I had a hamburger, macaroni salad (store bought) and green beans, carrot and mushrooms. I sauté the mushrooms first until golden brown, remove them from the pan, add the green beans and carrot, a little water, and steam them until done, then add the mushrooms back in, season with a little sesame seed oil and soy sauce and it's done.
Glad to hear the bug repellant is working along with the right clothes
I am jealous of Mike's and BakerAunt's tomatoes - that is one thing (along with fresh corn) that I really miss down here on the hot and humid coast.
Tags on tomatoes (purple of course)
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I made a tuna melt with avocado slices between the tuna and cheeses (open-faced)
I'd have more appliances if I had the space.
I have a Frigidaire refrigerator and it's gone through a number of defrost timers. It must be on number 4 or 5. The last time I needed one, my brother told me to buy 2 of them, to keep one on hand. That was good advice. Fortunately, mine is fairly easy to access through the console on the ceiling of the fridge, where the temp controls are, so I've been doing it myself (thank you, YouTube). It's been about 3 years since the last replacement, a record for this fridge! I've taken the old ones apart and saw that the gears are plastic. I think that plastic gears become stubborn over time.
Those look great, Mike! I may have to give that recipe a try. It is so selfless of you and Diane to experiment and to report the results to us.
We had thunderstorms and about an inch of rain overnight, which made for a cooler Friday morning. We were nearly out of bread, so I pulled out a recipe that I have been developing for a while. I use Harvest Grains and malted wheat flakes, and I use a lot of whole wheat flour in addition to some bread flour. I also had about half a cup of flour and barley from a previous recipe that was taking up refrigerator space, so I threw it in as well. I held back ¼ cup of bread flour but ended up adding it and about a tablespoon more. I also increased the amount of canola oil from 3 ½ Tbs. to 1/3 cup. (Other ingredients were flax meal, special dry milk, honey, buttermilk, and eggs.) The dough rose very quickly, probably due to the warm day and higher humidity. It doubled in less than 50 minutes, and the second rise took only about 40 minutes. I baked it in two 9 x 5-inch loaf pans for 35 minutes to 190 F. They are beautiful loaves with wonderful aroma. I will freeze one but am looking forward to slicing the other one at lunch tomorrow. I will add a picture later. (I have to do that from the upstairs computer.)
Note: promised picture posted. We sampled the bread at lunch and love the wholegrain flavor.
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I made burger and hot dog buns from the Banh Mi dough (see baking thread), and then made a batch of Sloppy Joes for supper. (Found a garlic-free sauce powder which got added to some sauteed onions and red peppers, plus some tomato sauce.)
Made another batch of the Banh Mi dough, divided into 12 pieces (about 64 grams each raw, 55 or so grams baked)
I made 4 as burger buns (sesame seeded)
And 8 as hot dog buns (poppy seeded, of course)
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The more we talked about using them as hot dog buns, the more we had to try it--tonight.
Oh, the sacrifices we make for our art.
Pretty darned good! As Diane said, if they keep well we may never need to buy hot dog buns again.
I made these 9 to a batch, for hot dog buns 12 might be a better number, and they'd wind up pretty close to commercial hot dogs buns for carbs per bun. I might have to try them in my silicone hot dog pans.
So to see how well they keep, we stuck one in the freezer, another in a bread bag and the other 3 in a clear plastic box (actually a shoe box but we've been using it as a breadbox, though I'm not sure it's food-safe plastic so I put them on paper towels. I was looking at a bread box on Amazon earlier today, that might be on order soon.
Now I want to try them with some Chicago Italian Beef!
I'm baking my first attempt at the banh mi recipe I posted a link to the other day.
Having some issues, and I have one concern about the recipe (seems like it doesn't use enough salt, at 0.44% of flour weight), but they're out of the oven.
I did make them a little smaller, 9 rolls to the batch, rather than 6. I don't think that's a factor. I will probably need a bigger or at least a second baguette pan if this recipe goes into the repertoire.
My dough didn't look as nice as the one in the video, and it didn't slash decently, either.
But if it has the right texture and taste, all is forgiven. Now I need to wait 10 minutes to see if they make crackling noises as they cool (I am hearing some crackling.)
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For dinner on Wednesday, I made White Wine-Braised Chicken with Artichokes, a recipe from the "Eat Voraciously" column in The Washington Post. I used the other can of artichoke hearts from the pantry and will not buy more, as Scott resolutely refuses even to try them. I also left out the olives, as I do not think they added much to the recipe. I had 8 oz. of mushrooms that needed to be used, so I sauteed them in olive oil, then set them aside while I browned the chicken, skinned and coated in a flour mixture with paprika and onion powder (omitting the oregano, which bothers Scott's digestive system). I added the mushroom with the artichoke hearts and made sure to dish those onto my husband's plate. The recipe made very little sauce, so I might increase the white wine from five to six ounces next time. I used my Staub 11-inch skillet this time and was pleased at how well the coated chicken browned and the whole recipe cooked.
We had the chicken with mixed brown and wild rice cooked in my new Green Pan 4-qt. rice cooker. It is the second time I used it, and it really does a nice job and cleaning is easy. (Note: I bought the simple one not the complex electronic one.) We had microwaved frozen peas for an added vegetable.
We also picked another 10 lbs. of blueberries at our favorite place in the early morning before the heat and humidity settled in. I washed them this evening and spread them on baking sheets lined with paper towels to dry overnight. I will freeze them tomorrow.
As we are headed into a heat wave tomorrow, which will put a pause on running the oven, I baked flatbread on Tuesday evening. I have been experimenting with various flours in my adaptation of a Ken Haedrich recipe. I use a cup of King Arthur's Italian-style flour, a half cup of barley flour, 2 Tbs. semolina flour, and a half cup of whole wheat flour. However, I have more whole wheat pastry flour than I realized, so I decided to use it instead of the whole wheat flour. The dough was more delicate but not unreasonably so; I was able to roll it out easily. It also did not "fight" the way the dough with whole wheat flour does. The crackers (I cut them into 40 rectangular pieces before baking) are now cooling on the pan. I want to see if the lower gluten content will create a crisper flatbread. That taste test will wait for tomorrow.
Tonight I made pizza in the toaster oven, I par baked the crust on parchment for 3 minutes and then topped it (sauce and cheese only) and baked it for 10 minutes and then switched it to convection for a couple of minutes to brown the cheese. It came out perfect. Had it with a side of mushrooms and sugar snap peas.
Here's another recipe I need to try.
Medialunas (Argentinian Croissant)
Mike, I heated two (I made them smaller) this morning for my breakfast. I'm not sure how I feel about the amount of butter. They are tasty, but I feel like I could use a little less - then they'd probably be wading in butter biscuits.
By the way, I watched the banh mi video - very meditative - I sent it on to Will.
