Will had grilled cheese with the bread I made today and Campbell’s tomato soup (his Dad would be proud). I had the last of the butter chicken meatballs
We had a one-pan meal tonight: sliced potatoes and kielbase, red and green bell peppers, and onions, with a tomato-onion salad. It was too hot to be cooking in the kitchen (90*) but also too hot to cook outside.
Although today was not as cool as it was supposed to be, and there was only s little rain, I went ahead and roasted a whole chicken on top of baby carrots and cut-up potatoes that I had first tossed in olive oil, then sprinkled with rosemary and Sunny Paris seasoning (Penazey's). I like doing the chicken this way, but the vegetables underneath do not cook as thoroughly. We had it with microwaved green beans from our garden.
My mother always put rice in the salt shaker to keep it from clumping up in hot weather (our house had no air conditioning), as it would absorb some moisture, I assume it has the same effect on bread.
I bought some micro-perforated baguette bags recently, they're only 6" across so they won't hold anything bigger than baguettes, but they appear to have characteristics similar to paper bags in terms of keeping the bread from getting too moist or drying out too fast. Haven't used them enough to form an opinion on them yet.
I put some left over popovers in them, they didn't get super soft like they usually do in regular plastic bags, but they did go moldy in 3-4 days, which seemed to be about how long they'd last in regular plastic bags.
Here's an article from the Oregonian that looked at 12 donut places (one of the original choices was closed that day), Voodoo came in 12th, Blue Star came in 11th.
Portland Donuts
We had my cinnamon roll recipe for breakfast on Sunday morning. (The recipe is posted here at Nebraska Kitchen.) I made up the dough and shaped them last night, then refrigerated the pan until this morning. I put it on the counter while the oven heated. These came out well, although I substituted in an additional cup of white whole wheat flour. I thought the dough was slightly dry, so next time I make that substitution, I will increase the buttermilk by a tablespoon.
Krispy Kreme donuts have never been 'it' for me. And Voodoo Donuts in Portland OR were just so-so, IMHO. (My son tells me the in crowd goes somewhere else these days, anyway.)
We've got LaMars, and they're pretty doggone good!
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This reply was modified 5 years, 9 months ago by
Mike Nolan.
This bread is WONDERFUL! It has the slight maple taste, even with the whole wheat I substituted in, and the texture is light. I will definitely be baking it again. I just wish that I had a less expensive source of maple syrup, but at least I can get free shipping from Vermont Country Store if I order at least three glass jars. (We don't like the plastic.)
I'm sorry to hear about the cases in your Mom's community, CWCdesign. I hope that the place is able to contain the spread.
Our county is now up to 544 cases and in the past week there have been 5 deaths. The "positivity rate" is 11.2% today, and it keeps climbing. We know our zip code had eight cases as of last Monday (those are weekly numbers), and we heard from a reliable source that at least three people in the town-lake area have tested positive.
Oh, yes, our numbers do not include people whose official residence is elsewhere. So the people who fled to their vacation homes here when the pandemic began, and those here for the summer, who may have or have had Covid-19, are not reflected in those numbers. We really are flying blind.
So are people being more careful? No. Indeed several big events are happening starting tonight and continuing into next week: concert, town garage sale, service club rummage sale, etc. Lots of people yesterday in store without masks. We would not go to the store at all if we did not need to re-fill our water bottles, as our well water is not great for drinking (lots of iron). We are starting to research Reverse Osmosis systems.
I missed it.
According to the bird book (Sibley), the native turkey had a range from Mexico to the edge of Canada, and from the Rockies to the east coast.
Ok, the bread is out of the oven. Here are my notes:
I used the bread machine, and the Zo handled the ingredients with no problem. As always, I let all the ingredients, except the oil, mix together, then drizzled in the oil near the end of the mixing period.
I made some changes—3 ½ cups whole wheat flour and 1 ½ cup bread flour. I ended up needing to add an additional ¼ cup AP flour and ¼ cup whole wheat flour plus a Tablespoon more while the machine was mixing and kneading. I added 2 Tbs. flax meal. I reduced the 2 tsp. yeast to 1 ¾ tsp and halved the salt from 1 tsp to ½ tsp. I replaced the 3 Tbs. butter with 2 Tbs. canola oil. I used 5 Tbs. maple syrup, a bit less than the 1/3 cup, but I proofed my yeast in water that I’d used to clean out the maple syrup jar.
The first rise was on schedule. The dough was very gassy, and even after turning it out, pre-shaping, and letting rest 5 minutes, I ended up banging it down on the counter a couple of times before final shaping. There is a lot of dough, and I chose to use my 10x5-inch loaf pan, greased with Crisco, which was a good decision. I think it would work in the “hearth” pan as well, but that one tends to let the bottom overbrown. (I need to see if USA pans now makes one in the shiny material.) I think it would also work in two 8x4 inch loaf pans.
After 43 minutes of the second rise and almost doubled, I put it into the oven and baked for 40 minutes. (Note: I did not do the egg glaze and sprinkle with flaky salt.) It registered at 194F after 40 minutes. I went ahead and removed it from the pan, as I had to turn it over to get the temperature at the bottom where it would not show. It’s cooling, and has just a faint wrinkling on top.
The oven spring was very good. It's a large loaf of bread. It should work fine in two 8x4 pans for smaller loaves, and it would nicely fill out the hearth bread pan.
I'll post back tomorrow on taste and texture.
The bread shapes are wonderful. I'd love to have that crab loaf with some (lots!) of clam chowder. Can you imagine how great it would be with friends and a huge dutch oven of clam chowder?
I wish they had a picture of the 2020 in bread.
It used to be that a visit to a Sur La Table, Williams-Sonoma, or the arrival of the Old Chef's Catalog (when they were out of Illinois), were so exciting for me. All three, however, began to focus more on the trendy and the expensive, or so it seems to me, rather than on the practical needs of cooks and home bakers. I've been trying to find replacement wire screens for my French Press. No one seems to sell them anymore; they want you to buy the entire French Press.
Williams-Sonoma does not even send emails anymore but is bundled into "The Key," yet sister brand Pottery Barn inundates my in-box.
Chef's Catalog was once a good practical place for cooks and bakers. Then the mail-order company was bought by Nieman-Marcus, then either someone else, and finally Target, which cannibalized and liquidated it. There was an attempt to bring Chef's back, but the offerings were the same narrow range as the other cooking and baking places.
And this is why I'm still looking for a dough docker without buying on Amazon.
Sur La Table has been going downhill for years, the last time I was in one (in Omaha) half of the things I went there for, most of them that 'cool stuff you couldn't find anywhere else' were things they no longer sell.
Bed Bath & Beyond is planning to close a lot of its stores, too.
I remember the days when I eagerly awaited the next Brookstone catalog, and it is to the point when I often don't bother to open a King Arthur Flour catalog either.
I made turkey tenderloin with onions and peppers and zucchini (instead of carrots) from Spoonful of Flavor blog. Tasted good and healthy.
