably too old, the chicken tastes freezer burnt and rubbery, the latter may be due to overcooking.
I saved the broth from the soup, I thought it was OK after adding some more salt and pepper but am throwing out the noodles and the chicken. I think the rest of the stock is OK, though, so I'll get it ready for the freezer. This is the first thing I've made in a long time that we basically are throwing out.
We did have a nice salad from the Aerogarden tonight, a mixture of black seeded Simpson, rouge d'hiver, romaine, buttercrunch and a little spinach. I hadn't picked it in a few days and picked a big bowl tonight, I suspect by the time we've used it up it'll be time to pick more. We'll probably be eating salads nearly every night for the next few months. Hope we don't get tired of them. (I'm doing the harvesting this time around, I think my wife got tired of doing it last time and stuff started to bolt, which made it bitter.)
I made a rum cake, an annual tradition for one of my husband's organizations. The first cake didn't come out right, so I made a 2nd cake yesterday. This one looked beautiful, and then on his way out the door, my husband dropped it, in the old Tupperware cake carrier, on the floor in the mudroom. Naturally, the cover came off, and the floor was dirty (this is where the boots come off and jacket are hung up, etc). We sliced off the top half inch, since of course it landed upside down, and that removed all the dirt coating. He put it back in the cake carrier, and off he went. It was delicious, everyone loved it, and now we have the entire first cake plus 3 small pieces of the second one!
On Wednesday I made a small (one pound) round roast. I salted it on Tuesday and roasted it at 250f until the temp orobe reported 135 degrees. It's good and tender but next time (if I remember) I'll take it out at 130f. I had leftovers yesterday and have enough left for tomorrow's lunch. Tonight is going to be pasta with an Italian sausage.
For lunch on Friday, and for the next three days, I baked the Spaghetti Squash and Parmesan Cheese Quiche from Ken Haedrich’s Harvest Baker (188-189). I make some changes to reduce the saturated fat. First, I used my buttermilk oil crust. As it is a savory pie, I delete the sugar from my recipe, use olive oil rather than canola, and replaced the whole wheat pastry flour with barley flour, as well as using white pastry flour for the rest. I got the crust too thin on the Emile Henry 14x4 ¾-inch ceramic long tart pan, so it stuck on the bottom during the par-baking, and I ended up sticking the wet dough back and putting the dish back in the oven for another 5 minutes. I also sprinkled panko across the bottom to try to absorb any excess moisture from the filling. For the quiche itself, I used a gold spaghetti squash I bought in October at the farmer’s market that had developed a spot and needed to be used. I replace the 1 cup half and half and 1/3 cup heavy cream with 1 1/3 cup low-fat evaporated milk. For the topping cheese, I used some pre-grated low-fat mozzarella. As always, it comes out delicious, which makes it worth the four hours from start (making the crust and baking the spaghetti squash) to finish (pulling it out of the oven).
Haedrich’s recipe calls for a 9 1/2x1-inch tart pan, but I do not have that size. The rectangular Emile Henry tart dish is 2 inches deep, and I think the higher sides prevent disaster, although I still bake the tart on a rimmed baking sheet. I have my eye on a deep, round Emile Henry ceramic tart pan at Williams-Sonoma, but the company has gotten chintzy on free shipping offers, so I am undecided about buying it. The company wants people to buy a $90 yearly membership to receive free shipping, but I only buy from them perhaps once a year.
It was a bigger batch of chicken stock than I had realized, with about 8 pounds of backs and 5 leg quarters, so I got about 14 quarts of stock (before reducing) and I should get another 4-6 quarts from the remouillage (second wetting).
I think I'm going to try making chicken soup with Chinese pulled nooodles (lamian) using these instructions: Lamian Pulled Noodles
I see the ads for those ceramic pans all the time but haven't bought one, in admittedly-small part because I don't know where we'd store it. (My wife already has more non-stick egg pans than we ever use.)
For the second time, I needed to replace the pan I use for cooking my steel-cut oat and other small cooking jobs. The first pan was a one-quart nonstick Calphalon pan. Nonstick coating eventually deteriorates. I switched to a 1 1/2-quart Calphalon pan, but as has happened with another of my Calphalon pans, the interior (not nonstick) coating began to come off. When we were at T.J. Maxx about a month ago, I found a 1-quart Green Pan with lid for $12.99 and decided the pan was worth a try. The green pan has a ceramic nonstick interior. So far, I have been pleased with it. While it takes slightly longer to heat up initially, the clean-up is a breeze. If it continues to work this well, with everyday use, I may consider buying a larger one if I get the chance.
For dinner on Monday, I made that skillet Chicken Thighs with Broccoli and Orzo (based on a NYT recipe and readers’ suggestions for improvement). It was all the better for the organic broccoli I found at the farmers’ market last Saturday. We have enough left for dinner tomorrow.
I baked my Wholegrain Fresh Apple sheet cake today, using some of the Winesaps we bought last month. I used a 13x9” Pyrex baking dish since apples can take the finish off of the USA pans when the cake is left in the pan. Instead of buttermilk, I used some kefir that has been sitting in the refrigerator (bought back when I could not find buttermilk). I have also revised my technique by whisking in the sugar with the wet ingredients.
I made dough for my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers on Monday. I will bake the crackers either at the end of this week or start of next week.
I've been looking through the various Christmas Cookie collections at the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal and other sites, including several on my iPhone, so far I've only found two recipes that interest me. Most of them strike me as too much work or flavor combinations (like rosemary and pine nuts) that we wouldn't like.
One is the Washington Post's Marbled Shortbread recipe, you take the dough, divide it roughly in half, divide one half into fourths and color them, then fold them all together into a log in a way that produces streaks of color in the cookies when sliced, the recipe also calls them kaleidoscope.
The more interesting recipe is the Wall Street Journal's Brutti ma Buoni cookies. It translates to 'ugly but good'. They're hazelnut meringue cookies. The interesting step is that once you make the meringue and add in the toasted chopped hazelnuts, you cook the meringue in a skillet until it turns beige, then you use a spoon to make the cookies and bake them. This results in a meringue cookie that is tan rather than white.
I am not providing links because I'm not sure they'd work. The Washington Post collection article could probably be gifted, which would work for two weeks.
My mother once made her turkey tetrazzini when she had people over for dinner (yes, in those days, it was an acceptable invite people to dinner entree) and later found the turkey she was going to use in the refrigerator. So, it works with just the mushrooms and almonds! 🙂
I like the idea of making chicken tetrazzini with a rotisserie chicken, and my wife liked the idea, too, it just requires a bit of advance planning (or chicken stock in the freezer.) She says the biggest problem with the turkey tetrazzini is she keeps thinking it should have tuna fish instead.
It sounds like my area is doing really well in comparison. I find pretty much all employees and shoppers are wearing masks. A few nearby towns have mandated masks, but most stores just have signs politely requesting that masks be worn. I always wear a mask in public. I do not shop at the big box stores in a distant town. And I shop early in the morning when there are no crowds. But I rarely go anywhere. In the past month, I've been to 3 medical appointments, the pharmacy twice (once for the booster) and twice to the grocery store. I do shop at a chain grocery. We don't have many "needs", but if there is something, I order on-line. Our cases are way up, and my hospital (a large teaching hospital associated with a local college) has stopped doing elective surgery and does not allow visitors to in-patients or to accompany out-patient appointments.
Cases have spiked horribly in our county. On Nov. 28, there had been 115 cases (for Nov. 25, 26, 27, and 28). November 29 was only 24, but then Nov. 30 was70, Dec. 1 was 60, and Dec. 2 was 90. Happy Holidays.
When we do our big shopping trips to the larger town northeast of us, we have limited out shopping at Walmart to once every three months for stocking up, because so few people are wearing masks, and even some the employees are sloppy about it. We also have seen fewer masks in Aldi's and Kroger.
Our hospital district reported that ICU beds were 40% Covid on Nov. 30, 42.9% Covid on Dec. 1, and 44.9% Covid on Dec. 2. I told my husband that we need to avoid any emergencies since only 11% of ICU beds are available.
Indiana has not done well with the pandemic. The legislature wanted to end the "emergency" and ban vaccine and testing mandates for businesses, but they would have had to call a special session, and with cases spiking, the better part of valor was discretion, and they left the governor (same party) to extend the rather mild emergency measures. The death toll stands at 17, 117, and I would not be surprised if it hits 18,000 by the end of the year.
I am not worrying about the omicron variant right now; Indiana is in the grip of Delta.
