I'm baking a new recipe, the KAF Heart of Winter Loaves. (The recipe says "loaf" but it makes two, so it should be loaves.) I've made a few tweaks to the recipe: I used 2 Tbs. honey instead of sugar. I deleted the special dried milk. I used 3/4 cups buttermilk and 1 cup of water. I used 1 tsp. of the gold yeast and 1 tsp. of the regular yeast. I did have to add an additional 2 Tbs. regular KAF flour. I'm using the bread machine to knead it. I may bake it as two loaves in my double "French Bread" pan (the one with all the holes to crisp the bottom). I won't do the seeds, since they are a problem for my husband. I'll add to this post later.
The rise was much faster than the recipe states, although I did use half regular and half special gold yeast. The first rise took only 50 minutes, then I divided the dough, shaped it into ovals and let it rest covered for 10 minutes. I shaped it and put it into the French bread loaves pan. 40 minutes later I put it in the oven, and it only needed 25 minutes baking time.
With my changes, it's a lovely, soft wholegrain bread. I will definitely bake the recipe again.
-
This reply was modified 8 years, 6 months ago by
BakerAunt.
-
This reply was modified 8 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.
-
This reply was modified 8 years, 6 months ago by BakerAunt.
Hunts Traditional Pasta Sauce is what I've been using when I don't make my own, both the Traditional and the Mushroom one are garlic-free and when on sale a 24 ounce can is around $1. I'll probably be using a can of it tonight when I make spaghetti squash with meatballs.
Judy Rosenberg has several similarly titled books, the one I have (Rosie's Bakery All-Butter Cream Filled Sugar Packed Baking Book) was copyrighted in 2011 and this appears to be the first printing. That recipe is on page 154. I have not looked for an online errata list. 375 for 11-12 minutes is more consistent with other chocolate chip recipes I've used. I've now tried 2 recipes from this book, both seemed to me to have issues with the cooking/baking instructions. I'll be much more cautious with the next recipe I try from this book.
That's disappointing. That book has been out for a couple of decades. Things like that should have been fixed years ago.
So far this week I've made pizza. I need to make something for book club Thursday night. Not sure what I'll do yet.
I saw a new garlic-free tomato sauce at the store - Rao's sensitive marinara. Rao's is our sauce of choice but I've never tried the garlic free version. It's a bit spendy too at the grocery stores - 32 oz. for $7.99 but at Costco it's 40 oz. for $7.99 but they do not (yet) have the garlic free version.
I buy cases of it on sale at Whole Foods when it drops to $5.99 and then I get a 10% discount per case which brings the price down to about $5.40 a jar.
On Sunday morning, I made a half recipe of Pumpkin Waffles from Better Homes & Gardens 100 Best Pumpkin Recipes, a special publication I bought last year. My change is to use half whole wheat flour and to substitute buttermilk and adjust the baking powder (and add baking soda) accordingly.
I was having some issues with cooking them, and I wondered if my waffle iron might be going bad. However, I plugged it into a different outlet, and then it worked fine. I will be so glad when we can re-do this kitchen.
It isn't the freezing that causes scallops to be bitter, it's overcooking them. When my son was here with his sous vide cooker, he made scallops and they were excellent. (He had to make something else for my wife, though, she doesn't care for scallops.)
My husband's cousins are arriving today for a family reunion, beginning Friday. It's a group of great cooks and bakers, but they like to plan as they go, so I'm never sure what to make. I decided to bake the "Not Quite Whole Grain Baguette) that was posted on the now closed KAF Baking Circle by sbdombro, who adapted it from a Mark Bittman recipe in The New York Times. I had it copied into my recipe book, and when I looked here, I noted that it does not appear to have been posted, so I will do so sometime in the next week. (I'll look to see if I have the original anywhere. I remember reviewing it favorably and getting a response from the poster.) It makes three baguettes (and I've done it as a boule before), and I used a combination of whole wheat and rye flour (40 grams of medium rye and 60 grams whole wheat for the whole grain portion but added a couple tablespoons of flax meal) along with the 400 grams of KAF flour. I was able to use the bread machine to mix it, and I used my three slot baguette pan for the bake. I did reduce the temperature from 450 to 425 about mid-way through the bake.
I also baked the Maple-Walnut Biscotti from the KAF website.
There are as many ways to make Chicken Cacciatore as there are cooks. Here's my take on a classic chicken cacciatore.
2 bone-in chicken breasts (You can use boneless breasts, but you lose some of the chicken flavor)
4 tomatoes (6-8 ounce), peeled and seeded and cut into large pieces (see notes)
1 medium onion, diced
1 large or 3 small red peppers, diced
2 tablespoons butter
4-6 ounces of tomato sauce
Salt
pepper
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1/2 tablespoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
You can do the chicken skin-on but we prefer to remove the skin and cut off any fat pockets
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Melt the butter in a sauce pan large enough to hold both chicken breasts.
Salt and pepper the chicken breasts, then sautee the chicken breasts on both sides until white.
Set the breasts in an 8 x 12 glass baking pan, bone side down. Add the tomatoes, surrounding both breasts.
Sautee the onions and peppers until the onions are translucent, about 10 minutes.
Add the tomato sauce, salt and pepper to taste and add herbs. Cook for 10 minutes over medium low heat.
Pour over chicken. If you removed the chicken skin, be sure to make sure the chicken is fully covered and not exposed to the air. (The sauce has been moved off the top of the breasts to show the chicken in the photo.)
Bake in the oven for 40-50 minutes or until internal temperature of the chicken is 170 degrees.
Notes:
The way I peel and seed the tomatoes is to start by washing them and cutting out the stem. Immerse them in boiling hot water for 20-30 seconds (an instant hot water tap produces hot enough water for this), then transfer them to ice water to cool. With a paring knife, score the skin from top to bottom, creating 4 pieces of skin that will easily peel off. Cut the tomatoes in two along the equator and with your fingers pull out the seeds.
Although earlier this week the deer did get its head into an open area (now covered with chicken wire), it did not get too much. We've had lettuce from the garden, in addition to some radishes. Thursday evening we had some steamed green beans from it, and we will be having some more. It was a good experiment, considering that we did not get to Indiana until mid-July, and it took a while to get the garden planted. My husband is already making plans for a spring and a summer garden.
Thanks Skeptic. I want something about 40 degrees - around our refrigerator (which is actually under 40).
Ice floating on cold water is typically about 38 degrees so that would be good.
Honeypots are one of the bar cookie recipes in The Rosie's Bakery All-Butter, Cream-Filled, Sugar-Packed Baking Book. (I flagged 3 or 4 recipes to try in a first pass through the book, this was the first of them.)
In the book, they're a shortbread cookie with a topping made from brown sugar, butter, honey and walnuts. I used pecans instead of walnuts when I made them this week. They were sort of like small pieces of pecan pie, except that there's no egg yolk to thicken the topping. I think if I had cooked them a bit longer the topping might have gotten thicker, like a caramel.
The honeypots were fairly well received at my wife's office, someone has already asked for the recipe.
They taste a lot like pecan pie, which should be too surprising. (I may have to try a batch with walnuts some time just to see what they 'should' taste like. I think they'd be interesting with almonds or macadamia nuts, too.)
I'm thinking I may try making them as individual tarts, more work but easier to serve, and it gives me an excuse to try the tart kit I got a while back. I still think if I cooked them longer they might have gotten firmer if not crunchy on top, since the topping (honey, brown sugar, butter, vanila and cream) contains pretty much the same ingredients as caramel. I think I'll add a pinch of salt.
I've been experimenting with the thickness of the crusts on a pie lately, I'll probably have a blog post or two on that at some point. However, I seem to get a bigger air gap if the top crust is on the thick side. I think what happens is that it rises due to steam as it bakes, then sets up, and if it is thick it will hold the dome shape rather than settle down onto the filling, thus creating a gap.
Making more or larger vents might keep it from doming up as much, thus limiting or preventing an air gap. (After all, you never get an air gap with a lattice crust.)
I never bother to cook peppers or fresh mushrooms if putting them on a pizza. (My wife actually prefers canned mushrooms on pizza.) I generally don't put onion on a pizza, but if you do, cooking the onion first softens it and results in a more mellow flavor. When we lived in Chicago, where grilled onions are common toppings for hot dogs and hamburgers, there were some pizza places that could put grilled onions on pizza, which is a very different taste from either raw onions or onions that have been sauteed in butter.
Black garlic is supposed to be interesting on a pizza, but unless my wife is out of town it's not likely I'll ever try it.
I use black or green olives straight out of the can or jar, but if you've ever tried to eat an olive straight off the tree you know they've been processed a lot by the time you get them at the store.
We like artichoke hearts on pizza, we buy the ones that aren't marinated in oil and herbs in a large jar at Sams, I assume they've been cooked in the process of canning them. The ones in the small jars at the grocery store aren't as good and the ones in a can always have a strong metallic taste to me.
Tomatoes are another vegetable that doesn't need to be cooked if added to a pizza, though (sun) dried tomatoes add a different flavor than fresh ones.
Next Day's Report on the apple pie: These are a tart apple and not particularly juicy--which may be a good thing, as I forgot to add the 2 Tbs. of flour to the apple mixture. (Some juice did leak out onto the pan beneath.) The slices held their shape. We like the flavor, although I think that I will increase the sugar from 3/4 to 1 cup next time. I decided that the pie does need vanilla ice cream, so we bought some on our grocery run. The pie has the dreaded "air gap." but more so on one side than the other. I may have gotten better slits on the side with less of a gap. (I read the KAF blog on gaps before baking the pie, and that was one suggestion.) I might try cooking the apples a bit, then cooling them for the next pie. However, I think the rest of these apples may be used for apple hand pies.
Until my supply runs out, I have tomato paste in tubes. We smear what we want on our individual pizzas. Our marriage would not survive a joint pizza. 🙂 I bake my husband's pizza first, then mine, since I am the one who actually likes hot food hot rather than lukewarm. However, when I did a sheet pan pizza, we each decked our half as we like it.
After the tomato paste, I sprinkle garlic powder and Penzey's Tuscan Seasoning (salt-free) over the tomato paste. I then put down the salami (we get nitrate-free) or sometimes we use ground turkey, in which case I add fennel seed with the earlier spices. I then put on the red bell pepper, the sliced mushrooms, the black olives, and the sliced green onion. I sprinkle mozzarella on top (we buy the thick pre-graded from Sargentio), and then grate some parmesan over it.
My husband does not like a lot on his pizza. After the tomato paste he adds the meat, some mushrooms, and maybe a bit of bell pepper. He has branched out to a few green onions. We've discovered that while I can add the cheese on mine and bake it for 15 minutes, his cheese will burn (maybe because of the lack of vegetables), so I bake his for 10 minutes, then take it out so that he can add the mozzarella, then bake it 4-5 minutes longer.
I usually have all pizza ingredients on hand, but I have to think ahead for the mushrooms, and indeed I had to run to the store for them on Sunday. I use the KAF ultra-thin crust pizza recipe, but before that, in my single days, I used to make the Fleischmann's recipe booklet one. It can fit in a large sheet pan. I also used to make it up as two round pizzas and par-bake the crust at 350 for ten minutes. One then was used for that evening's pizza, and the other was wrapped and frozen for another night. I've also made a Martha Stewart Living pizza crust that I put in a large sheet pan.
