Search Results for '("C'

[Mike Nolan]

I've never had much luck growing either beans or cucumbers (beetles get them both), though my mother always had both, plus radishes and leaf lettuce, along with her tomatoes. Sometimes she grew cabbages or Brussels sprouts, too.

Rhubarb and chives grew near the garage wall, and it took tearing down the garage and building a larger one with cement covering most of the garden area to kill them off.

I've done muskmelon a few times, one year we got several Athena melons that were larger than a basketball and weighed about 12 pounds.

I might try long beans some year, some of them can grow as long as 3 feet!

[chocomouse]

I did some online reading about fava beans and Italian beans. Although my family has called our garden plants "fava" beans, I'm thinking they are "Italian" beans. They are flat, 3-4 inches long (picked young), green, tender, delicious raw or cooked, and are not, to my knowledge, grown for the bean or seed inside. Online, I saw them called pole beans and also bush beans. I call both of those kinds "beans", or green beans or string beans (although many varieties today are stringless!). Everything I found online about cooking Italian beans didn't use the flat green bean. Rather they used regular green beans with some kind of so-called "Italian dressing". I think I've been assigning the incorrect name to the beans I grow!! There's nothing like fresh (as in 15 minutes from the garden into the pot) green beans!

[Mike Nolan]

I have to admit that prior to researching this, I did not know coffee's origin, either. But I've never been a coffee drinker. Like the smell (most of the time), dislike the taste (all of the time).

I've been a tea drinker since I was about 5, though. Learned it from an English couple whose farm we used to visit on weekends. At 4 PM, the farm always came to a complete halt for tea time.

[Mike Nolan]

We made it ourselves, using Armour dried beef that comes in a small jar and some Béchamel that has beef boullion added to it for flavor. Buddig meats also has a dried beef that works well (it's what my mother always used), and I've even bought it at the deli counter, but it's kind of pricey that way.

[BakerAunt]

I can’t make my wonderful Valentine’s sugar cookies, since the amount of butter is prohibitive when I don’t have other people around who can help eat them. I pulled out a Nordic Ware heart Bundtlette pan. I was delighted to find the recipe from the original packaging was “Hazelnut Heart Cakelets with Vanilla Glaze,” and that it uses oil and not butter. I substituted 1/3 barley flour for that much AP, added 1 Tbs. Bob’s Red Mill milk powder, and replaced 1/3 of the canola oil with that much buttermilk. (That means ½ cup oil and ¼ cup buttermilk.) I made a half recipe of the glaze, as the amount seemed too much, and the half recipe was perfect. I put the glaze in the center and let a bit drip down the sides. These are lovely and delicious.

[Mike Nolan]

The Equipment:

This is 1/8" interior diameter (1/4" exterior diameter) food grade silicone tubing, which you can get from home brew suppliers.  It took about 27" of tubing for my oven.

The funnel is one of several we got at a kitchen supply store.  I'm using two brass nuts as weights to make sure the tubing stays in the pan, though in my initial tests I didn't use them and didn't see any problems with the tubing falling out of the pan.  One nut is a bit larger than the other, the hole in the smaller one is a tight fit for the tubing, so it shouldn't move around.

The Setup:

There's a gap between the oven and the cabinet, and I'm using an angle bracket to hold the tubing and funnel in place.  I also put in a small wedge just to keep everything from shifting around.  During production I don't want to have to deal with things other than the bread.

Here's a view of the full setup. When not in use, the tubing can hang straight down and it doesn't interfere with the cabinet door or touch the floor.

Here's a view of the tubing sitting in a 9 inch cast iron pan.  I've added about 20 CCs (4 teaspoons) of water just to show how much that is before it evaporates.  It takes 3-4 seconds for that much water to go down the tubing.

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[Mike Nolan]

There was a marijuana grow house (illegal, of course) raided a couple of blocks from us a few years ago. It was rather surprising because this is not a low-cost neighborhood, I guess they figured the neighborhood might supply some camouflage. Wrong!

The house subsequently was sold, and the new owner had to pretty much redo all the drywall, apparently the high humidity they were using ruined all the walls.

One of the Illinois recreational sales facilities is in downtown Evanston, a short walk for Northwestern students. When I went to school there, Evanston was still dry. (The WCTU national headquarters is also in downtown Evanston.)

[Mike Nolan]

About the only thing I use the convection fan for is the first 10 minutes of fruit pies.

I also posted about this on the BBGA forum, and got an email from a baker who says he thinks I'm getting plenty of steam, all you need is enough to get the crust damp.

I found the instruction manual for an oven that uses steam for both baking and cooking, it has a tank that holds 950 ML of water, and it says that'll last about 50 minutes. That's 19 ML per minute, which is pretty close to what I found I can do in a single burst with my tubing setup. Of course with bread, steam is really only useful in the first 10 minutes or so of baking.

I think I've identified about 8 different methods I want to test. My plan is make up a large batch of Peter's Pain de Campagne (I've used it for other tests, and the addition of a little whole wheat flour to a lean dough adds some nice color and flavor, so the bread won't go to waste, though it might go to waist) and retard it in the refrigerator overnight, so that each test has pretty much the same conditions, dough that has been out of the refrigerator for about 2 hours.

I'm also going to see if I can get some time-lapse photography shots of the bread baking through the window in the oven door. Not sure if there's enough light inside for that, even with the oven light on.

[aaronatthedoublef]

This is REALLY cool. I look forward to hearing more. Keeping the door closed (or mostly closed) while adding the steam through a tube is inspired. I will have to try that. I worked at a place with a steam injecting oven but they did not let me use it and the shift lead did not know how much steam it actually injected.

And always turn off the convection fan while adding steam with the door open.

[Italiancook]

Nancy, thanks for the suggestion. I read in reviews that she has info on buying slow cookers. I'll be interested in reading that. I bought the 6 quart cooker on sale at Christmas. My plan was to make Ree Drummand's (Food Network) slow cooker ribs, but that hasn't happened yet.

Skeptic, I've been wondering this since you first mentioned cooking bread in the slow cooker. What do you do about all the water that accumulates on the bottom of the lid and falls back into the pot? Do you cover the cooker with a towel before putting the lid on?

BakerAunt, like you, I haven't had good success with beef and pork in the slow cooker. It's not to my liking. I also haven't been happy with chicken. I recently learned from a Food Network recipe that I've been cooking the chicken too long in the slow cooker. Eventually, I'm going to do a chicken again, following that recipe. If it comes to the proper temp in less time and is better quality, I'll know for sure I was wrong.

I cooked a large chicken breast in the slow cooker from an online recipe. I added a little chicken broth to the bottom of the pot on a friend's suggestion. Recipe didn't say to do that. I cooked it the time the recipe said, and we were pleased with it. Trisha Yearwood (Food Network) has a recipe for a pork roast that I may try to see if my timing was also wrong on that. I won't try another beef roast unless I have a specific recipe, because it's too much money not to be happy with the results.

Overall, I don't mind tending a pot on the stove. I find it fun to stir every once in a while. But I do see the advantages of slow cooker cooking, and would like to expand into that.

[chocomouse]

Joan, I curious about the "green Italian beans" that you cooked the other night. What kind of bean is that? I'm connecting back to the Daily Quiz about fava beans. Growing up with a garden, we always called fava beans "Italian" beans. I'm talking about the whole bean, not just the seeds inside the "pod". They are flat, and not real long, not like a so-called green bean, string bean, etc. They're not real long because we pick and eat them (or freeze or can) while they are still young and tender, so maybe 3 inches long. I have never grown and processed beans to get the seeds inside for storage and later cooking, although I've considered trying that.

[Mike Nolan]

We've had takeout the last two nights because my ankle has been bothering me since Saturday, and it hurts to stand up to cook. Not sure what I did to it, but I'm back to wearing the ankle brace I got when I chipped a bone in my ankle several years ago. (This is an ankle that's been injured several times during my life, starting with an ice skating accident when I was about 9.)

I've got several kitchen projects I was hoping to work on this week, not sure which of them I'll even get to at this point, much less finish.

[Mike Nolan]

As I noted a few days ago, I've been experimenting with using some heat-safe food grade silicone tubing to add water to a hot cast iron skillet to generate steam in my oven without opening the door. The first bit of good news is that the tubing doesn't seem to be causing a heat leak around the oven door, so I can leave it in most of the time.

I've been doing some math on steam generation. My bigger oven is about 3.6 cubic feet. (It'll hold a full size sheet pan but with almost no room for air circulation, so I stick to 3/4 sheet pans.)

In some tests, it looks like I can put about 20 CCs of boiling water into the pan via the tubing and have it vaporize in a few seconds. When water converts to steam, it expands to about 1600 times its volume. So 20 CCs of water will generate about 32,000 CCs of steam or about 1.1 cubic foot, meaning the oven chamber should be about 1/3 steam briefly.

I don't know how that compares to the amount of steam you get in a commercial steam injection oven each time you pull the lever, because I've never used one. I'll see if I can find some data on one.

A possibly major difference between a commercial steam injection oven and a home oven is that the commercial oven has vents that can be sealed to keep the steam in for a while, a home oven is probably far less air tight. (I know there's some kind of vent at the back right because I can feel the heat there when the oven is in use. And after the oven has been on a while, a fan kicks in, I'm assuming it pulls some of the air out of the oven so it would pull out steam as well.)

I will be taking some pictures showing my setup, and I'm going to try to take some videos showing how much steam it generates, possibly compared with the 'pour water in the pan' method.

The videos will mostly be with the door open, though I may see if I can set the camera up to shoot through the oven door. Where's Alton Brown's oven camera when you need it?

I'm also getting ready to try my steam generator with some recipes I know, so I can compare the results. I may have to try to bake a recipe at least 3 times, once without steam, once with the 'pour the water in the pan' method and once with the tubing method, and maybe a few other ways.

[BakerAunt]

I also rarely use my Montgomery Ward 3 1/2 quart slow cooker. (Yes, it's an oldie but goodie, and the only one I own.) I have tried it with beef roasts and pork roasts in the past, but was disappointed in how the food cooked. That may be due to the old model. I also didn't like having to brown the meat in another pan, or saute vegetables in another pan, and then add them to the ceramic crock, as that meant more dishes to wash.

I have used it to keep spiced cider warm, but since I'm the only one at home and even among our guests who likes it, there seemed little point.

It is easy for me to put food in a Le Creuset or Staub pot and let it cook over low heat or in the oven, while I go about my tasks.

I've thought about the Instant Pot, but I'm not sure that I'd use it that much. I can see how it would be great for busy people or people who are not home most of the day. It also might have possibilities for me for when we go on vacation. However, I've yet to hear first hand testimony from someone I know.

[BakerAunt]

On Sunday morning, I took a break from the steel-cut oats and made a half recipe of the Cornmeal-Rye Waffles in the King Arthur Whole Grain Baking Book (p. 21). These are completely whole grain, using cornmeal and pumpernickel flour. I replaced the 3 Tbs. of melted butter with equivalent canola oil. It's an excellent recipe, and with the whole grains, I don't miss the butter. A half recipe made 7 waffles, and we had no problem consuming all of them.