Search Results for '("C'

[Mike Nolan]

I'd just set them gently on the poured chocolate and push them in with a toothpick. Another possibility would be to put them in the mold and pour the chocolate on top of them. (Might make sense to put them in face down, making the bottom of the mold the top of the bar, which is often the case with molded chocolates.)

[BakerAunt]

Ah, yes, Ewell Gibbons and Grape Nuts. My high school German class had a project in which we videotaped commercials in German, and being teenagers, of course we did parody commercials. One student took on the persona of Gibbons, and as he ate a pine branch at the end, the rest of the students sang O Tannenebaum off camera. These videos were still being shown to German classes when my sister, who is thirteen years younger than I, studied German in high school. (In mine, I was an interviewer asking my petite friend about her box--back when it came in boxes!--of Tide, and her response was that as a player for the Wupertal Wupperwinds--don't ask me where we got that name--she needed to keep her soccer jersey clean.)

[BakerAunt]

On Monday, I revisited a recipe from a Pillsbury Classic booklet, Feelin’ Good (#51) for Smashing Herb Cheese Pretzels. These are a baked, bread pretzel. Long ago, I made them with half whole wheat. This time I also cut the salt by 25% , reduced the yeast form 2 ¼ to 2 tsp., and added 1 Tbs. flax meal and 2 Tbs. special dried milk. I used 2% pre-grated cheese, which is the only way I can get 2% cheese. I had forgotten how to shape them properly, so I ended up with pretzel buns. They taste ok, but next time, I will delete the special dried milk and use 1 cup of buttermilk in place of that much water, as they seemed slightly dry to me. I wish that I could find a block of 2 % cheese as well, since I think the additives in the pre-grated affect the outcome.

[Mike Nolan]

Juniper berries and pine nuts may have a place in cooking (although my wife can't stand pine nuts), and possibly even pine needles, but I don't think the rest of the tree does.

[BakerAunt]

I will pass on this idea!

I looked at the overview of the book. There are better ways to be sustainable, and frankly, no one is going to eat the wood, unless the baker who was putting sawdust in cookies (see Aaron's earlier post) is looking for more ingredients.

The book strikes me as a convoluted way of approaching a possible problem with a much simpler solution.

We bought our tree from a Christmas tree farm in our area, thereby supporting a local producer. Such farms protect land that might be gobbled up for development, and the trees have a positive effect on the environment as they grow.

As for after the holidays, when I lived in Lubbock, the Boy Scouts would pick up trees for a small donation after the holidays, and the trees would then be mulched. People could also drop off trees at a site where they would be mulched. Here, once we take the tree down, my husband ties it to our light post, and it looks like another tree until about May or June, depending on the weather. He then takes it over to the shed and it eventually becomes firewood. My husband's cousins remember their mother sending them out to bring home discarded neighborhood trees, which she would put in the back yard as a refuge for the birds in the winter.

We actually have two trees this year. The second one came from our woodlands, after we had bought the first, where my husband discovered that in the autumn a male deer had girdled one of his 18-foot tall trees, effectively killing it. So, he took the tree down, and the top 7 feet are now a second Christmas tree.

[BakerAunt]

By special request from Scott, I made Cornmeal Rye Waffles (King Arthur Flour’s Whole Grain Baking) for Christmas breakfast. I used 4 Tbs. oil in place of the butter, and I wait to mix it in until all the other ingredients are combined. I replaced ¼ cup of the BRM fine ground cornmeal with ¼ cup of their medium grind, which gave a pleasant, subtle crunch. I cut the salt from 2 tsp. to 1 tsp. Our dog parked herself next to the table and made sure that she got her share of waffles. I made the full recipe, so I have six Belgium waffle squares to wrap and freeze.

I had to give up butter crusts, but I like my oil crusts, and their advantage is that they are much faster to make than butter crusts, which is good as they cannot be frozen.

[cwcdesign]

I hope that you all have a wonderful, peaceful and safe day no matter how you are celebrating this year!

We will only be two of us now. Will’s friend’s car died an hour out of Augusta (he had a couple more hours to get here). Fortunately it was in morning yesterday, but it was drizzly rain - he’s going to try for New Year’s.

Have already FaceTimed with New Zealand and it is the 26th there but he sent a gorgeous picture of the Christmas sunset to our family chat.

[Mike Nolan]

Her trifles are never quite the same each time, the fruit varies, usually bananas, strawberries, blueberries and mandarin oranges, sometimes kiwi or star fruit, maybe grapes if they're really sweet, but it also usually includes ladyfingers (available in the frozen food section), angel food cake, strawberry Jello, pastry cream and Kool Whip. But they're always delicious.

The sweet potato pie is not as pretty as I would have liked, but it tastes pretty good for a first time with a recipe that drew from at least 3 sources. Having pie crusts in the freezer ready to be rolled out cuts a lot of prep time, that's why I usually make enough pie crust for several pies. (And an all-butter pie crust always has great mouth feel.)

[aaronatthedoublef]

It's sloppy to send out an email with an out-of-stock product. Even if the flyer has been planned for months in advance it would take seconds to update it. If they were really ambitious they could setup an automated system to link these mails to inventory (I am spending too much time in supply chain these days).

[aaronatthedoublef]

"Sawdust enhanced" cookies?

He challenged the city's findings on a number of levels: First, he said that he only uses "microbiologically sound" sawdust, and that it affects the human body a lot like bran does. (Read: You might not want to eat a bag of these cookies before a long flight.) Next, he pointed out that sawdust has always been listed on the cookies' packaging, along with more conventional ingredients like raisins and flour. And finally, the owner of the natural products shop where he buys the sawdust appeared in court on his behalf, testifying that it was a "vegetable product."

[Mike Nolan]

Here's my sweet potato pie, haven't tasted it yet. (I'm not a big fan of pumpkin pie, and don't eat a lot of sweet potato, either, but I'll probably try a piece tomorrow.)

The crust was getting too dark (I think I had the oven too hot), so I put a pie shield on it, and the pie rose up to the point where it touched the shield, so that's why there's a ring about a half inch from the edge.

The recipe was sort of an amalgam of the recipe on this site and two other recipes, we baked the sweet potato rather than boil it, I used some cream, some milk and lots of butter. I only used about a third of a cup of brown sugar. The spices were cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and a pinch of clove.

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[BakerAunt]

On Wednesday, I baked two loaves of Len’s Rye/Semolina/Whole Wheat Bread (the buns recipe, doubled for two loaves). I made my usual tweaks of mostly buttermilk in place of the water and added some special dried milk. I also preheated the oven to 400F, then turned it down to 375 after putting in the loaves. We will slice one loaf tomorrow, and the other will go into the freezer

[BakerAunt]

Pfeffernüβe
This is a doubled recipe, so it can easily be halved. It makes about 80 cookies, using a Zeroll #40 scoop. A slightly smaller scoop would give a greater yield. Marliss Desens found this recipe in a request column of the Los Angeles Times food section over thirty years ago, but she has adjusted the ingredients and re-written the directions to reflect how she bakes them.

1 cup unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs (room temperature)
1 tsp. grated lemon peel
1 tsp. anise extract

4 cups AP flour (I use King Arthur)
1.2 tsp black pepper (I use freshly ground)
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. cloves
½ tsp. cardamom (I crush the seeds fresh)
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda
2 cups coarsely ground almonds (I like to use whole unblanched and use my food processor)
1 cup candied citron (cut the pieces if large)

Powdered sugar for coating

Let butter soften with sugar in large mixing bowl. In a small bowl, combine flour, spices, and baking soda. Toss in the citron.

Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs and blend well. Mix in lemon peel and anise extract. In two additions, add flour mixture until combined. Add ground almonds and mix to combine. It will be thick, so you may need to finish by hand.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Using a Zeroll #40 scoop (or size of your choice) place scoops of dough on to parchment-lined baking sheet. (I usually bake about 20 at a time on a large baking sheet. You do not want to bake too many at a time, because they need their coating when they come warm from the oven.)

Bake on rack slightly above center for 12-14 minutes, turning rack halfway through the time. While the tray is cooking, place about ¾ cup powdered sugar in a bag. Cool cookies briefly on a rack, then shake a couple at a time in sugar and place on rack set over waxed paper (to make clean-up easier).

Store cooled cookies in tightly covered container. They will keep a long time, but the sugar may absorb into the cookie; you can always shake them in additional sugar before serving. These cookies last a long time; the spices merge together even more as they age.

[chocomouse]

Thanks Aaron. I've read other negative comments about the legibility of the display, on the countertop oven. I have a small oven in my range (it's a JennAir, with a grill and center vent to the outside, but it's 35 years old and not performing reliably any more. There are just two of us, and I use the oven mostly for baking (mostly breads). I'm also looking at buying a new microwave, mine is 35 years old also, and I'd like a smaller one, so both new appliances would fit better in the footprint of my kitchen. I love, love, love, my Sharp microwave! I use the Sensor Cook for fresh vegetables; it cooks them perfectly, "al dente". I finally found one microwave that has a sensor cook for fresh vegetables, a Farberware, which would not be my first choice of manufacturer. Of course, that's no guarantee that sensor cooking asparagus will give it the right "chew". "Sensor Cook" today seems to mean to heat up a prepared meal - and we don't eat that way. I'm in no rush to buy, so will continue to research.

[chocomouse]

That's funny, Mike! We harvested our first lettuces from our Aerogarden for dinner tonight also! I cut just the larger leaves, as I do the lettuce in my summer gardens, so it will continue to produce. The lettuce, spinach, and scallion seeds I planted under Gro-lights a few days after I started the Aerogarden plugs are growing much more slowly. I think maybe I should be fertilizing (diluted)them a lot more.