Sunday breakfast was Buckwheat Pancakes with more of that blueberry sauce and maple syrup. The recipe comes from Better Homes & Gardens New Baking Book (p. 319), where they call it “Native Grain Hotcakes,” although as we know, buckwheat is a seed not a grain. I follow the recipe except for cutting the salt from ½ to ¼ tsp. and the honey from 2 Tbs. to 1 Tbs., since they are destined for covering with maple syrup! Unlike many buckwheat pancakes recipes, this one uses a cup of buckwheat, ¼ cup corn meal, and ¼ cup AP flour, so they are hearty and delicious.
I made an apple pie with a crumble top (oats, a little flour, chopped walnuts and walnut oil instead of butter)
Our local grocery has a section for produce that is less than perfect. I always check and sometimes find items that I can use. We also like the marked down bananas, especially since when we buy regular (priced too high, IMHO), we have to wait a day or two for them to ripen more.
I use grated orange zest in some of my specialty breads.
I think the point was that by using citrus rind that would otherwise be thrown out (and hopefully composted), they'd be getting some additional food benefit from it.
We already put things like orange zest in our breads, so adding some citrus flavor isn't a total turnoff. (The idea of a sandwich that tastes like a margarita is another issue, though.)
Thursday dinner was chicken thighs roasted on a rack, cut-up potatoes drizzled with olive oil and roasted in a separate pan next to it, a small butternut squash (a new, small variety), cut up, tossed with olive oil and a little maple syrup and roasted in my small countertop oven. We also had microwaved green beans, the last from our garden.
I received the following email from Penzey's today. It concerns a recall of some of their chicken base. Apparently, there are issues with some other chicken products as well. I've pasted in the email contents:
If you have chicken soup base from us please check your jar’s best by dates to see if yours has been recalled. The lot numbers are: 00139, 01839, 01049, SEP0820VAN, and OCT1420VAN. These were sold from 3.16.19 onward. If you have one of these jars, don’t use it and see the instructions below for your refund.
We just needed to mail this notice to our customers who are chicken soup base buyers, but we mailed everyone because this recall affects a huge number of products that contain cooked chicken. Especially if you are cooking for the very young, the elderly, those who may be pregnant or those with weakened immune systems and have in your home products that contain cooked chicken that are “ready-to-eat” you should be checking the USDA’s page on this recall here. The list is currently at 191 pages and is growing. Though there have not been confirmed cases of illnesses from these products, the risk is real. Don’t take chances.
We can assure you that with us there is no chance of cross-contamination. The soup bases have always been one of the very few items we have manufactured outside our facilities. As much as I like to control everything, and as much as for generations soup bases have been part of the spice industry, back in my vegetarian days I decided that being a meat processor was just not for us. They are really nice bases though and the Seafood, Ham, Beef and Vegetable are all still in stock and are no way part of this recall.
We’d like to thank the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for doing the testing that discovered the issues with this American-produced ingredient in all these chicken products, and those at the USDA and the FDA doing all they can to get these products out of circulation. They really do care about your safety. This also seems a good moment to point out the obvious in all of this and that is those saying deregulation is good for business and good for the American people are oftentimes really wrong. We never had to recall any U.S. made products in the Obama years or under Bush, Clinton or the original Bush either. Just saying.
If you are in possession of a Penzeys Spices Chicken Base for Soup and Seasoning that was purchased since March 16, 2019 with the lot numbers of: 00139, 01839, 01049, SEP0820VAN, or OCT1420VAN, please contact us for a full refund or exchange.
To receive a refund or exchange, please either:
1) Return the jar to any of our retail locations, or
2) Send us an email to customerservice1@penzeys.com, including your name, an approximate date of purchase, and a picture of the bottom of the jar, or
3) Contact our Call Center at (800) 741-7787
Sorry about this,
Bill
bill@penzeys.com
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This topic was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by
BakerAunt.
Wednesday afternoon consisted of two baking experiments. I took the KAF recipe for Zucchini Chocolate Chip Pecan Bars that I baked in September and we liked. However, I already had 8 oz. of shredded squash that I needed to use, and I did not want to clean the food processor. I am also out of quick oats, and I wasn’t feeling a desire for chocolate. So, I mixed the canola oil and light brown sugar, added the egg, then mixed in the squash. I added 1 ½ cups of 5-grain rolled cereal (Bob’s Red Mill). I deleted the vanilla. I used white whole wheat flour and the rest of the dry ingredients as given, except that I cut the salt to ½ tsp. and added ½ tsp. cinnamon. I also stirred in 60g (about 1/3 cup of cinnamon chips. I baked them for 37 minutes. They came out well with my changes, although a bit chewy from the 5-grains cereal. I've been avoiding the cinnamon chips due to the saturated fat (14g in this half cup), but I have a lot (leftover from before KAF stopped selling them), so I try to use them occasionally, and I wanted that cinnamon flavor in the bars.
My other experiment is a recipe for Three Grain Bread, from Breads, Breads, and More Breads (no. 37) in a Pillsbury recipe booklet from about thirty years ago. It’s another bread that I used to bake all the time, and that was when I kneaded by hand. I recall baking it about six years ago and discussing it with the now defunct KAF Baking Circle. I made some changes in that I increased the medium rye flour and the whole wheat flour to 2 cups each and reduced the bread flour by ½ cup. I reduced the two packages of yeast to 3 ½ tsp. I reduced 2/3 cup honey to 3 Tbs. and 2 Tbs. molasses to 1 tbs. I added 1/3 cup special dry milk. I replaced ¼ cup “shreds of whole bran cereal” with ¼ cup flax meal. I used 2 cups buttermilk in place of the regular milk. The dough was a bit dry with ½ cup water that I used to proof yeast. I added 2 Tbs. Next time I’ll use 1/3 cup water. I also used ½ cup less bread flour. I replaced the 3 Tbs. margarine with 2 Tbs. canola oil. The bread took 90 minutes on the first rise and 1 hour 15 minutes on the second and perhaps should have gone a bit longer. The house was cool, and I forgot until the second rise that I need to put a mat under the dough container since the counters are cold. There was not much oven spring, so the loaves are smaller than expected. We’ll see how they are when I cut into them tomorrow.
On Tuesday, I also made tomato sauce from the 2 lbs. of tomatoes we picked a few days ago. It’s likely slated for pizza. We did not have a lot of tomatoes this year since we had a late start planting, due to the house construction. The plant I bought—Carbon—had sweet tomatoes, but perhaps because of that they were subject to cracking and in some cases spoiling before they were ready for picking.
Dinner on Tuesday was stir-fry, using the leftover pork and what I deglazed from the pan. I used green onion, celery, carrots, red bell pepper, eggplant, mushrooms, and broccoli (including some from our garden—about the size of a dime). Of course we had soba noodles with it.
There will be a quiz this Monday (Oct 14th) and I'm hoping to get ahead by a few days so if I have another setback there's not another interruption in quizzes.
I had leftover ginger snaps from the pumpkin truffles I made the other week. I needed an hors d'oeuvres for our community cocktail party so I used frozen meatballs and made a sauerbraten sauce with gingersnaps. I used a recipe I found on Taste of Home and added a little worcestershire sauce and soy sauce and lime juice to the crockpot to thin out the sauce a little. They went like wild fire. (of course meatballs usually do.)
On Friday, I pulled out a recipe for “Nutty Oat Wheat Bread” that came from Simply from Scratch” (#20), a Pillsbury recipe booklet from over thirty years ago. It was one of my early forays into wholegrain baking, but I had not baked it in years. I made a few changes in that I reduced 2 packets of yeast to 3 ½ tsp. and reduced the salt from 1 Tbs. to 2 tsp. I replaced 1/3 cup margarine with 3 ½ Tbs. canola oil. I halved the honey from ½ to ¼ cup. As usual, I added 1/3 cup special dry milk and ¼ cup flax meal. I used a cup of sunflower seeds instead of nuts. I also replaced AP flour with bread flour, since the bread is heavy on whole grains. The recipe made two high-rising 9x5-inch loaves. I tried a different shaping method and had a blow-out one side of each loaf. I’ll go back to my other method, even though it occasionally gives me a hole in the interior. The loaves smell wonderful.
Note: The bread has a wonderful taste and light texture. I gave the second loaf to a friend and her family. My friend is recovering from a leg/knee injury.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.
One of the vendors at the sunday farmers market used to teach meat butchery and sausagemaking during the winter, but he had a pacemaker installed and the battery pack was placed where doing repetitive arm motions (like grinding sausage) was bothering him, so he stopped. I think he still butchers some deer for hunters, though.
I'm at the age (70) where taking formal butchery lessons (like at a community college cooking program) is probably beyond my capabilities, especially right now. Even standing up for 2-3 hours to process 30 pounds of tomatoes is getting difficult. We didn't get a hard freeze last night but might get one tonight or tomorrow. My wife was out (in light rain) looking at tomatoes yesterday afternoon, she thinks most of the ripe ones are past the point where they are harvestable. Oh well, I did get about 50 pounds processed last month. Somehow the end of the season always seems to get messed up by weather, last week we had 2 solid weeks of rain in late September and a lot of tomatoes didn't get picked then, either.
Buying primal cuts and doing your own butchering is one way to save money, some high end restaurants go all the way and buy/kill/butcher their own animals.
If your goal is to be a kosher deli, that will impact how you source your meat.
The University of Nebraska (among others) has a number of web pages on meat identification. Texas A&M also has a very good meat program, I'd love to take their one-week course on meat butchering.
Here are a few pages I have bookmarked:
beef loin primal (There are several similar pages for other cuts of meat, but I don't seem to have the overall index bookmarked.)
Meat Cuts Training Information
Meat Cuts book I don't have this book but it is on my wish list.
Some of the best information out there appears to be part of the meat identification contests.
For example: Meat Grading Contests
I am hoping to start a deli. I can buy a 14 pound brisket for under $50 and use the point half for corned beef and pastrami and the other half for brisket like my mom used to make because, smoked brisket is not traditional for delis, it is everywhere, and usually it is over-smoked here.
Add pastrami, roast beef, roast turkey, pickles, and rye bread (maybe corn bread) and I have the basics of a deli.
But, even if I weren't, these prices are low enough that I might buy in bulk and then use it as I need it. We probably eat about 24 ounces of red meat a month between my two sons and me. I usually buy a teres major cut unless I am making chili or stew because it's tasty and in relatively inexpensive. If I could buy ribeye for less I would buy ribeye.
Let us know how the recipe turns out, Skeptic.
For lunch on Wednesday, I made lentil-vegetable-barley soup. I used water, left over from cooking potatoes, and frozen a couple of weeks ago. I used carrots, onion, celery, and garlic that I first sautéed in a bit of olive oil. I used 1 tsp. of Penzey’s Ozark blend to season. (I think that it came in a gift box, so I look for ways to use it.) I had some kale that I needed to use, so I cut up those leaves and added it about ten minutes from the end. It’s a delicious soup, although a bit salty, since I forgot that I had salted the potato water. If I’d remembered, I would have used a salt-free seasoning blend.
Wednesday night dinner is Spaghetti Squash-Turkey Casserole—a recipe that I discovered and adapted last year. Think of it as a kind of lasagna that uses spaghetti squash rather than noodles. I had to start early because I make my own sauce, although it is from canned tomatoes due to our disappointing tomato crop this year. Then the spaghetti squash must be roasted for an hour, cooled slightly, and scooped out. In the meantime, I brown ground turkey, and add some chopped onion, a bit more garlic, and optional red bell pepper (because I have it!), then mix in the sauce. I layer it in a lasagna pan, put 4 oz. of diced mozzarella on top, grate some Parmesan over it, then bake for 30 minutes. I try to keep my husband from cutting into it for a standing time of 20 minutes.
