On Friday morning, I baked another batch of seeded crispbread--a snack that I like to keep in the house. I also baked a new recipe, Orange-Almond Breakfast Bars, from the issue of Heart Smart Recipes (a Better Homes and Gardens Special Issue), p. 12. I followed the directions, but the ones in the picture look like flat bars, while mine seem cake-like. I’ll add a note after we cut into them. These bars are loaded with calcium and potassium from dried apricots, almonds, almond butter, and the half whole wheat flour. They might actually make a good breakfast bar.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by
BakerAunt.
Personally, I like a vinegary taste to cole slaw.
I do too. The problem was that it turned the dressing very thin (OK, I probably used more lemon juice than called for too, I didn't measure it, I just squeezed the lemon into it) so I had to add extra mayo to thicken it up a little. That resulted in leftover dressing.
Today I had leftover beef stew that I made yesterday, had it with a green salad.
I've paid $1.99 for 4 pounds of sugar (Domino or C&H) at Walgreens, and on sale at Christmas at our local store. Brown sugar and powdered sugar prices seem higher to me than in the past.
Honey has the same grams of sugar as sugar, so I'm not sure that people are doing themselves a great favor in making the switch. I use honey in some recipes because I like the flavor. I mostly buy Breitsheimer, a German honey, that I find at T.J. Maxx and Ross. My husband likes the rapeseed honey, while I use the golden honey for baking projects. We've tried their Forest honey and another type or two, but the flavor was too strong. It's price is about the same that I paid for a jar of local honey at the farmers' market a few weeks ago.
At Kroger today, I found a 5 pound bag of Bob's Red Mill Whole Wheat Flour on sale for $3.74, and I had a $1 off coupon. 🙂 They also had KAF White Whole Wheat flour for $3.34. (Those prices are for people who have the Kroger grocery card.)
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This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by BakerAunt.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by BakerAunt. Reason: corrected price
According to the Wall Street Journal, honey is going up in price as people turn to it as a more natural sweetener than high-fructose corn syrup or cane/beet sugar.
The average retail price for honey is $4.69 world-wide, up about 23% since 2013. The article says the average price in the USA is $7.66 per pound, up 9% in a year.
Cane sugar, on the other hand, has gone down about 30% over that time frame. It seems like sugar is a little more likely to go on sale than it was a few years ago, but otherwise the retail price doesn't seem to have gone down much here. (But sugar prices are so manipulated by the government that it's hard to say what a 'market' price would be.)
It's a day for sourdough, Joan!
I fed my sourdough starter Tuesday night and made a levain with 1 cup starter, 1 cup AP flour; and ½ cup warm water. On Wednesday morning, I continued my experiment of making wholegrain variations on the King Arthur Rustic Sourdough recipe. I used 1 Tbs. honey, 1 ½ tsp. yeast, 1 cup water. I combined it with the starter. I then added the whole grains: 2 ¼ cup Irish Wholemeal flour (with a little dark rye to make up for not having enough); ¾ cup white rye; 3 Tbs. flax meal, ¼ cup malted wheat flakes, and ¼ cup special dried milk. I mixed and let sit for 20 minutes. I added 1 ¼ cup AP with 1 ¼ tsp. salt. I baked it in my Emile Henry long baker for 25 minutes covered at 425F, removed the cover and baked another 15 minutes. It needed 5 minutes more to get to 201F. [Next time, I’ll try 30 minutes covered and 15 minutes uncovered.] It’s cooling. We will cut into it for lunch tomorrow.
Dinner on Monday was “Waste Not, Want Not” soup. I used 1 ½ cups of Bob’s Red Mill Vegi-Soup combination (red and brown lentils; split green and yellow peas; bits of barley) and ½ cup pearl barley. I sautéed onion, celery, and carrots in olive oil, added 2 cloves minced garlic, then added the leftover broth from the garbanzo beans I cooked last week and 3 ½ cups of chicken broth from the freezer. I seasoned with 1 Tbs. Penzey’s Bouquet Garni blend, ¼ tsp. ground cumin, 1 Tbs. tomato paste, and parsley. After it simmered for an hour, I added cut turnip greens (left from turnips that came from farmers’ market) and simmered another 20 minutes. We had it with cornbread. It was a perfect dinner on what has been a chilly day.
I like a bit of sherry added to chicken or turkey soup and pot pie. That's the primary reason I keep it around, and it seems to last a long time. I use some wine in various recipes. I have used brandy and rum and Kahlua in dessert recipes, but since I stopped baking with much butter (would do more if people were around to help eat it), I've not baked any of those recipes.
My husband hates the taste of alcohol but does ok with it in recipes where it is a minor note. When it comes to drinking, I prefer coffee or tea.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by BakerAunt.
I waited out the rain, fired up the bbq grill and did hot dogs and hamburgers. Had it with cole slaw made with a simple dressing I got from Allrecipes. (mayo, sugar, lemon juice, vinegar - I used apple cider vinegar - and black pepper. That turned out real nice even though I used more vinegar than called for.
We had a beef stir fry with pea pods, mushrooms, bean sprouts and water chestnuts.
When I was cutting the meat up (sirloin), I was going "This is the biceps femoris and this is the gluteus medius, so this must be the 'mouse muscle'".
Most kids dunk the cinnamon roll in the chili. It's not generally heavily frosted, though, and often kind of light on cinnamon, too. I used to think this was just a "Nebraska" thing, but I've seen references to it from other parts of the country, too.
I'm hoping the 3 batches of Cardinal Preserves we made yesterday (my wife did most of the work, with me filling in as needed) will last us a year. It freezes well and is so sugary it lasts several months in the refrigerator.
The TJ's product is essentially a milk chocolate made with the Ruby cacao bean. I don't know if Barry Callebaut plans to release a higher cacao level semi-sweet product for commercial use (eg, through restaurant and bakery supply houses) or whether there will be high percentage ruby cacao retail products like we see with dark chocolate. I wonder how long it will take the FDA to allow calling it 'chocolate'?
The bag I bought was interesting, my wife wasn't impressed with it, but I thought it had some interesting notes to it. But I don't see it as something I'm likely to buy very often, as I generally don't use milk chocolate chips in baking, either.
I was thinking of springing for a sample of this until I read (or think I read) that it's only 36% cacao. For medical reasons, I must have 60% or higher. But I sure enjoyed reading about this.
On Sunday morning, I tried a new recipe, Rosemary Roasted Chickpeas, from a Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest publication, Cut the Sugar (p.78). I used 30 oz. of the chickpeas I cooked last week. These are roasted for 40 minutes with 1 Tbs. of olive oil at 425F. I put them on parchment paper to make cleaning up easier. They do have to be stirred every 10 minutes. Once removed from the oven, they are drizzled with 2 Tbs. olive oil, 1 tsp. dried rosemary (or 1 Tbs. fresh), 1 Tbs. honey; a scant ½ tsp. kosher salt, and ¼ tsp. cayenne pepper. I had a few with the leftover slice of pizza that I had for lunch. These did not knock my socks off, but they are a satisfying snack. I might also try them sprinkled on a salad. There are two other variations in the magazine. I might try a variation with Penzey’s salt-free Forward, which is a seasoning to replace salt that I have not used more than once or twice, as I keep forgetting that I have it.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by BakerAunt.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by BakerAunt.
Well, we got 3 batches of Cardinal Preserves from our 8 pound flat of strawberries last night, now we just have to put it away (most of it will go in the freezer) before we eat it all!
I stopped by Trader Joe's this evening, and they had several bags of the ruby cacao wafers (they can't call them chocolate yet.)
$2.99 for a five ounce bag of what look like somewhat flattened pink chocolate chips isn't too bad a price, comparable with other candy products from TJ.
The sweetness level is similar to a milk chocolate, which makes sense because the ingredients are similar to that of a milk chocolate, too.
If you didn't know what they were, you'd probably say they tasted like chocolate with a little fruit, though there's no fruit in them.
