For dinner on Tuesday, my husband finished up the lima beans with brown rice and ham, as there was only a single serving. That gave me the opportunity to try a Penzey’s recipe, Spanish Chickpea and Spinach Stew, which is on their website and featured in a recent email. I replaced the 28 oz. can of crushed tomatoes with 3 cups of tomato sauce with olive oil and garlic that I made from our garden late last fall and froze. I used olive oil rather than avocado oil to saute the onion. I deleted the additional garlic powder. I like moderate spiciness, so I reduced the ground cumin to ¼ tsp. and the cayenne pepper to a dash. I increased the smoked paprika to 1 ¼ tsp. I used 15 oz. of the chickpeas I cooked last week and a 12 oz. package of chopped frozen spinach. The recipe specifies serving over cooked grains. I chose to cook ½ cup bulgur (to make 1 ¼ cups cooked), which I mixed into the stew. It is delicious. I was able to use the spices, onion tomatoes, and chickpeas since my husband was not eating it. I now have lunches for into the week, as well as a recipe to serve someone who is vegan.
I made mac and cheese following an ATK recipe. It is a one pan recipe, you take 1.5 cup of water and one cup of milk, bring it up to a simmer and then add 8 ounces of mac and cook it 6-8 minutes. Do not drain, then add 1 cup shredded American cheese (from a deli block that you shred yourself as the pre-sliced singles are often made from a different recipe) on the heat and stir until melted, then take it off the heat and add 1 cup shredded cheddar, stir in, add 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard, cover and let the cheddar melt. Now it's ready but you can prepare a simple bread crumb topping it you want.
It's all pretty simple but I don't keep American cheese on hand so I subbed mozzarella from an package that was opened from my last pizza. That, I believe, is where it went wrong, maybe I should not have used the mozzarella and doubled up on the cheddar. As you can guess now, I was not real happy with the results. I'll have to give this recipe another try, this time using the correct cheeses.
Yes, some breads are supporting cast to the filling rather than accentuating it. When we first got married, my husband didn't want to "waste" the bread I baked on sandwiches and initially continued to buy a 100% whole wheat one for his sandwiches, a bread that I thought rather bland. It took some convincing for him to realize that a great bread flavor can complement the flavor of the sandwich filling. It also helped that the price of the bread shot up. Within a year, my trusty stand mixer (bought mostly with wedding gift cards) and I had put him on the path to home baked.
Thanks for the reports on the Ginsberg recipes, Mike!
Len I love cast iron for pizza and breads especially. I have the large (15" I think) Lodge pizza pan and love the crusts it produces. I am so disappointed that my new Breville smart oven will accommodate only up to a 13". I'm still looking for a 13" cast iron. I recommend you try the bread pan for sandwich loaves.
Report on Provençal Rye (Ginsberg pps 119-121):
This is a rye with a surprisingly sweet flavor to it, considering it has no added sugars.
I chose to make two smaller loaves rather than one 2.5 pound loaf. The recipe makes about 1200 grams of dough, but it was not coming together well, so I added about another 50 grams of AP flour to it. The finished loaves are about 10 inches x 4 inches x 2 1/4 inches and weighed 568 grams, I should probably have made them shorter so they had a bigger cross-section, as it is they're probably too big for a cocktail rye and too small for a sandwich bread. This is one of those times when I wish I had one of those 'deli rye' pans that Chicago Metallic used to make and King Arthur used to sell, it'd be a good shape and size.
If I make it again, I may make it as one or two boules rather than as oblong loaves.
It was cold in the kitchen today, the bulk proof and the final proof both took longer than the recipe calls for. I baked it for a total of about 30 minutes, the internal temperature was 208 at that point.
It doesn't have a really dominant rye flavor, though I think adding some caraway might change that. I used medium rye flour and the absence of any rye meal, rye chops or caraway means it is a fairly soft chew.
The flavor changes somewhat when it is toasted and has butter spread on it. I actually liked it better with some sharp cheddar cheese spread on it.
We decided not to use it for Reubens, it might make a good sandwich bread but it is going to be the supporting cast to whatever you serve it with.
Update: We did try making Reubens from this bread a few days later, its sweetness was more of a distraction than a complement to the sauerkraut. The Jewish Bakery Pumpernickel bread is better suited for Reubens.
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I stumbled across a blog by a woman who was researching and updating recipes used during WWII rationing. She had read that people were much healthier during that time because of more wholesome eating. The pandemic messed with the supply chain here in Cleveland and it seemed like a good idea to see what substitutions and such would work depending on what was available in the grocery stores. Like so many, we had a hard time getting flour and yeast. The rationing recipe I started with was called Oaty Biscuits. I had a Costco sized box of rolled oats in the pantry so it seemed a logical choice. It used rolled oats but it also called for wheat flour. I subbed oat flour that I made from rolled oats in my food processor. Here is the recipe:
4 oz (115 g) margarine or butter.
3 oz (85 g) of sugar
7 oz (200 g) of rolled oats
5 oz (150 g) self-raising flour or plain flour sifted with 1 teaspoon of baking powder and a pinch of salt
1 reconstitued dried egg or fresh egg
A little milk
* Pre-heat the oven to 180C (350F) or Gas Mark 4.
* Grease two baking trays well or use parchment/baking paper instead.
* Cream the margarine/butter with the sugar until soft and light.
* Add the rolled oats and mix.
* Sift the flour, baking powder and salt and add the egg (if used) into the * mixture and mix well again before adding in a little milk to moisten. The dough should be stiff and quite dry but sticks together. Knead together. Use a cookie scoop to portion out 36 lumps of dough, roll into a ball, place on parchment and flatten with a fork or cup bottom. Bake for about 15 minutes, let cool on baking sheet for 10 minutes.
Subbing oatflour for the wheat flour worked great. I have also used brown sugar instead of white and that worked too. Next I want to try using molasses. These cookies are a little dry and go great with tea or coffee.
On Monday, I baked the KABC Gourmet Soda Crackers again. They are definitely better when I do not put too much water in the dough! 🙁
I used the same technique as last time in setting the oven at 400F convection. I turned it off with a minute to spare because they seemed golden enough. I will probably cut the time to 9 minutes next time, or 4 min. 30 seconds before turning the baking sheet around. As I did last time, I allowed them to cool in oven after I turned it off, and since my oven vents excess heat after being turned off, I did not have to worry about overbrowning, and I did not need to leave the oven door open. I did taste a warm one, and these are tastier than that first batch and brown more nicely. It may be worthwhile to keep the Italian-style flour on hand just for these crackers.
I found some overripened bananas at the grocery store this morning (marked down), so on Sunday I baked my version of Buckwheat Banana Cake. It works perfectly in a 6-cup Bundt Pan.
We were also out of bread, so I baked two loaves of my buttermilk enriched and more whole wheat Grape Nuts Bread, which is one of my husband's favorites.
We had spaghetti with home-made marinara with mushrooms and ground beef, and cheese toast. (I can't get the 4 cheese blend I've been getting from Sams, as they appear to have switched suppliers, so I tried a different blend, it was OK but not as good.)
We cooked burgers on the grill (on the snowless deck; we had no accumulation of snow although it did snow all day yesterday) and air fried onion rings.
I took a page out of Joan's cookbook for dinner tonight!
For Saturday night’s dinner (and dinners into the coming week), I cooked 2 ½ cups large lima beans (first soaked overnight and into next day) with pieces of chopped ham, 2 Tbs. reconstituted dried onion, and 1 tsp. dried thyme. I cooked brown rice separately, then added it in when both were finished. I remembered that I had about 2/3 cup of brown and mixed wild rice in the freezer, so I pulled that out and put it in as well, since the broth was a little thin, then added some freshly ground pepper. My husband is not keen on ham by itself, but he likes it when I combine it with beans.
I made bagels today. I used half AP and half bread flour - except after I scooped out the bread flour, I realized it looked "odd". It was light brown, not white, and it was not as fine grained as I would expect. As I kneaded, it seemed more like whole wheat, and needed more water (it rained all last night and was snowing most of the day - plenty of moisture in the air). I think, at some point, I must have refilled the kitchen bread flour jar with whole wheat flour from the pantry. It's funny, but also OK, since I often do use half whole wheat. And - the bagels are good.
I'm currently making croutons from some of the Challah I made on Sunday, and the plan is to make potato-leek soup for supper. (I still need to go buy potatoes and leeks, though.)
You are month(s) ahead of us; I'm hungry just reading your lists. It should start snowing here soon, and all day tomorrow. It won't hurt the daffodils, hyacinths, and other plants that are up.
Our garden is chugging along - squashes, tomatoes and peas(peas were planted a little late) all have flowers. We’ve been picking radishes already - rainbow, they’re fun. Arugula is going crazy and we have some Swiss chard, kale, lettuces and spinach going. Carrots are slow. Eggplants and beans are healthy. Will has taken the lead on the garden this year and it’s doing much better than last year. I think the raised beds help.
