Diane is making a German's sweet chocolate cake for a friend's birthday (a few days late, it was last week), and I'm busy being her commis.
I'm pretty sure I read all of John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee books, though I'm missing a couple of them now. I recently reread several of them, somehow they're just not as enjoyable as they were 40 years ago, but as I recall the last few in the series were a bit disappointing even back then. Rumors of an unpublished book (with 'black' as the color in the title) that ended the series continue to circulate, though the MacDonald estate has denied its existence many times.
A continuing series of books is a challenge for an author, sometimes they just run out of new ideas, and reading them, or especially rereading them, makes you realize how repetitive the series has become.
I read at least 10 of the Doc Ford series several years ago. I was hooked. A friend gave them to me and I read them in order. Now I can't remember the last one I read.
On another note we are not going to our annual haunt this year (Madeira Beach). Due to 2 hurricanes the building we rent in lost their pool for who knows how long and several units including the one we rent suffered water damage in some walls and were without power for several days. I read comments on facebook and the natives are trying to get people to come down while others are saying things are still dismal. ? How was St Petersburg?
On Friday, we went out for lunch at Doc Ford's Rum Bar and Grill at the St. Petersburg pier with one of my husband's cousins and her husband. (See review in the Review section.)
We were still feeling full this evening, so I used the broth I made yesterday to make a simple, thick soup with carrots, celery, thyme, a bit of dried onion, and some farro. We put a bit of the chicken I cooked last night on top and had it with cornbread muffins from a mix.
Shrinkflation has hit the olive oil industry. My last previous purchase was a one liter bottle, today's purchase has shrunk to 750 ml, that's a reduction of 250 ml. Did the price go down to reflect the new size? Nope, I'm pretty sure it's higher ($15.49) than the old price.
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Years ago when I was in Chicago, one of the employees in my department was Greek and would bring in her pastries every few weeks. (She was especially fond of making ones with gold or silver foil on them.)
Some of them she made several different ways, I suspect if you ask a dozen Greek bakers for recipes you'll get 20 different ones. 🙂
Interesting KAF vs. KABC... Over at the BBGA a couple of weeks ago someone ordered a bag of KABC flour and it came from Ardent. It appears King Arthur has outsourced their flour milling now. Are they still a flour company?
I'll be interested in the regenerative flour as well.
Violet and I made oatmeal chocolate chip muffins yesterday (snow day). Kate made them with Violet before and they batter was drier so I up the moisture a bit and shortened the bake time and they're definitely wetter.
Violet wanted to use milk chocolate chips ("they taste better") but the milk chocolate chips we have are bigger and stick to the muffin tins so some of the muffins have not chips. I need to find mini milk chocolate chips.
I need to make my mom's ginger cookies.
I'll be interested in how that regenerative flour works in baking, Chocomouse. Let us know when you try it,
The KAF (I also do not find it easy to say KABC, which sounds to me like a TV channel) store and cafe in Vermont sound great. I hope to get there some day.
On Thursday, I made another loaf of bread using Len's Semolina Rye Buns recipe.
This morning I made two loaves of pumpernickel bread. Then I headed to KAF (sorry, KABC) to shop and meet my sister for lunch. Today they were having a sale of 20% of most everything (not appliances, gift cards, etc) and next Tuesday is 25% off (my husband does his Christmas shopping there). I bought another jar of the The Works, which is a fabulous topping for focaccia, (plus a jar for my son-in-law), a bag of organic rye flour, and a bag of the new regenerative whole wheat flour to try. For lunch, we split a ham and cranberry and a turkey and cheese sandwich. They were excellent - the bread was perfect, and there was lots of meat and lettuce in the sandwich. In the past, I have found the baked goods in the cafe are not that great. They are dry and actually seem to me to be like "day-old bread". If any one of you will be in the area anytime, please let me know and I can meet you in Norwich!
I build my pizza on parchment paper. That makes it easy to slide onto the peel. Then I wiggle the entire thing (with the parchment) onto the baking stone. I set a timer for 3 minutes. After 3 minutes I slide the peel under the pizza to hold it in place and used a gloved hand to pull out the parchment. The pizza finishes directly on the stone. This procedure works best with a steel peel.
Last night, I made broth from the remains of the rotisserie chicken. On Tuesday, I used that broth when I cooked brown rice in my rice cooker. (I take the rice cooker when we travel, as it quickly warms up soup in motel rooms, and I find rice a versatile ingredient when I cook on vacation. While the rice was cooking, I sauteed chopped celery, carrots, red bell pepper, and sliced mushrooms in olive oil, then added the leftover chicken and some thyme. The skillet at the place we are renting is only a medium size, but I found a large casserole dish in which I could layer the rice and the chicken-vegetable mixture. Leftovers for tomorrow give us more time for adventure.
I used a brown rice from Castor River Habitat and Farm in Missouri that I bought at Fresh Thyme Market when we were in South Bend in October. It was on sale, so I grabbed several bags and brought one with us because it was a small bag. We really liked the texture, and it was not as starchy as most rice. It's nice to be able to support a small agricultural business.
Your pie looks delicious, Len! I'm also a fan of leaving the skins on the apples. My apple pie trick is to lightly pre-cook chopped apples mixed with the sugar, lemon juice, spices, and tapioca in a skillet, but that is because I use an oil crust that I blind bake. I put the pie plate on a round pan that I have, with a large hole in the center (like a doughnut) for baking. The pan catches the drips, and it also allows the center to cook at the same rate as the outside of the pie.
We should probably do a pie thread so that we can share our tips and discoveries with each other--and can find them as needed.
I am making an apple pie, it is in the oven right now and the house smells devine!
There are some Martha Stewart holiday videos streaming on FreeVee (I think also Amazon Prime as FreeVee will be shut down and the content is moving over to Amazon). One of them concerns pies, one being an apple pie. I took some advice from her. I let the apples macerate and then poured the juice into a saucier. I previously boiled down a cup of apple cider to a little less than a 1/4 cup and added the juices from the apples to it. That was about 3/4 liquid total. Then I added a 1/4 flour to it and whisked it over medium heat until it was smooth and thickened, then added it to the apples. I made a lattice top and brushed it with milk (I think that's a Jenny Can Cook tip, Martha uses an egg wash) and sprinkled it with maple sugar.
I used 2 pounds of Gala apples, which seems to be the right amount for my pie plate and used store bought refrigerated pie dough (the Amazon brand), the kind that you roll out. Seasoned with cinnamon, a touch of fresh grated nutmeg and allspice. Used a half cup of sugar. I left the skins on the apples.
I plan to post another pic when it is done.
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I had a late lunch (burger) so I just had chicken veg soup for dinner.
Thanks, CWCdesign! I haven't looked at email because we have been traveling. We arrived this afternoon in Florida to spend a week. Because we now have a larger vehicle, having traded in my Subaru Impreza toward a Subaru Outback, there was room for my older bread machine, which is small and not that heavy. I mixed up the dry ingredients for three different bread recipes to bring with me.
As we were eating dinner, I used the bread machine to knead dough for Len's Semolina Rye rolls, which I baked as a loaf. (We ate all the other breads I baked on the trip down.) I could not find buttermilk at the Walmart Express we stopped at to pick up some supplies. All they had was the fatty stuff with 7 g saturated fat per cup. I found 1% fat kefir and used it instead. The oven here is pretty accurate, I just needed to drop the temperature about 5 degrees. The wires on the oven racks are very far spaced. I had to lay the oven thermometer that I brought flat on the rack to keep it from falling through. The kitchen had no potholders, and I struggled using a hand towel to get the loaf out. I may pick up a pair of potholders, as I slightly burned a finger. There are also no racks, and I did not consider the extra oven rack to be clean enough. So, I used two bowls and put the ends of two table knives on each. That made an ok rack.
