With my wife's allergies to garlic, red raspberries, curry and saffron (and probably a few I've forgotten to mention), eating out has been a challenge for years. During our Disney family vacation over Christmas whenever we went to eat my wife would have to check with the wait staff and often the chef came out to discuss what there was on the menu she could eat. I have to say that the Disney restaurants did a very good job trying to accommodate her, one of them even made a garlic-free version of their lobster mac and cheese for her.
Peter Reinhart has written several books on baking (I have at least 6 of them), and is a teacher of baking science at Johnson and Wales University in North Carolina. His book "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" won the James Beard Award for best cookbook. I helped test several of the recipes in his "Artisan Breads Every Day" book.
One of these years I hope to make it to the Asheville Bread Festival, where Peter is one of the regular lecturers. I've exchanged a number of emails with him, but haven't met him in person.
I have used both the Rival and Elite small rice cookers - both I got from Target. The Rival was badly scratched before I switched over to the Elite. I do like to use the Rival to steam small stuff as it's a nice little thing.
As for the steel cut oats - what I've done is cook 4 portions of it. I bring 4 cups of water to boil, add the 1 cup of steel cut oats, bring back to boil, cover and let it sit overnight. What I do in the morning, is divide the oatmeal into 1 cup servings and refrigerate. I also make my own little mix of chopped dried fruits/nuts (pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, raisins, praline nuts, dried pineapple, dried banana chips, dried blueberries, dried apples, whatever I seem to have in the pantry). I add a couple of tablespoons of the mix into the oatmeal and microwave for 1 to 1.5 minutes. I like to sweeten it a little with honey. I grew up eating oatmeal with no dairy in it so I don't miss it. If you want, you can cook the oatmeal with less water, (I personally like to cook it with 3.5 cups of water) and then add the milk in the morning during the reheat.
I guess there's an electric pressure cooker but they all look pretty big.
Hope this helps.
My potassium has been at the low end of normal, but if I start eating a lot more fresh fruits and vegetables, it should be fine. (I've been having a banana as my afternoon snack.)
I'm not really fond of squash or pumpkin. I did make spaghetti squash with meatballs several times this fall, but I'll have to start making my own low-salt marinara, the canned/jarred stuff is way too high in salt. Even most canned tomatoes have a lot of added salt. I didn't see any no-salt tomatoes at the store, I'm sure I can find them but they'll almost certainly be in small cans at a high price.
I do have a number of quart containers of frozen tomato sauce I made last summer, no salt in it yet.
In the summertime I can make ratatouille, which uses eggplant, summer squash and zucchini, but that's not something I usually make in the winter and I'll need to change my recipe, because I usually start by sweating the moisture out of the vegetables by salting them after they've been peeled and sliced.
My rice cookers (both Black and Decker) are very basic. I find that I need to be on the spot when they are finishing, or the "keep warm" feature ends up drying out the rice at the bottom, which may be how the small cooker came to be scratched. If I were to replace it, I would try to find one where that would not be an issue. I know that rice cookers come with many settings, and those tend to be the expensive ones. I thought that I was on the safe side with my minimalist rice cooker; I never expected the bowl to be what broke.
I have thought of finding a new small rice cooker that would also let me cook steel-cut oats in the morning. I currently make the steel-cut oats by boiling a cup of water, adding 1/4 cup of steel-cut oats, then covering it and letting it sit off the heat overnight. The next morning, I add 1/4 cup milk and a couple of tsps. of chopped dates, then I stand and cook it down to the right consistency. I remove from heat and let stand while I make coffee. It would be nice, she said wistfully, if an appliance cooked the steel-cut oats while the coffee was being made. However, I would need it not to stick.
If I can find my 5-cup rice cooker, then I'll take that one on our trip. That gives me more time to look at what is out there in the rice cooker world.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 3 months ago by
BakerAunt.
Mike: Did your doctor say anything about increasing your intake of potassium-rich foods? That might be another way to tackle the issue if it is allowed. That's how I discovered that I really like butternut squash! Roasted butternut squash, combined with homemade chicken/turkey stock and a bit of heavy cream or full-fat yogurt, or whatever dairy or non-dairy you like, makes a tasty soup. I use the Penzey's Now Curry (no salt, but does include garlic), but I noted that their Sweet Curry also has no salt AND no garlic.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.
Today I baked Brandied Fruitcake Drops from Christmas 101, by Rick Rodgers (p. 129). I used mixed fruit that I got from KAF a while back. I substituted pecans for walnuts, since I am still using up the bounty from the pecan tree we had in Texas. The recipe called for brandy or bourbon. I used brandy, as that is what was on hand.
The recipe made 40 cookies. Even my husband, who is not a fruitcake fan, likes them, but that may be in part because I was not using the traditional mix of candied cherries, orange peel, lemon peel, etc.
Hi, Blanche. Welcome to Nebraska Kitchen!
The highest proportion of whole grain bread that I have baked is the Honey Spelt Sourdough Bread on the King Arthur site. In addition to what was in the sourdough starter, I used 1 cup King Arthur AP flour, but the rest was four cups of spelt flour. I was amazed at how light that bread was. I did use an Emile Henry long baker, but some of the people who commented on that recipe had devised ways of baking the bread without using one. I think that the levain is one factor in getting a lighter bread.
I have baked the Grandma A's Ranch Hand Bread, in the Nebraska Kitchen recipes here, as a little over 50% whole wheat (with some flax meal added in). You might want to take one of your good 50% recipes and see if you can "push it up," by substituting a 1/2 cup more of whole wheat each time and noting the results.
The King Arthur Whole Grain Baking Book, while not just about yeast breads, is a valuable resource.
You will find that all of us on this site do a lot of experimenting, and we report back whether the results are good or not so good (we've all had our share of bad days in the kitchen), and that helps us to learn and to improve as bakers. Wonky, one of our very experienced bakers, tried very hard to produce a 100% spelt bread, but she reported that she just could not get a light enough loaf. Her experiences inspired me to try the spelt bread recipe that I mention at the start of this post.
I'm sure others will have suggestions for you as well. Welcome again.
I have a small Black and Decker rice cooker (says 4 cups but really makes 3). I found it on sale maybe 7 years ago, and it has gotten good use. It has often has traveled with us, and I hoped to use it on a trip we will take later this month. The last time I used it, I made a rice blend. I'm not sure what happened, but the nonstick coating now has a very bad scratch. I went to the e-replacement website that S. Wirth has told us about. However, it would cost almost $25 (not counting shipping) to replace the nonstick bowl. New B&D 3-cup rice cookers cost about $14 online at Target (not counting shipping and tax). so it makes better sense to replace it.
My questions: If you have a small rice cooker, what brand is it? Are you satisfied with the nonstick coating? Have you had issues with scratching when all you did was cook the rice (did not rinse it) in the bowl?
I already have a larger rice cooker that I use for company. However, for the two of us, the small size is perfect, and I want to be able to use it for travel as well.
Skeptic7: How did the two roasts come out, and what did your comparison suggest about crock pot vs. pressure cooker? How was the tea flavoring?
I also get irritated with recipes that call for an unusual and often expensive ingredient. It's worse now that I live much further away from well-stocked stores. (I'm still hoping to find Wolfe's medium kasha when we travel so that I can try Dorie Greenspan's Buckwheat Bars recipe--not to mention her other two Buckwheat cookie recipes.) I usually want to know that I can use such an ingredient in other recipes. When I needed Chai tea for a Bundt cake recipe from Bake from Scratch, I bought the KAF chai seasoning, since KAF has a couple of recipes I can also try, and I'm not a chai tea drinker. I wish that recipe writers would 1) Explain exactly why it must be that ingredient (Greenspan does), 2) Where it can be ordered if it is not readily available, and 3) What a possible substitution might be.
It was -15F here this morning. We may have reached a high of 4F. On top of that our internet was out until late afternoon. So I did a lot of reading, and I baked my current variation of Antilope's Vienna Bread (see reply on the recipe), but I reduced the salt to 1 3/4 tsp. from 2 tsp.
In terms of procedure, I tried the idea of holding back the butter--cut into pieces and coated with flour--until half way through the 30 minute bread machine kneading cycle. I do not know if that is why the bread had such a wonderful rise. I also used the Emile Henry long baker (fourth time for it but first time for this recipe) and adjusted the baking times for 10 minutes at 425F, 25 minutes at 375F, and 5 minutes more without the top on. It made a beautiful loaf. I look forward to cutting into it tomorrow and seeing the texture.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.
Thanks all. I have not made bread with dairy in ages. The last time was one of Peter Reinhart's brioche. I've mostly been making challah and Jewish rye bread neither of which have diary, although the new trend in challah (at least here on the East Coast) is to make it with butter.
Maybe I'll cut down my recipe to fit it in the mixer and see if that helps. I also found an article on building a proofing box so I may try that too, just for kicks.
I have MrsCindy's recipe for Cranberry Walnut Bread which I would love to make now that I have my Zo. It is very time intensive and she usesd the bread machine (having tried it with my stand mixer, I can tell you it will be easier), the food processor for mixing nuts and flour. Basically, you make a sponge and let it sit for a couple of hours, then add the dry ingredients and let sit undisturbed for 2-3 hour, then add more ingredients and knead for ½ hour. Dump it out and squish it altogether to incorporate the nuts and cranberries. THEN, you form it into a ball and put it in the fridge in a ziploc overnight. After that, you need to bring it to room temperature (a few hours) then shape and let it rise and then bake.
My question regards the amount of time it can spend in the fridge. I know that some doughs you can let stay in the fridge for several days. I'm wondering if I can do that with this bread. I am off tomorrow when I could make the dough, but I'm not off again until Sunday when I would have all day. Do you think I could wait that long? I could probably do it Thursday or Friday after work, but I'd rather not.
For New Year's Day dinner, I again made the "One-Pan Pork Loin Roast Dinner" that I first made the week of December 3. (The recipe is in Cook's Fall Harvest Recipes, p. 24.) This time I had pearl barley (ordered a case!), and the consistency is much better than with the instant barley I had to use the first time. I again used frozen mustard greens, and I used a whole butternut squash rather than a half. In addition to tasting delicious, it makes a stunning presentation on the plate. It is a perfect dinner for a day when the temperature did not get above 4F, and it is now below 0.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by BakerAunt.
I made Chicken Fried Rice for the freezer this morning, with one lunch held in the fridge. In a few minutes I'm going to make The Neely's (Food Network) Broccoli Soup for the freezer and dinner.
