Len, I have enough blueberries for many projects!! I was trying to clean out my freezer (I have 2 large uprights) a bit by using up some of the probably 50 1.5 cup containers of blueberries I have from the last 2 summers. We grow them, I have 10 bushes, we have all we want to eat fresh and to give away and the rest we freeze. With the pandemic last summer, I rarely left the house and didn't see friends and neighbors, so didn't give away as many. I see a pie on the horizon - that will use up 4-5 cups!
Condolences on the dropped starter, Aaron. That would be my nightmare.
You might also ask where your co-worker where the recipe comes from. I assume the person was looking for a gluten-free dessert. I have a hazy memory of an email with a recipe for such a cake that I dismissed due to the number of eggs and the fact that I do not need to be gluten free.
I have heard some gentle murmuring from my husband about lack of dinner desserts. Before you feel too sorry for him, there were some oat bars, some mini-York Peppermint patties (including heart-shaped ones), frozen vanilla yogurt, and my butternut squash muffins, so he does have some variety, but clearly he wanted a more substantial dessert, and the oat cookies and muffins are now gone. Thus, on Wednesday, I baked my Lime Barley Bundt cake, using two of the limes that came from my tree. I drizzled it with some lime glaze and sprinkled some red, pink, and white sprinkles on it for an early Valentine’s appearance, as I have all of this decorating sugar and sprinkles that I have not used very much since having to give up baking sugar cookies.
I had my first shot yesterday (Pfizer), not much reaction - mostly tired and a sore arm today. Next shot in 3 weeks
Thanks BA. Biscotti are twice baked and that accounts for some of their dryness. Not sure about Mandelbrot. My mom never made them and I was never much of a fan so I've never tried them.
This was definitely supposed to be bread. I've found a few recipes for almond bread like it online.
I've also found some that use baking powder and a quarter cup of almond milk.
What surprised me a was the lack of liquid (even though there are five eggs) and the lack of leavening. The vinegar and baking soda will have finished their reaction before the pan hits the oven.
More snow yesterday and more crackers. But I was transferring my starter to a clean jar and the dirty jar fell and broke. 🙁 I lost a few hundred grams of starter. I split the remaining jar between two clean jars and am building it back up so I do not have to start from scratch.
A co-worker sent me an almond bread recipe to ask why it was dry. It is a quick bread and seemed odd that the only leavening was baking soda and vinegar and the only liquid was eggs. Any advice would be appreciated. Here is the recipe:
2 1/4 cups blanched almond flour
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine texture sea salt
5 eggs
1/2 tbsp honey
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
Sigh--Penzey's had a great sale this weekend of $50 gift cards for $35.
I haven't bought vanilla for a while. I still have my vanilla stash (probably because I had to give up most butter!), including 1 1/2 bottles of a funky one I picked up at T.J. Maxx from Rose & Ivy. That was a few years ago at the start of the vanilla shortage. It has a bit of a floral note that I am not crazy about, but it works in recipes where other spices come into play.
The December before the pandemic, I was in a T.J. Maxx and there was a bottle of the Nielsen-Massey at a great price, so I grabbed it. My husband, who was along, said, "Do you need it?" My reply: "I will--and no one should pass up the chance to score vanilla at a good price."
I'm sorry that I do not have any suggestions.
For dinner on Monday, as the cold weather and the snow continues (but hey, we are out of negative digit temperatures!), I made soup (more of a thick stew) using the last five cups of the chicken broth I made last week, a can of diced tomatoes, carrots, celery, and garlic sauteed in olive oil, ¾ cup uncooked brown lentils and ¼ cup red lentils, 2/3 cup farro, 1tsp. dehydrated onion, and parsley. I seasoned with a bit of crushed rosemary and thyme, then added a tsp. of Worcestershire sauce at the end.
I've made a mug cake a few times, they always seemed like a kludge compared to a real cake, which is not that hard to make. Something like a crazy cake (AKA 'cake in the pan') is a vast improvement over a mug cake.
Your muffins sound yummy,BA. I hope you stay toasty warm in your house.
Will made sourdough pancakes on the baking steel on the grill. it was a little cooler this morning so they took a little longer. Since we have an original (flat) steel, the grill was a good idea since our stove top can get too messy. It's also an old glass flat cooktop and has hot spots, so the cooking is more even on the grill - we may even try it there for the English muffins and then I wouldn't have to buy their mini griddle with the channel for collecting oil.
Mike, home-made hot dog buns weigh whatever you want them to weigh! I use about 50-55 grams of dough per bun. A three-cup of flour recipe makes about 18-20 buns. That's good for regular size (skinny) hot dogs, and a bit skimpy for the fat brats, Italian hot sausage, etc.
Mike, when my kids were little, and I often hid veggies in other foods.... When I prepared meatloaf, I put down a layer of meatloaf mix, and randomly laid a couple of veggies on top, then more meat, etc, etc. Our favorite was carrots (a veggie most kids like anyway!). A slice of that revealed small round orange "eyeballs" looking at you!
For breakfast on Sunday, I adapted “Butternut Squash Crumb Muffins” from Ken Haedrich’s The Harvest Baker, (pp. 34-35). I replaced AP flour with an equal amount of white whole wheat, cut the brown sugar from ¾ to ½ cup and the salt from ¾ to ½ tsp. I used buttermilk instead of milk, so I reduced the tablespoon of baking powder to 2 tsp. and added ¼ tsp. baking soda. (Note: they had terrific, rounded domes.) I added 2 Tbs. flax meal and 1 Tbs. Bob’s Red Mill milk powder. I used 5 Tbs. oil (rather than 1/3 cup) because I wanted to measure it with the buttermilk in a single cup, so I could whisk it together. I decided not to add pecans. I made a quarter of Haedrich’s topping recipe (which is designed to make a lot so that some can be kept on hand) and used ½ Tbs. butter and ½ Tbs. grapeseed oil in place of 1 Tbs. butter. It still made almost too much, and a bit spilled off onto the pan. I deleted 1 tsp. vanilla extract. I baked for 20 minutes on the second rack up. I used muffin cups but forgot to spray them first, so the warm muffins had some sticking. These are delicious and a nice change from pumpkin muffins.
It was -9 F when we got up shortly after 7 this morning. Some hardy ice fishermen were already out. We had an additional inch of snow last night.
In addition to my onion soup, I'm making a big batch of chicken stock today, using 8 pounds of chicken backs. (I bought a 40 pound case of them last year and froze them in 4 pound bags.)
I should get 8-10 quarts of chicken stock from them, half of which I'll use for some potato leek soup in a few days and the rest will go in the freezer.
Sirloin tip is fairly easy to slice if you don't overcook it.
I tend to use eye of round for that, as long as you cook it low and slow it isn't too tough. I use the 500 for 1 minute per pound, then let it coast method. The original recipe says to just turn the oven off and not open the door for 3 hours, but I find my oven cools off too much, so I set the oven temperature at 150-200 degrees (I haven't decided which temperature works best) and monitor it with a meat thermometer.
The Anova Precision Oven does air cooking that is similar to sous vide but without the water bath. Not sure if it's worth the money and I don't have any place to put it. My son likes to sous vide meat a lot, but my wife doesn't like meat that is red or pink even if I tell her it is fully cooked.
