We had tomato and salami sandwiches and a salad (with more tomatoes).
I'm making a batch of rye/wheat/semolina buns right now. I will withhold a little of the dough (2 buns worth) and use it to make a pizza for dinner.
I'm happy to hear you have had an excellent tomato harvest, Mike! How wonderful. I'm dreaming of Turkey Bacon and Tomato sandwiches now. Also, still dreaming of pizza, but perhaps that will happen next week when we have another cold spell.
For dinner on Friday, I made stir-fry, using the leftover pork, the deglazing, soba noodles, carrots, celery, red bell pepper (including a tiny one on the plant that has overwintered inside), mushrooms, and broccoli.
On Saturday, I made yogurt. For dinner, my husband had leftover soup. I made a Spaghetti Squash Quiche using my last spaghetti squash from last autumn. I was amazed that it kept so well. I also used three of my farmers market eggs in it. My husband is not big on quiche or on onions, so I had a piece for dinner and will eat the rest for lunches for the next five days.
What a lovely stir fry Len!
Tonight my friend Sue and I made our pizzas (I froze 2 of the dough balls). I had no problem shaping but getting them on the peel and into the oven was a bit of a learning curve. I ended up using parchment which worked great. I had the baking steel on the rack in the upper third of the oven, but it wasn't too close to the broiler. We cooked each for 4 minutes on the convection setting at 500 and then the broiler for 2. The parchment didn't burn. They were very good - the crust had a nice crisp outside/soft inside.
Attachments:
You must be
logged in to view attached files.
I talked to one of the plant professors at Nebraska-Lincoln today (he did his PhD on tomatoes), he says I probably need to add potassium to my nutrient mix, as it is vital in the transfer of sugars to the fruit. Insufficient light may be a contributing factor as well.
I think the plants probably had too much nitrogen during the vegetative state, that causes them to get leggy, with overly long internodes. I will be switching to a different fertilizer mix for the next iteration of the tomato hydroponic garden and I think I'll probably reconfigure the lights as well.
But the first cycle was intended to be a learning process for me, that I'm getting some good tasting tomatoes, even if a bit small, is encouraging.
I made tortellini with the Boursin (it was on sale again) tomato no-cook sauce, enough for dinner tonight and tomorrow night. On Wednesday, I'm making pizza for a good friend and me to celebrate my birthday. Using The Baking Steel 72 Hour Dough, I made it yesterday and after it sat on the counter overnight, I put it in the fridge. Wednesday, I will take it out to make the dough balls and let it rest.
I started seeds for 12 different varieties of tomatoes, (6 of them that I have not grown before) and 2 varieties of eggplant (purple and white) under the grow lights today.
The 12 tomato varieties are:
Celebration (New)
Super Sauce (New)
Delicious (New)
Purple (New)
Estiva (New)
Celebrity
4th of July
Defiant (New for outdoors but I have two growing in the hydroponic garden)
Amish Paste
Italian Roma (New)
Italian Heirloom
Porter
The Purple one is one my older son found and gave me for Christmas, I don't know if he's grown it in his garden or not. (But purple and white are Northwestern's colors.)
One of the things I want in a new waffle maker is removeable plates to make cleanup easier. I looked at a number of options. I decided to not waffle around any longer and made a decision. I bought a Cuisinart that has removeable plates and comes with additional (mostly) flat plates that they call pancake plates. The bottom plate has small slightly indented circles (4). It's suggested that it can used for pancakes (really small ones) eggs, sausage etc. I might use that to make grilled cheese but otherwise I don't see myself using those as I have better options for pancakes, eggs, sausage etc. They really didn't need to put the circles on the plate.
So I made waffles today. They came out great, somewhat crispy - not limp at all - and moist on the inside. And cooked to the correct level of brown for my taste (it has a dial to control the browning).
Some of the color on that waffle is due to being whole wheat and a fair dose of cinnamon (I opened the jar over the batter and some jumped out, more than I normally would use).
I have to work on getting the amount of batter right, I came up a little short. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with this. Now I have to find room for it.
Attachments:
You must be
logged in to view attached files.
I made yogurt on Sunday
I also made turkey broth, using the bones from our Thanksgiving turkey, which have been taking up freezer space. I used a large oval Staub pot, which nicely holds the turkey bones to make the broth, which I strained into a bowl.
I used the same Staub pan, with about 75% of that broth, to make soup, thus making my husband happy that there was not an extra pot to wash. The soup's additional ingredients were browned ground turkey, 2 cups of Bob's Red Mill Vegi-Mix (split green and yellow peas, red and brown lentils, and barley), sauteed chopped carrots, celery, and yellow bell pepper, sliced mushrooms, rehydrated dried onion, a tablespoon of Penzey's Ozark seasoning, and then, at the end of cooking, I add kale sauteed in olive oil. It began raining in the late afternoon on a chilly day, so soup is perfect for tonight, with enough left for at least four more meals. I froze the remaining turkey broth.
I started the day on Friday by baking Pumpkin Streusel Muffins and having two for breakfast. I then made my version of Peanut Butter Honeys, a recipe that Mumpy, from the former King Arthur Baking Circle, posted there, and which I moved to Nebraska Kitchen when King Arthur unceremoniously dissolved the site. My changes are minor to increase nutritional value. I use white whole wheat flour, natural crunchy peanut butter, and add 2 Tbs. milk powder and 1 Tbs. flax meal. I was about 5 g short on peanut butter and did not want to open another jar, so I used almond butter to make up the difference. (I have metric weights for the honey and peanut butter to avoid having to clean our measuring cups.) These little cookies go surprisingly well with tea.
Somebody had too much time on their hands - mine hasn't been fed since Will left. (And, yes I plan to feed it soon probably next weekend)
So, did anyone buy the new King Arthur Big Book of Bread? I note that they have a sale price for it at KABC (still sounds like a TV station to me). I'm dubious that I need yet another bread baking book, and I do not live close enough to a bookstore to look at it and determine whether it would be helpful. The sale price is $29.95 vs. $44.95 full price. (Does not include sales tax or shipping.)
King Arthur is advertising a kick starter for a "feeds itself" (for a week) sourdough starter feeder
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sourdough-sidekick/coming_soon
Whatever will they think of next?
I am making banana nut mini-muffins today.
I've updated the recipe (see favorites tab or https://mynebraskakitchen.com/wordpress/forums/topic/banana-nut-bread/ ) to note that in my silicone mini-muffin pan it takes about 24 minutes. I also put the entire batch back in the cooling oven so that the outsides get a bit more crisp, which we like.
we're having more of the roast beef and potatoes.
The weather has now been updated to a blizzard warning starting around 6 AM tomorrow with 2-4 inches of snow and high winds. It won't stick around for long because by Friday we'll be back in the 50's, but they've already called off public school and Nebraska-Lincoln (which is on spring break this week) for tomorrow based on the forecast.
