My elder bonus son is visiting for a week. For dinner, I made Spaghetti Squash Turkey Lasagna. I needed to use up a pound of mushrooms, so I added double the usual amount. I also sauteed red bell pepper, celery, and kale to go into the sauce. I did not have enough of our tomatoes to make sauce yet (am savoring those that I do for turkey bacon and tomato sandwiches!), so I used a large can of fire-roasted chopped tomatoes and a smaller can of plain chopped ones, to which I added minced garlic and dried onion. Given the amount of extra vegetables, I used an Emile Henry 9 ½ x 12 1/2-inch casserole dish that is 3-inches deep. We enjoyed it with an ear of sweet corn each, that we bought this morning from our favorite local place.
I also made yogurt today, a regular project that was delayed for three days because I had so much else to do.
Navlys--thanks for the Cilantro hint! My husband does not like it (his family members seem to carry the gene that makes it taste to them like soap), but it would be nice to add some to food that only I am going to eat.
Today I made a big batch of tomato sauce, using tomatoes from the garden. I also put in chopped green onions, green peppers, celery, and zucchini. I added hot Italian sausage (ground and cooked) to some of it which we will have, along with a salad, on penne for dinner.
I made flatbread pizza with sausage and pineapple. Tonight will be steak salad. On a side note I finally found a successful way to store cilantro. I washed and dried it and put it in a container with a damp paper towel on the bottom and a damp paper towel on top . I sealed the container (glass) and it is still fresh 4 days later. I had tried other techniques and they didn't work!
For breakfast on Sunday, I made my favorite Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins, which used up the rest of the five pounds of berries that I bought at the farmers market a few weeks ago.
While the muffins were baking, I mixed up Icelandic Rye Bread, a recipe which appeared in the latest King Arthur catalog. I had hoped that the "cocktail" bread pan, of which I have a set, would work for the recipe. As it turns out, there is significant difference between a 12.5 x 2.75 x 2.5 pan like mine and the 13.75 x 2.5 x 2.75 pan that USA now makes and King Arthur sells. A certain amount of batter escaped over the sides and onto the pan and the oven floor, despite being weighted down. I was able to get the batter off the oven floor before it burned on, and the pan needed a good soak to clean it. The Icelandic Rye Bread is interesting. I had Lyle's Golden Syrup (I think it was picked up at T.J. Maxx at one time), so I used that instead of the combination of honey and molasses that King Arthur substitutes. I like the bread, but my husband and I find it too sweet. If I were to bake it again, after having first acquired the correct pan size--I would cut back the syrup from 2/3 to ½ cup. We used slices for open face chicken salad sandwiches, and it drowned out the dill, which is usually foremost, and to some extent, the green onion. I can see why people would like it with an assertive topping.
I did my baking in the early morning with windows open and the vent fan to get the heat out. Although we had pop up showers throughout the day, the humidity made it feel hotter than I would expect just looking at the cloudiness.
We've had rain, off and on, with pop up showers throughout today. Humidity makes it seem hotter than it is.
On Saturday, I found some wonderful peaches from Michigan at the farmers market, so I bought a bag of thirteen for $12. It was the same vendor from whom I had bought the blueberries a few weeks ago, so I trusted the peaches would be good, and they are. On Sunday afternoon, I use seven to make peach jam, which I canned, for a total of four 8 oz. jars and one 4 oz. jar. I will either bake or just eat the other peaches, but I like to have at least one batch of peach jam, and we do not always get good peaches at the farmers market.
For dinner, I used the rest of the roast chicken (the breast meat) to make chicken salad for open face sandwiches on the Icelandic Rye Bread I baked this morning.
That's only a 5% difference, I doubt it'll affect your recipes, I see more than that in terms of variance as to how much a batch of bread rises. (A teaspoon difference in measuring the water can make a big difference, and that's not the only factor that varies from day to day--room temperature, humidity, barometric pressure and oven temperature all vary.)
Weighing it down is kind of Pullman-pan like. We did some stuff like that in pastry school using sheet pans on spacers to keep puff pastry from rising too high when making things like Napoleons.
This Sunday morning, I was searching recipes for a blackberry jam cake on Bing, and "Blackberry Jam Cake," from P. Allen Smith's website popped into view. I decided to see if I could modify the recipe to use avocado oil rather than butter. I also wanted to substitute half of a whole grain flour. When I later googled the question, "Do blackberries and barley go together," I found a scone recipe that uses whole blackberries and barley flour, so I decided the flavors would be complementary. I want to find ways to use my large stock of blackberry jam that has resulted from a couple of years of excellent harvests.
This recipe makes a very large cake. As I am experimenting, and there are just two of us, I chose to make a half recipe. Given the ingredient amounts, I decided on a 10-cup Bundt pan (the "party" pan), and that was a good decision. Oil cakes tend not to rise a lot, but the batter came within an inch of the top. I think that the very largest Bundt cake pan could handle the full recipe.
I replaced ½ cup butter with 1/3 cup avocado oil. I used half barley flour. I substituted English walnuts for the black walnuts that I do not have. I only have light brown sugar, so I used it instead of the dark brown sugar. I deleted half a cup of raisins. I used a cup of the blackberry jam that I recently made--from a jar where there was not enough to can, from a dish with not enough even to put into a jar, and from a jar that did not seal. I did not bother separating the eggs and beating the egg whites and folding them in. I think that it would not make as much difference with an oil cake as it would a butter cake.
The recipe says to bake at 325 F for 1 ½ hours to 2 hours. That seems a rather long interval, but perhaps it depends on the consistency of the jam. I checked the cake after an hour, and, since it is a half recipe and therefore a smaller cake. It registered 210 F, and a Bundt cake is done at 200 F, according to the site I googled. After 15 minutes, it came out of the pan easily. I will let it cool and rest overnight to allow the flavors to develop, and we will begin slicing it tomorrow evening for dessert. It smells wonderful!
The picture of Joan's pizza whet my appetite for pizza. So today I made pizza. I didn't want to pre heat the pizza stone for an hour so I made it in a pan. I used 3 layers of cheese.
For the first layer, I put some directly on the crust and then baked it for 5 minutes to melt it. It would have been better if I had thin slices but I only had shredded.
Then I sauced it and applied a thin layer of parm.
Then I added the toppings (sausage, pepperoni and onion) and topped it with cheese.
20 minutes later in a 450 degree oven, it turned into YUM!
I have enough for tomorrow's dinner. I also had a salad with it.
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I made the panzanella salad and it was ok but not worth all the effort. It involved a lot of cutting and slicing and weighing and measuring and squishing (garlic) and washing of dishes and utensils. Maybe I should have found short cuts. Nyt recipes are always involved!
That pizza looks delicious, Joan, it's one of Nature's perfect foods!
I can't believe it's Thursday already. On Sunday I made steak and hot dogs on the BBQ. So, Sunday was a steak and a hot dog with rice and bbq beans (from a can) and a salad. Monday was leftover steak and hotdog. Tuesday was an Italian sausage with pasta, green beans and a corn on the cob. Yesterday was rotisserie chicken, pasta with sauteed mushrooms and green beans. Tonight was rotisserie chicken, mushrooms, green beans with carrot, and some potato salad.
Long time readers may recall that one of the first posts I made on this site when I set it up was a post complaining about garlic in foods (especially restaurant foods.)
I've been active in the Reddit subreddits r/keto and r/ketorecipes for a few weeks, and decided to open up a new subreddit for people who want to cook or eat foods without garlic in it:
Subreddit r/CookingWithoutGarlic
I hope that Joan and CWCdesign are doing ok with the storms moving into Georgia.
Ever since Joan baked the Oatmeal Scotchies cookies, I have been wondering if I could develop a healthier version that I could eat occasionally. I needed a distraction on Monday, and we were going to be out of cookies after today, so I checked and found a half bag of Nestles butterscotch chips in the second refrigerator that have been there since before I gave up saturated fat in butter and chips, which I think was four years ago. I tasted one, and it was fine. (I suspect they will never go bad.) I worked out a recipe, with avocado oil and water replacing the butter and baked a half recipe this afternoon. I will allow them to rest overnight, with the idea that, as with cakes, the flavor will develop during the rest. If we like them, I will post the re-worked recipe.
The chips give them about 1.45 g saturated fat per cookie. There is a bit of additional saturated fat from the egg, avocado oil, and sunflower kernels, but as these ingredients also contain healthy fats and nutrients, I did not include them in the overall tally.
I made Vanilla Chai bars from KAF today. The original recipe called for Sprouted Rye flour and I still had some in the freezer. I also have some of their chai spice left. I had everything else on hand or so I thought. I'd already run to the market twice today, so when I discovered I didn't have brown sugar, I decided to use what I have on hand which is a brand of pure cane sugar (less processed than white) that I use for my tea and such - I don't always use it in baking as it doesn't "melt" as well as regular sugar. I also left out the salt since I bought salted butter by mistake. The bars are as good as I remembered, but I think I will cut the sugar the next time and we liked the saltiness the butter added.
Joan--I hope you get a chance to try it!
Dinner on Sunday was ham sandwiches on WW/Rye/Semolina buns (the last from the freezer), an ear of sweet corn each, and the rest of the green bean salad.
