Whole wheat doughs and breads are just denser, adding more water can help but higher hydration doughs pose their own challenges. Longer rise times seem to help, and IMHO pizza doughs benefit from extended rise times in general.
I'm sure I've mentioned it here before, but Azure Standard's 'ultrafine' flours seem to have fewer texture issues compared to more coarsely ground whole wheat flours. I went through a five pound bag of it in about a month, and I will be ordering more, possibly next month. (It takes a while for me to build up enough things I get from them to avoid the service charge.)
Last night I had tuna salad on a bed of arugula, tomato and avocado tossed with some balsamic vinaigrette. Tonight I had a piece of multigrain bread with smashed avocado and melted cheddar which I followed up with some Talenti's chocolate and peanut butter ice cream (it had been a bogo offering at Harris Teeter earlier in the summer)
Decided to go with a golden oldie that I knew my husband would like and that would get rid of an old (exp 2023) can of creamed corn.... so I made Shepherds Pie or a variation there of and my husband even had seconds!!! We are both still alive and well!
I'm glad you enjoyed the muffins, Chocomouse!
Thanks to some intense periods of rain yesterday evening, we had cooler weather on Wednesday. We finished the rest of the rolls at lunch, so I needed to bake bread. I decided to continue my experiments with the wholegrain bread recipe I baked the week of July 20 by baking two loaves of it on Wednesday. Previously, I had used 61 g of a leftover mixture of white whole wheat flour and barley, so this time, I replaced it by doubling the malted wheat flakes. It needed about 1/3 cup more whole wheat flour than what I had written down. The two large (9 x 5) loaves are lovely. One will go into the freezer. We will slice the other tomorrow at lunch.
I made a pasta salad on Monday to go with the little bit of leftover farro stir-fry tonight. I used colorful pasta with two cucumbers, green onion, a red bell pepper (wish I had had more to add), carrots (which I do not usually add, but I wanted more vegetables), cherry tomatoes, and Greek olives. We sprinkled some feta over our individual servings. For the dressing, I used ½ cup olive oil, ¼ cup red wine vinegar, 1 tbs. maple syrup, and 2 tsp. of Penzey's Sandwich Seasoning. It is a large salad, so we will have leftovers well into the week.
Oh, and I made yogurt on Sunday.
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Your fajitas need sauce.
I had Italian Beef (from Portillo's) for supper, one sandwich on the Turano French bread they supply with their make-at-home kit (beef, gravy, peppers and bread), one sandwich on a Banh Mi roll.
The Turano roll held up better when I put the gravy on, but they bake them specifically for Portillo's, and I have heard from others who've made their own Italian Beef that getting bread that doesn't completely fall apart when wet is harder than getting the beef/gravy right. (A good slicer is a must, though, the beef has to be sliced really thin.)
I bought a Sugar Baby watermelon at the farmers market yesterday. I eagerly cut into it for dessert tonight, and it is not red but a whitish color, with a bit of pink around the seeds. I will notify the vender, and I took a picture of it. I googled "uses for unripe watermelon," but it is not looking hopeful, especially as most of those recipes assume a pinkish color at the least. It is not sweet and has a slight cucumber taste to it. (Apparently, watermelons and cucumbers are distant cousins.)
Any suggestions? If not, I will throw it behind the shed.
I made some pickled daikon and carrot tonight, since I couldn't find any in the Vietnamese grocery stores. (Odd, because every Bahn Mi shop in town uses it, and we must have a dozen of them.)
I'm probably going to pickle some leeks this weekend.
We both had sandwiches on the Banh Mi bread tonight. Good bread! I think I'll try baking a batch with a little rye flour in it next.
No, this isn't an alternative to the Food Network, or the Guy Fieri channel as it seems to be these days.
We had hot dogs for lunch today on the Banh Mi dough based rolls I've been making. They soften up a little overnight.
My wife wondered if there was a better way to slice them so they weren't as sloppy to eat, with the toppings falling out. The normal method for hot dog buns is to slice along the side but they do sell hot dog buns in the store that are sliced vertically from the top.
What we came up with is what I call a hot dog channel. We cut two grooves in the buns from the top, about 3/4 of the way into the bun, with a bread knife then used a smaller knife (a serrated steak knife) to cut out a U-shaped channel for the dog and toppings. I kept it simple for today, just mustard and some of the relish I made last night, but there would have been space for other toppings. Diane had hers with pork and beans, sort of beanie-wienie in a buttered bun (she normally has beanie-wienie with a slice of bread anyway.)
Diane cut hers from the side, I cut mine from the top.
The wedge that was removed was very tasty with a little peanut butter on it.
Pictures follow.
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They're crisp on the outside but soften over time, the inside is pillowy soft.
I started with 64 grams of dough each, the hot dog buns (in a pan) wind up around 52 grams each, the banh mi rolls are more like 45 grams each.
I've got about 6 pounds of tomatoes (mostly small ones) so I think I'm going to try to make a batch of tomato relish with them later today.
Back home after a week in Wisconsin for the annual US Chess business meetings.
Made honey wheat bread today. Rose very well. (7 1/2" long, 3 1/2" wide, 5" high)
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We had shrimp baked with tomatoes and feta cheese. Tonight will be sauteed steak with shallots and peppers rolled in a flour tortilla with cole slaw on the side. (I am out of onions).
it
A thunderstorm with a cool front arrived on Wednesday evening. That allowed me to head back to the kitchen to bake on Thursday, which is good, as we were out of cookies. I baked "Soft Ginger and Molasses Cookies" (no butter), which is a recipe that I adapted from one with a cup of butter on the King Arthur site. I use ½ cup avocado oil plus 2 Tbs. water in its place. I replace the AP flour with white whole wheat flour and add 4 Tbs. milk powder. The recipe uses equal parts ginger syrup and molasses. (I hope King Arthur does not stop selling the ginger syrup, although with my luck, they will.) The recipe made 31 cookies, so that may get us through the week.
I also baked a new recipe, "Maple Walnut and Oat Rolls, from The Baking Sheet XXIV, no. 1 (Winter 2013), p. 7. [Note: If you have the back issues of The Baking Sheet, it incorrectly says XXX for the Volume,] I have taken to paging through my notebooks of The Baking Sheet and pulling out recipes to try. I make a list so that I can find them again. As always, I made some changes to the recipe. I increased the whole wheat flour by ¼ cup and decreased the King Arthur AP by ¼ cup so that it is exactly half whole wheat. I added 2 Tbs. special dry milk and 2 Tbs. flax meal and reduced the salt from 1 ½ tsp. to 1 tsp. I replaced 1 cup of the water with buttermilk and omitted the maple extract. I added 2 Tbs. avocado oil because I think some oil keeps bread softer for longer. The dough, which I mixed and kneaded in the bread machine, was a little dry, so I added 1 Tbs. of water. Next time I will increase the ¼ cup of water to 1/3 cup, as the dough was a tad dry when I was shaping it. I made it as twelve rounded rolls. The rolls are delicious, although they do not have a noticeable maple taste.
Your dinner sounds delicious BA!
I had chicken salad with greens and tomato (camparis are the best I can do at Harris Teeter) and a slice of toast.
I love the cartoon - as few bowls as possible for me😜
