I'm not cooking dinner this evening, we're having takeout from a place (Pickleman's) that has Italian Beef.
Happy Father's Day (or whatever the new politically correct term is, mothers are now 'birthing persons'.)
We've got a number of tiny tomatoes, mostly on the '4th of July' plants, which are a very early variety.
It has been too hot here for much fruit to set, but we're supposed to have a day or two when it doesn't get above the mid 70's, which should help. (As I recall, most tomatoes will only set fruit when the 6AM temperature is under some temperature, but I'm not sure what, somewhere in the 70's I suspect.)
Dinner on Saturday was roasted sweet potato chunks that were tossed in olive oil, microwaved fresh broccoli, and roasted breaded chicken breasts (using panko, garlic and onion powder, a bit of pepper, and Parmesan).
I had a chicken sandwich, mac and cheese (from frozen) that I spooned on broccoli.
On Thursday, I baked an adaptation of Little Vanilla Cakelets, a recipe that came with a Nordic Ware six-well basket pan (makes little basket sides so center can be filled with fruit and/or ice cream). I use a third barley flour in place of AP and buttermilk in place of regular milk. We will have these with strawberries and maybe a bit of frozen vanilla yogurt for dessert tonight.
I also baked oatmeal-raisin muffins for the next couple of days for breakfast.
Thank you for bringing up this thread BakerAunt. I am still learning to navigate this site and could not find it. I made a batch of whole wheat sourdough cheese crackers (WWSDCC?) from a recipe I found on line. It uses a half cup of sharp cheddar per batch. I think the cheese powder might give it a more intense flavor. I also switched from butter to oil and the texture did seem to improve. As for flavor, will have to bake them and see. This time I used sharp cheddar, onion and garlic powder, rosemary and smoked paprika. Right now they are in the freezer waiting to be baked. I will round up the ingredients for your recipe and give them a try. Thanks again.
On Wednesday, I baked Wheat-Oat Flax Buns (recipe adapted from King Arthur) to go with salmon patties for dinner.
On Tuesday, I made the All-American Potato Salad from Cook’s Country (June 2006, but I found it online). I have not made this potato salad in a long time because we lacked the brand of German pickles (Hengstenberg) that we both agree are the only ones that work for us in this potato salad, which in addition to the pickles also uses pickle juice. That juice, unlike that with every other dill pickle we have tried, is slightly sweet, which for us makes the perfect flavor profile. I buy them at Tuesday Morning or Big Lots, usually around October when there is an Oktoberfest promotion. However, with the pandemic last year, we ran out of pickles. We were in South Bend last Friday, and I made sure we stopped at Big Lots where I bought three large jars of the pickles. We had it with leftover turkey and microwaved fresh broccoli.
Note: I replaced the 1/cup of sour cream with nonfat Greek yogurt.
On Tuesday, I baked a new recipe, Chocolate-Glazed Almond Horns, which I found on the web when I was searching for recipes that use egg whites:
Chocolate-Glazed Almond Horns
The recipe calls for two, which is what I had on hand. I also had a can of almond paste (best by 2019 but it was fine). Indeed, I still have egg white left, which I will use for another purpose, and for the final glazing, I could have easily used just half a Tbs. egg white and ½ Tbs. water. I baked for the shortest time, which works with my oven. I made a half recipe of the glaze and replaced the heavy cream with half and half, which worked. I dipped the ends in the chocolate and spread any extra on the tops while the almond horns were warm. Ideally, we would have let them rest until tomorrow so that the glaze could harden. In the real world we each had one for dessert, and one is all that is needed. As the recipe made six, that gives us dessert for tomorrow.
The recipe is gluten-free, so it would work for people who need to avoid gluten.
Today is Cass's birthday! Let us take the opportunity to celebrate this baker extraordinaire. Over the years he has helped many of us with our baking by his application of baking science.
Happy Birthday, Cass. You helped me become a better baker!
Joan, eons ago, my sister’s favorite cake was angel food and she wanted one for her birthday. My mother wasn’t going to make, so I did. I was living in a tiny, cr***y apartment and had no appliances (well, we might have had a blender). Since I was a big fan of Julia Child, I got out my big bowl and whisk and made it by hand. I actually made a couple more that way. For Christmas that year I was given a hand mixer.
Sure couldn’t do that now.
But the one I made is quite good. Next time I’m going to transfer the beaten egg whites to a bigger bowl for folding. The KA bowl is somewhat narrow and it’s hard to fold well in it.
Dinner plans are up the air, our son and family are en route to visit us, they're making really good time, so they should be here mid-afternoon. I was originally planning artichokes for supper yesterday or today, but I only bought two of them. He usually wants DaVinci's (take out hoagies) the first day anyway.
I used this recipe yesterday: Rosette di pane recipe.
The list of ingredients is missing the water for the biga step (it is mentioned in the text), I added more water because it seemed too dry at first, the final dough was way too soft, so I should probably have left the water out of the second step.
An 18 hour biga gives it a lot of time for enzyme activity, which produced a flavorful bread, though I think it could be improved upon. (A little rye or triticale, maybe?)
I used my steam tube, I suspect it isn't quite as effective as a commercial steam injection oven but it is a lot easier for me to use than just dumping water in a hot pan and trying to avoid getting burned. I think what I need is a somewhat larger cast iron pan, maybe one of the square ones. Lately I've been pre-steaming the oven before putting the dough in, then adding more water to replace the steam that comes out the open door. The crust was a little pale, I may need to double-pan it so that I don't burn the bottoms.
Interesting, Mike. My rolls never sogged, but their crust was chewy not crisp. The recipe I used (Daniel Leader) does not use any fat. I thought that the dough was firmer with all bread flour. I am thinking of trying the recipe with high-gluten flour and extending the two rest times.
People who use the apple slicer as their stamp for these rolls get the design to stay. I think that is because the edges of the apple slicer are sharp. My rosetta stamp does NOT have sharp edges but is smooth metal; however, it is heavy, and that must be a factor. A heavy dough should hold the imprint.
I had one for lunch, a Fairbury all-beef dog, some mustard, sweet relish, some jalapenos (instead of sport peppers) and a pickle spear. And celery salt, of course. It was very good, the closest thing I've had to a Chicago dog in several years. I think I can get sport peppers, but I haven't looked lately, I know I can't get Vienna all-beef dogs or the day-glo green relish here. :sigh: But at least I can make something pretty close to Chicago-style hot dog buns now.
I made four of them to see if they have about the same shelf life as the buns I made them from do.
