I finished off the chicken salad tonight with a mixed greens and avocado salad.
I was off today and had my mammogram which came back normal. I stopped by Harris Teeter and got tortelloni (I meant to get tortellini), spinach, sun-dried tomatoes and salami so I could make a pasta salad today for tomorrow night. I was able to find the sun-dried tomatoes in a bag instead of packed in oil - I think they were less expensive and I prefer them.
This hot and humid weather sucks 😜
I got a Cuisinart toaster oven last year and I have found it to be really useful with just me in the house. I also have a plan with GA Power that lowers my rate if I don't use major appliances such as oven, washing machine, etc between the hours of 2-7 Monday through Friday (June-October) which is peak time for power usage in the summer. I also need to keep my AC at 78 or above during those hours as well, but I set it that high when I leave for work every day. So the oven is great for dinners.
I made a big batch of chicken stock today with the rotisserie chicken carcasses I'd saved. And, I made a batch of steel cut oatmeal for breakfasts this week.
I bought a new toaster oven, it claims to have 7 functions but I think some of them are the same function with a different name. For instance, what is the difference between the convection and air fry, or bake and roast? Anyway, one of the things I want to do is be able to make pizza without heating up the entire kitchen as would happen with the regular oven. So I debated between a pizza stone or pizza pan sized for the toaster oven. Since a stone would require pre heating I opted for an 11 inch pizza pan. The pan has holes in it so I know I can't just put raw pizza dough on it as it would imbed into the holes. So, I cut out a parchment circle and par baked the crust for 5 minutes. Then I removed it, took out the parchment, returned the crust to the pan and topped it.
in the oven
Baked for about 12 minutes at 450 (the maximum temp) and then switched it to convection to speed up the browning of the cheese. It came out pretty good; the bottom of the crust came out a little north of golden brown and was crispy but just a tad dry. Next time I will switch to convention at the 10 minute mark so I can remove it just a little sooner.
This was a test pizza so I kept it plain
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The color is great (again), the epis held shape fairly well but the slashing on the baguettes didn't go so great, won't affect the flavor a lot, though. Not sure if that means the dough was overproofed or underproofed.
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Not sure about supper again tonight, Diane had a crown come off Friday afternoon (and our dentist's office is closed until Tuesday for some computer upgrades) so she's being careful about what she's eating, too. (I won't get a new crown on the implant until October.)
When I had my early afternoon tea on Saturday, I realized that there were only two cookies remaining from those I baked on Monday. Clearly, my husband has been hitting them rather hard. I decided to bake a full recipe of my healthier take on Oatmeal Scotchies, using Nestle butterscotch chips. I could not find the Nestles chips at Walmart or my local store, but Kroger had bags of the Nestle butterscotch chips a few months ago, so I bought two. While the chips are little saturated fat bombs, sometimes it is nice to indulge. I do make the cookies with white whole wheat flour (what King Arthur now styles as golden wheat), substitute ½ cup of avocado oil for the butter, add 2 Tbs. each of milk powder and flax meal, and add a half cup of sunflower kernels. Of course, they use oats. The secret ingredient is the ½ tsp. of orange extract. I used a #30 scoop and got 44 cookies. I told Scott that this batch needs to last for at least a week.
The first two pointage en bac loaves, one baguette, one epis, were very good, nice color, an open crumb, excellent flavor. (Could have used a little more salt, possibly, but they're both gone.)
This recipe is one that bakeries and restaurants can use, making up large batches of dough and baking them off as needed throughout the day.
I made my chicken salad with celery, scallion, craisins (soaked in hot water first), tarragon, s&p and mayo/Greek yogurt (full fat). It's my latest favorite
We've been getting a few tomatoes every day now, most of them small (4th of July variety) but we did get one Super Sauce that was about 8 ounces. Looking forward to more of those!
We got a two or three day respite from the hot weather, and that probably means a lot of fruit set, so we should be picking a lot more tomatoes in another month or so.
We have one small purple eggplant so far.
Several of my leek plants are going to seed, that's supposed to be a 'year 2' thing, I may contact Johnny's and ask about that.
I'm slowly accumulating blueberries from our two little bushes. One had only a few, while the other has a reasonable amount. I might get enough for six blueberry muffins from it.
I picked the first two cherry tomatoes yesterday from the red plant. The yellow and purple plants have green ones. Out in the main garden (cherry tomato plants are in grow bags), the regular tomato plants have some green ones. My husband picked a few beans two days ago, but so far, it is not looking as if we will have the plenteous harvest of past years. One of the pickling cucumber plants is finally developing fruit. The bell peppers are so far disappointing. The potato plants have great tops, so we hope for a good harvest there.
The blackberries on the terrace are showing the lack of rain. We did have a good storm a couple of days ago, so I hope the ones on the woodland property are doing well. I have bought the bug repellent, Picaridin, that Wire Cutter recommended in the article that CWCdesign gifted from NYT. Apparently, it is not just ticks and mosquitoes that attack; there is, according to Scott's cousin's wife, a blackberry mite, which is the early stage of chiggers, and the mites are what bite us. Supposedly, this spray will repel them as well. I've also ordered a pair of used Patagonia workwear pants to help deal with the brambles. Once I start picking, I will report back on the success of my proactive defenses.
Your meringue work make mine look SO SAD! :sigh:
I'm looking to test a baguette dough recipe this weekend, I think it's essentially the same one (pointage en bas) that Jeffrey Hamelman has in the latest edition of his book.
I'll make some epis for us to eat on Saturday and then Sunday morning I will bake the rest, some as epis, some as baguettes, to take to my wine tasting group on Sunday afternoon. (I'm hoping to take the WSET 3 exam next spring, not that I want to get a job in the wine industry, just to see if I can do it, but part of the test is a blind tasting of two wines, so I found a local group of mostly industry pros that I can taste wines with.)
There's a food truck in town yesterday and today that is from Cousin's Maine Lobsters, doing lobster rolls. This is a business that was featured on Shark Tank in around 2012 and has grown to around 100 trucks since then. This truck was from the Kansas City area.
They're trying to interest someone in becoming a local franchisee. Based on the line at lunch yesterday, there may be a market here.
We tried that for lunch yesterday and may have them again for supper tonight.
A bit pricey ($24) but there was quite a bit of lobster meat on each one. (One customer was bemoaning the small size of the lobster roll, calling it a ripoff, but I've had lobster rolls in Maine and this was reasonable for the amount of meat, size and price, especially considering that the lobster meat has to be shipped in.)
We had what they call a 'Maine lobster roll', served cold with mayonnaise. They also offer a Connecticut lobster roll, warm with butter, and a garlic butter lobster roll for some strange reason. (I think lobster and garlic are a terrible combination, the garlic drowns out the taste of the lobster, reminding me of the scene about apricots and honey in the movie 'Notting Hill'.)
We might try the warm one tonight.
They also have lobster quesadillas and some other options, and both lobster bisque and clam chowder. (I tried the clam chowder, it was good but not spectacular.)
Service once you got your order placed was reasonable, about 5 minutes.
MMMM, baked beans!
I made another batch of honey wheat bread last night, it's something I can safely eat while the oral surgery heals. (Going very well, thankfully, haven't needed any pain pills since Friday.)
I might try making a batch of croissants this week, I had some issues with the last batch (though they were just fine after they were baked, it seems to be pretty hard to really mess up laminated dough using the hand-crank laminator) so I clearly need more practice, especially on getting equal sized croissants. Will probably make about half of them as chocolatines and the rest just as 'plain' croissants.
That is so sad, Chocomouse. We have been going to this place for nearly twenty years. It was sold to new owners five years ago, but the owners were careful about the couple to whom they sold it, and so far, they are committed to keeping it and are doing booming business. Is the place only a U-pick, or does it also do commercial blueberries? I ask because I read that the blueberry business is highly dependent on Canada, in that the blueberries are grown in the U.S. but processed in Canada before coming back. (I think this was in a Marketplace email. I wish that I could recall the details more clearly. With the tariff-stuff, a lot of integrated industries will have problems.
Our dinner tonight was leftover stir-fry. I did not cook at all today, but I did bag and freeze thirteen 4-cup bags of blueberries.
