I have a thread from the obc by Baker Irene called "A Flavor I Wish We Had in a Chip". The recipe I use is from that post, and I believe that post is saved to recipes here. I think the homemade chips work OK, although they seem to kind of disappear into the batter (of scones or muffins) as they bake, they do not remain hard and chewy like a regular chip does. However, my husband prefers the store-bought chips, so he paid an exorbitant price online somewhere and got me 6-8 bags or so of "real" chips! Also, Baker Irene's post got my imagination working - lots of interesting flavors are possibilities!!
On Wednesday, I baked the Banana Cake recipe from a website titled “Cooking Made Healthy: Quick and Easy Recipes,” but I made it as banana bread in a Nordic Ware decorative 4-loaf pan (8 cups batter). It is the same recipe that I baked on Sept. 5. I replace the three cups of whole wheat flour with two cups of whole wheat pastry flour and 1 cup KAF AP. I halved the salt, from ½ to ¼ tsp., given that it has ¾ tsp. baking soda, in addition to baking powder. I reduced the vanilla from 1 Tbs. to 2 tsp. I usually add buttermilk in place of water, but this time I used 1% milk. I also added 2 Tbs. Bob’s Red Mill milk powder. I plan to freeze three of these.
I made yogurt on Tuesday. (I make it every six days.)
For dinner, I made my healthier version of my mom’s hamburger stroganoff, one of my favorite comfort foods, which we had over a mixture of brown and wild rice. It was particularly tasty, in part because I found a package of marked down ground sirloin. Our vegetable was microwaved fresh broccoli.
FYI, BA - I've been wanting a 12" stainless steel sauté pan and I also want a class lid. The one I'm eyeing is a Cuisinart (all my stainless is Cuisinart that I got almost 40 years ago) because I found it to be less expensive than all the other brands such as Calphalon and All-Clad. It's worth a look.
I grilled chicken sausage to go with the leftovers of our salad. I've realized that I get the best flavor out of the sausage when it's grilled.
I made a salad which was a mashup of 3 of Ina Garten's recipes. I made maple roasted carrots which would make a fabulous Thanksgiving side. I chopped an apple, toasted some pecans and also added blue cheese and dried cranberries - the base was Bibb lettuce and baby arugula. I ended up using some Newman's balsamic vinaigrette that was in the fridge. I realized most of the items in her salads were too sweet, so I cut out the added orange juice and maple syrup (except for the carrots). I had some deli turkey on the side for protein; Will found other fill-ins.
found an Envy apple from New Zealand on sale at the Market which was nice but nothing that would make me rush out to buy it again. The regular honey crisps were more expensive than the organic ones. Go figure. One problem with living in the far South is there are no apple orchards near by.
How much buttermilk I use depends on what I am baking in a given week. I substitute buttermilk for water in most of my bread recipes. I use buttermilk in place of milk (and adjust baking powder and baking soda accordingly) in most muffin and quick bread recipes. I use buttermilk in my oil pie crust. My coleslaw recipe has a buttermilk dressing. I probably go through half a gallon every 2 1/2 weeks or so.
Buttermilk, as S. Swirth always told us, improves the keeping qualities of baked goods. I started using it a lot when I needed to get more calcium into my diet.
It was requested I make a carrot cake for my neighbors birthday. I decided to use inspired taste's "Incredibly Moist and Easy Carrot Cake" recipe( on the internet). I liked the fact that most of ingredients included weight measurements. I shredded the carrots in my cuisinart. It was a lot of work and I mistakenly put celery salt instead of cinnamon in the flour so I had to redo. Anyway the taste was good but the texture was way off. It did not hold together well. I then compared the recipe to the one in the frog commissary cookbook and all the measurements were the same except the recipe I used called for 2 tsps. baking soda and the Frog's recipe called for 1 tsp baking soda and 2 tsps baking powder! I should have compared the recipes earlier.
Now that we've got the SubZero refrigerator and freezer repaired, it may expand our dinner options a bit. We have been hesitant to open a large jar of artichoke hearts, for example, but maybe we can have a lavash pizza tonight.
I found some 10x11x7 wire freezer baskets online and ordered 6 of them, I'm hoping that by keeping things in the freezer a bit better organized we'll use things more. (Recently I was looking for a small bag of shredded mozzarella, I knew I still had some, but couldn't find them, so I bought another 5 pound bag at Sams.)
It also may help keep us from overloading the freezer, and the items may keep better because the cold air circulates better around the baskets. That may even help prevent another defrost timer failure.
The thread is already here at Nebraska Kitchen. It is in the section titled "Threads Saved from the KAF Baking Circle (at the bottom of the forums listings on the right side of the page.
Here is the link to it:
The Quest for a True Southern Biscuit Thread
Note: Although I posted it, all the words are Mrs. Cindy's words.
1 package active dry yeast (I use SAF red instant yeast)
2 tablespoons lukewarm water (since I don't proof the yeast in water, I add this water with buttermilk)
3 teaspoons baking powder
5 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup Crisco shortening (if I'm going to make these right away, I measure then refrigerate to make it cold)
2 cups cold buttermilk
Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water and let stand 10 minutes. (If I'm using instant yeast, I add the water with the buttermilk.)
Sift dry ingredients together. (If using instant yeast, I add it with dry ingredients.) Cut in shortening. Add 1 cup buttermilk to flour mixture. Mix well.
Add yeast mixture, if using active dry yeast, OR add the water & & remaining 1 cup buttermilk. Mix thoroughly.
Knead on floured board until smooth and elastic.
If not making biscuits right then, store covered in refrigerator. Recipe says dough will keep for 1 week.
Before using, preheat oven to 425 degrees.
To form rolls, take out amount needed. Roll out on floured board -- I roll mine to 1/2" thickness. Cut desired size and shape (I have made heart-shaped biscuits for newlyweds.)
Place on ungreased or parchment-lined cookie sheet.
Bake for 11-15 minutes. Watch these the first time you make them. In the last century, my oven required 13-15 minutes. In my current oven, 11 minutes is tops, but I check at 10 minutes.
These rolls don't need to rise before baking.
Prepping the turducken was interesting, you fully debone the chicken and the duck and partially debone the turkey (not the legs or wings, but you remove the breastbone and back.) I prepped it on Christmas eve and we cooked it on Christmas, but several of us came down with some kind of cold or flu starting around noon on Christmas, while the turducken was in the oven, and we only picked at the turducken a bit.
Would I do it again? Probably not. I've done a deboned chicken a few times, it is fun to fill it with stuffing, roast it, and then slice it at the table, so each slice has white meat, dark meat and stuffing it it.
The stores sometimes have a turducken in the freezer section at the holidays but it is usually prepared Cajun style and that's too spicy for us.
Mike--I was surprised to find non-sweetened kefir and might have overlooked it had I not been looking at the yogurt and not finding one that I considered ok to use to thin into a buttermilk consistency. I might have overlooked it except that my younger stepson likes to drink blueberry kefir, so I was familiar with the bottle shape and thought, oh, so NOW they get it when I don't need it, but then I noticed it was unsweetened.
The grocery store in our town has a mixed clientele. There are the townspeople who are not that particularly health conscious, but there are also the summer and weekend people, as well as the parents who have kids at the local prep boarding school, and some of the people who teach at the school. There is a small section of foods used for Asian cooking, and there are the occasional upscale cheeses, yogurts, and wines. There is a small gluten-free and Bob's Red Mill section. Last week, when the son was in town, I could only find a single small bottle of raspberry kefir for him, which tided him over until we made a grocery run to the town northeast of here. Whether the large bottles of kefir (there were two) are an aberration or a new stock item remains to be seen. I'm just glad that I found it this time.
I have been meaning to ask you, Janiebakes: Do you use purchased yogurt as starter for your yogurt, or do you buy packs of yogurt culture? I've been using full-fat Stonyfield yogurt as my starter, as it is the only non-Greek yogurt I can get here that does not have modified starch added to it. When I first started making yogurt, years ago, I used to purchase little packets of starter for an initial batch, then use the yogurt I had made as starter until the culture started weakening, then I would use another packet. I have not found yogurt packets for sale around here. I make my yogurt, 6 (3/4 cup-jars) at a time, and I eat a jar of it with breakfast every morning to increase my calcium intake. I use such large amounts of buttermilk that it is not practical for me to use diluted yogurt.
My local grocery was out of buttermilk on Tuesday. I made a special trip today (Saturday), and no buttermilk was to be found. I have my heart set on Cornmeal-Pumpernickel Waffles for Breakfast tomorrow, which requires 3 cups of buttermilk. However, I found a bottle of unsweetened Kefir, read the ingredients, and bought it. After I got home, I googled it, and learned that kefir can be substituted equally for buttermilk. It is a lot more expensive--over $5 for a quart, while buttermilk is usually about $2.79 for a half gallon, but as I said, my heart is set on Cornmeal-Pumpernickel Waffles for tomorrow.
I've had the experience in this area before of buttermilk being less available in my local store in fall to winter, and I've wondered if that is because of the focus on eggnog, either by producers or by the store. I use a lot of buttermilk in my baking, and I will have to shift around for the bread that I'm baking today by using the half cup or so that I have left with regular milk. Had I known that I'd not be able to get it today, I would have tried culturing some, although it did not work well last time I tried, and we won't have the wood stove going for a while because the contractor is behind (too many jobs at once), and we have stuff from the apt. over the garage (what we are renovating) piled up in front of it.
A post came up on my iPhone yesterday for 'best mixer for cakes' and it was about the Cooklee mixer, a brand I had never heard of, so I looked it up.
It appears the company has been around for 18 years, not sure where they're made, most likely not in the USA, probably Asia.
Can't say I was impressed with what I found, one of their bigger tilt-lift style mixers has an 8.5 quart bowl and uses 800 watts, is rated for 2 KG (around 70 ounces) of bread dough and costs around $200 online.
One of the page (or maybe it was the manual) talks about the gears being made of copper. Odd choice.
