My son's aerogardens (he has 2 of the 24 pod farms now) got a nasty aphid infestation, so they've shut them both down and are cleaning everything.
Some of our dill has grown above the grow lights and went into bloom, so today there was a dusting of pollen all over the aerogarden. Wonder if it'll set seed?
We're wondering how much longer our initial gardens will continue to be productive, I'm guessing at least another month or two.
Years ago the Nebraska public TV auction (remember those?) had 120 pounds of NY Strip Steak as an item, and I got it. Turned out it was ten UNCUT 12 pound strips. So I spent the better part of an afternoon cutting, wrapping and freezing 9 of them, saving the 10th one, which we roasted whole and served as a Christmas dinner for my employees.
Anyway, we wound up with something like 90 NY Strip Steaks in the freezer. So all summer it was:
What are we having for dinner?
NY Strip Steak.
What AGAIN?
Some days it seems like we're at that point for salad, we went 2-3 days without picking or having any, which is why there were 2 bowls of it today.
My semolina bread rose funny (probably had the hydration a tad high and/or I didn't do enough stretch and folds, but it sprung up enough in the oven that it doesn't look like a flatbread.
We had salad (picked 2 bowls of it today) plus assorted leftovers and apple pie for dessert.
Cosmic Crisp apples make a great apple pie!
I'll put that on my list with Jonagold for apples to watch for in stores. (I've never seen Winesap in stores but if we have a normal growing season and harvest in 2021 I should be able to pick some when the U-pick orchards open next fall.)
I've still got about 7 pounds of them in the fridge, I may try making a strudel with some of them.
Pie is out but the way I crimped the crust didn't hold together, so there's a gap between upper and lower crust most of the way around. Might make taking it out of the non-stick pan a bit trickier. (I prefer not to cut a pie in the non-stick pan to avoid damaging the non-stick surface.) We'll see what happens after it cools.
I do have some steel cut oats, so the baked steel cut oats will be brunch tomorrow--with another Cosmic Crisp apple.
I (yes, me, not Will) have in the oven Baked Steel Cut Oatmeal from Alexandracooks.com No need to precook the oatmeal - just toss in an 8x8 pan with nuts, baking powder, salt and fruit, pour over a milk/egg/maple syrup/vanilla/butter mix and bake.It was easy because I could weigh everything right into each container. I did say to Will that I wouldn't have been able to do it "by self" if it was any heavier - 😀
Hand/wrist is still stiff and a little sore - less progress than I thought, but at least moving forward
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This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by
cwcdesign.
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This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by cwcdesign.
Italiancook - do you have a crockpot? The easiest recipe I ever found for making a large quantity of caramelized onions is from Lora Brody's Slow Cooker Cooking. She uses a 4 quart slow cooker but you can double the amount of onions (but don't need to double the butter) if you have a larger slow cooker. 3 pounds Vidalia or other sweet onions (about 4 or 5) peeled and sliced 1/8-1/4inch and 1 stick butter. Put onions and butter in pot and cook on low 12-14 hours. They should be mahogany colored and very soft - she says it's almost impossible to overcook them.
She also has a comment about the butter - not to worry about the amount. you can drain and chill the onions and the liquid. Skim the butter off the liquid and you can use the butter and liquid separately in other recipes. And, yes, you can freeze the onions.
I've used these onions in her onion soup and in other recipes.
I weigh nearly everything these days, even the water. I have a small scale that does tenths of a gram for measuring smaller amounts, like the sugar and salt in a pie crust. (I have a third scale that measures in milligrams that I use elsewhere, but seldom use in the kitchen.)
I cut both ends off (some experts recommend not cutting off the root end, but I think that makes peeling the outer skin layers off harder), then cut the onion in half (pole to pole), then cut into slices to get half-rings. If the onions are really big, some of the ones in the bag I bought at Costco were over a pound, I'll cut about 2/3 of the way through each half so that I get quarter-rings for the outer layers, otherwise they're just too long.
I just dump them in the stock pot, stirring them during cooking every hour or so separates them. If you throw a little oil or butter in, they'll caramelize faster. Some people recommend throwing in a little sugar as well, I've never tried that.
We had tuna sandwiches and soup tonight -- split pea for my husband and mushroom for me. Perfect on this cold night as we look forward to another (small) snowstorm to arrive by morning.
Peeling the outer layer off the onions seems to take the longest for me. The old Veg-a-matic did a great job slicing onions, as I recall. (The newer versions of that tool, if you can even find them, don't seem as sturdy.)
When I made my onion soup I used a 10 pound bag of onions and that didn't quite fill a 12 quart stock pot. After 5 hours in the oven, it was down to only 2 or 3 inches deep.
I'm told you can freeze them after they've been caramelized and throw them into something you're making, often without even thawing them. I may have to try that. I wonder if they'd smell up your freezer, perhaps not if you double-bagged them?
Last week we did pizza night on Saturday, we've still got a few pieces left, so I'm not sure if we'll do pizza this week or just skip a week. (We're almost out of Havarti, anyway.)
We had another inch and a half overnight. Before the snow fell, someone who was likely exceeding the 20 mph speed limit on the county road next to our property, and clearly driving too fast for conditions, tore up our mailbox, which will have to be replaced (after winter!). My husband was able to push it up so that we can still get our mail, but the door does not close properly anymore.
Lots of great baking experimentation is going on this week at Nebraska Kitchen!
On Wednesday, I took the “Steel-Cut Oat Crackers” recipe in King Arthur’s Whole Grain Baking (p. 162), which I have never baked, and made some adaptations to replace the 4 Tbs. of butter. I used 2 ½ Tbs. canola oil, which I whisked with ¼ cup buttermilk rather than water. I found that I needed an additional 4 Tbs. of water to get the dough to come together. The recipe assumes that one has left over steel-cut oats, which I never do. I ended up cooking 2 Tbs. steel-cut oats in 3 oz. of water. That probably made about 1/3 cup rather than the ½ cup, but the recipe still worked. After I combined the dry ingredients (and cut the salt to ¾ tsp. and added 1 Tbs. Bob’s Red Mill milk powder), I distributed the cooked and cooled steel-cut oats, using my fingers to break them apart. I then added the buttermilk-oil mixture, before adding the water, one tablespoon at a time, and bringing it together first with a pastry fork and then with a bowl scraper. I divided it in half and wrapped one half in saran before rolling the first one out. The next time I bake these, I would wrap both halves and let them rest 15 minutes, as the second half was much easier to roll out after resting while I worked with the first half. I baked at the stated temperature, but I used the convection setting on my oven and baked on the third rack up (slightly above center) for 15 minutes, turning halfway. We had them with pea soup tonight, and they are excellent and nicely crisp. I will bake these again, as we like the flavor, and they are fast to make, especially if cut into 2-inch squares with a pizza wheel. I am delighted now to have a third cracker recipe.
