I've got a 12 pound bag of AP and a 5 pound bag of bread flour, plus what's in the canisters so I'm in fairly good shape for flour. I've got some older flours, including a bag of KAF Bread flour that got stuck on a back shelf and forgotten about at least two years ago, and lots of rye flour.
We heard from our younger son today (an amazing thing in itself!), he's working from home but he does that a lot anyway. What we're not sure about is what he's eating, because he's use to being able to eat at YouTube from Monday morning to Friday noon. As long as the malls stay open, there are a half dozen fast food places a few blocks away.
Several schools in Lincoln are 100% free lunch, they've got some kind of plan in place to feed their students, but I don't know the details. For some of those kids, what they get at school is often most of what they eat all day.
A poll in Great Britain had 63% of those responding in favor of some kind of food rationing. I wonder how many of those actually remember what that was like the last time it was necessary?
It's interesting.. Many of you are in the Midwest and when I am in Minneapolis this does not seem to be a big deal. A few more people are working from home and a few more people are staying home when they feel sick but life was (as of Thursday) proceeding pretty normally.
Home in CT things are a lot more amped up. I think first with the NBA shutting down, then colleges, then public schools this has become suddenly serious for a lot of people. If I look at the map the NY Times sent this is heavily concentrated on the coasts and from New York to Washington is a big hot zone.
I have some flours coming from KAF and Bob's to supplement what I already have. I cannot find KAF bread flour anywhere although I can find the organic online. Costco had no paper towels or toilet paper but plenty of napkins. I had lots of toilet paper because I'd stocked up when it was on sale. I was waiting to do the same with paper towels but then the corona virus hit and Costco was wiped out. I still have about 18 rolls and Whole Foods had them yesterday and customers are limited to one package (three rolls).
My flights to Birmingham were cancelled and Delta was trying to rebook me but I decided to skip travel, at least this week.
Attachments:
You must be
logged in to view attached files.
Things are getting crazy, I wonder when it will end. My sister texted me and said she can't get toilet paper, paper towels or napkins and asked me if could send her some her some toilet paper. She doesn't have a computer and lives in a small town. I went on Amazon and the only thing I could find was some paper towels, the kind you find in a public bathroom in a dispenser. So I ordered some of those for her. Amazon Fresh (grocery delivery) time slots are almost impossible to get. I hope this passes soon.
I did make my banana cream pie, with raisins, using my wife's aunt's filling recipe (a pretty basic pastry cream IMHO), and a French meringue that was browned in the oven. It's chilling, I'll post pictures later on, hopefully including a slice. The scrapings from the pot on the pastry cream tasted pretty good.
It won't be supper tonight, but I'm making a pot of chili. (It's best on day 2 anyway.)
Thanks for posting the link, Aaron. It's that kind of out of the box thinking that will get all of us through this pandemic, both in terms of health and economics.
We went to an environmental talk today, and so were in the town where we usually shop and took the opportunity to pick up more of our usual. It was very crowded, maybe because it is Friday, and a lot of people get paid on the second Friday, but there were a lot of people at 10:30. I noted that Aldi's was running low on canned goods--something I've not seen before. Produce was fine. Kroger was equally crowded when we got there. I needed a roll of wide parchment paper, so we went down the paper aisle, and yes, there were a lot of empty shelves in the toilet paper section, (It's a TP apocalypse.)
Walgreens is limiting how much people can buy of certain items: hand sanitizer, masks, etc.
My sister in California called last night, and she couldn't find hand sanitizer, so she asked a worker in CVS, who told her that they are keeping it behind the counter, and only selling one per customer.
I made another batch of yogurt on Thursday.
As I prepared to start Thursday dinner, I realized that the two packages of three chicken thighs each that I had left in the refrigerator to thaw were not thawed. I had put them separately, but someone (my husband denies it was he), stacked them on top of each other. I ended up putting them in a baggie and letting the baggie soak in water to get them thawed. I made Tarragon Chicken, Mushrooms, and Rice, which we had with microwaved frozen peas. Dinner was a bit late.
Thanks for the article on challah. Mine would not be kosher either because my kitchen isn't. I mean a I bake it in an oven I also use to cook carnitas and make sausage pizza.
While much of this I've heard and read I'm not sure about some parts of it like the Kohen (should be plural "kohanim") being the poorest of people. They were the high priests back when we had high priests and were considered the highest class of our people.
The more I learn the less I know...
I made my usual bun recipe but went wild and made 4 different shapes. 2 traditional with everything bagel topping, 2 six rope basket weave, 2 three rope weave and 2 kaiser (using the stamp). The basket weave is a bit more work, but it's my favorite.
-
This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by
RiversideLen.
-
This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by RiversideLen.
Attachments:
You must be
logged in to view attached files.
Today I made hamburger buns. I subbed honey for the sugar (1 tablespoon) and they did not brown at all. At least, I'm hoping it's due to the honey, and not a failing oven.
I shop only once every two-three weeks. We could eat out of the freezer for months if we had to, and if the timing was right, I'd have salad ingredients growing under gro-lights, or in the garden. When it is planting time in early June, I'll decide if I should cut back on the size of the vegetable garden (that's the plan as of today) or continue to plant an excess for storage. And right now, I have only about 5 pounds of AP flour left from my 50 pound bag, so I'd have to get creative with the baking, but at least I could use up the odds and ends of flours I do have on hand. When I shopped on Monday, on my list was hand-sanitizer, Lysol wipes, and toilet paper. The cleaning/sanitation supplies shelves were empty - not a single item that would meet the requirements for Covid cleanliness. There were only only a few packages of toilet paper (and I was not buying that for any Covid purpose!).
I just learned about an hour ago that our Stitches Convention in Hartford next week is cancelled. So I no longer need the hand sanitizer or wipes. I hope that everyone in our Nebraska Kitchen is finding what they need to stay healthy.
One of the recipes that I used for a sour cream raisin pie had you boil the raisins in some water to plump them. It also used some of the raisin water in the pie filling.
Raisins have to be REALLY dried out not to be salvageable for baking.
Now that I'll be home for Pi day (Saturday), I need to figure out what kind of pie(s) to make.
I think that Covid-19 needs its own thread. I'd been thinking of starting one after reading that camping supply places are selling out of freeze-dried food, and nuts.com claims to have had a spike in sales. I've been bemused by Bon Appetit and Epicurious sites having stories about stocking your pantry and even on a meal plan for two weeks that can be cooked out of the pantry.
I'm bemused because I always have plenty of staples on hand, much to my husband's occasional exasperation. One of my friends who was also a stocker-upper described it as living with "siege mentality." Of course, I did live through riots in Los Angeles, earthquakes, and major power outages from storms, but the fact is that I stock up when items are on sale. When I was working, it was handy to cut down on the grocery trips and to have easily cooked ingredients on hand. I also would freeze spaghetti sauce and the occasional casserole. Now that I live in a place where winter can bring (it didn't this year) major snow, and we are more than thirty minutes from larger grocery stores, I follow the same practice. So, if we were quarantined, or had to stay home, we would manage quite nicely for at least a month and probably longer, although I'd miss the fresh fruit and vegetables and milk.
Emergency preparedness just makes good sense.
For one of the pictures you posted the other day only the top half shows up in your post, but if you click on it, you get the full image. Haven't seen that before, you must be WordPress's nemesis. (I've 'broken' so many programs over the years that I've actually gotten kicked out of the testing programs at some companies, although there was one company that actually gave me the internal number for their development team, so I wouldn't have to work my way through the usual support filters.)
We had one of the Blood Orange Chocolate cakes tonight (the swirl one). I glazed it, and the blood orange juice made the most beautiful pink color. The orange taste in the cake and frosting is faint but pleasantly there. I'd say it's worth it to get the blood oranges for the recipe. I took a picture and will see if I can figure out how to post it.
