I spent Friday morning canning the gallon of maple syrup (large plastic jug) that I bought from a local producer at the farmers' market in March.
I spent the afternoon re-organizing my pots and pans cabinet, which I have been meaning to do for a while. It should be easier for me now to grab the pans I use most.
For dinner, we had the last of the black-eyed peas with ham and rice.
I picked two big bowls of salad from the Aerogarden today, so we're having salads and burgers on the grill tonight. (No bun for Diane.)
I sprouted some peapods and then put them in the Aerogarden, 4 of 6 are doing fine, I'm sprouting some more to replace the two that didn't take. Somewhere I think we've got some inoculant but I haven't found it yet, and for the amount of peapods I'm growing at a time it is kind of expensive (and I'm not sure how to use it in hydroponics.)
Our weather is still cool, so Wednesday was another baking day. I started the morning by adapting a recipe, "Cherry Almond Muffins," from The Baking Sheet 20.4 (Summer 2009), p. 13. [Remember how fun it used to be when issues arrived in our mailboxes?] I wanted to try using a jar of my blackberry jam, since I make a lot of jam, but the reality is that we are not big jam eaters, so I need to find other ways of using it. I substituted in 1 ½ cups whole wheat flour and reduced the sugar from ½ to 1/3 cup and halved the salt. As always, I added 2 Tbs. milk powder and 1 Tbs. flax meal. I replaced the milk with buttermilk and so reduced the baking powder from 1 Tbs. to 2 tsp. and added ¼ tsp. baking soda. (Cass taught me that!) I deleted the nuts and the almond extract. I baked the muffins as six large ones for 20 minutes. The texture and shape are great. The taste is fine, but I think that they need perhaps a bit of some kind of spice. I might also use white whole wheat flour next time.
My second bake on Wednesday was a Sourdough Boule recipe from King Arthur that I tore out of one of their more recent catalogs, where it is included in an add for their bread baking bowl:
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/sourdough-boule-recipe
I adapted the recipe to bake in my Romertopf bread bowl with the cloche lid from the set I bought from Skeptic. That means using a cold oven start. I also changed the recipe by replacing 2 cups of the Artisan bread flour with that much whole wheat flour and using the Bob's Red Mill bread flour for the rest I added 2 Tbs. special dry milk, and reduced the salt from 2 tsp. to 1 ¼ tsp. I baked it for 50 minutes in the cloche, then baked it without the lid for another 3 minutes because I wanted it to reach 200F. It smells great and is cooling on a rack. I look forward to slicing it at lunch tomorrow.
Tuesday is bringing us some needed rain, although not yet as much as we hoped. For dinner, I roasted chicken thighs (we found a great deal at the grocery today) and made a farro stir-fry with chicken/turkey broth from the freezer, red bell pepper, sliced carrots, chopped celery, sliced mushrooms, and a bit of parsley. I threw in some frozen peas from a bag that must have been filled with peas that were picked past their prime because when we had them last week, they were tough and chewy. Putting them into the stir-fry hides that texture somewhat.
I also made yogurt on Tuesday.
I'm going to have leftovers of the Peanut noodles I made on Friday. It was a recipe from Simply Recipes as I liked all the chopped veggies in it- red pepper, shredded carrots, mango slices (which is a really nice addition, green onions and cilantro. The recipe also called for romaine and red cabbage, but I bought a package of broccoli/cabbage slaw to use instead. The peanut sauce was disappointing - thin and too sweet - I knew I shouldn't have added all the brown sugar the recipe called for. I have a couple of other peanut sauces that I like better that I would use with these veggies I also used brown rice Pad Thai Noodles from Lotus brand that I use a lot.
Diane took a big slice of the cake to her sister today, along with some peanut butter cookies. (Her sister doesn't eat peanut butter cookies.)
Linda must have liked the cake, I got a text to send Diane a link to the recipe.
It's pretty good with some blackberries on it, though I think I liked it better with sliced strawberries.
I've been looking at the induction-ready Presto 23 quart pressure canner. Even if it doesn't work on my standalone induction plate, it would work on the stove, and it looks like it uses less water and a shorter canning time, so it shouldn't heat up the kitchen as much. (Canning is one of those things that always seems to be done on really hot days, because that's when the produce is ready.)
No strawberries have shown up yet at our farmers' market.
After two days of teatime with no cookies (the horror!), on Saturday, I baked Lemon Pecan Biscotti. It is my Lime Pecan Biscotti recipe with lemon zest and juice instead of lime.
Hawaiian Pasta Chicken Salad
Recipe by Sharon Huegel
1 pound rotini (Barilla)
1 large can Swanson chicken breasts
1 bottle Briannas poppyseed dressing
1 small package chopped pecans
1 small can pineapple tidbits
1 honeycrisp apple
3 stalks celery
1 each yellow, red and orange sweet peppers, small
1/2 green bell pepper
1 can mandarin oranges or 3-4 clementines
optional: Add 1 sliced banana just before serving
Directions: All fruit and veggies should be hand-cut into small pieces that are the same size.
Cook the pasta the night before, add the dressing and marinate overnight
Drain the chicken and flake into tiny pieces.
Add other ingredients and stir thoroughly. Add extra dressing if needed.
The banana slices go on top.
I made the strawberry glazed Texas sheet cake today (1/2 recipe), pictures in cake thread.
Our wine club theme this month was Austrian wine. I had to find something to make ahead as I had to host samba from 1 to 5. I found a pasta recipe that called for Black Forrest ham and I thought "close enough"! I cooked the bow tie pasta ahead and stored with a little oil in a bag on the counter. Then I chopped plum tomatoes , cubed ham, diced red onion, chopped sweet gherkins, sliced radishes and swiss cheese. Then I defrosted some peas. The sauce was mayo, sour cream and pickle juice. I topped the dish with herbs (basil, chives and parsley)before serving. It was a concoction I ultimately made up and it worked. I received several compliments.
I think my 2 spaghetti squash plants didn't survive transplant, I'll have to see if I can find some at the farmer's market. I've got one more that finally germinated under the lights, but it only has one true leaf so far so I think I'll give it a little more time before I try transplanting it.
I'm trying to take a picture of the part of the garden that is our test plot for the Nebraska Urban Soil Improvement project, using the same viewpoint and angle and at the same time of day (early evening) then I'll see if I can stitch them together.
I tend to use the 'poke a hole in the middle' method, but my bagels are usually about 3 ounces of dough, the ones you'll get at a bagel shop will generally be somewhere between 4.5 and 6 ounces each, so the 'wrap around the hand' method works well, especially if your dough is as soft and developed as the ones in those videos. (Mine seldom is.)
I find boiling them for about 45 seconds then flipping them over and boiling them for another 45 seconds works best, but as the second video notes, the timing of each step varies from day to day, some days the dough has to rise longer, other days it needs to boil a little longer.
There was an interesting discussion in the Bread Bakers Guild forums a while back about whether or not bagels should be boiled in lye (or some other alkaline solution.) This is one of those areas where bakers get pretty passionate, the majority of the Guild members were very opposed to using lye, though I know of some NYC shops that use it. (Pretzels are another matter, using lye or baking soda when boiling them is pretty much universally approved.)
I did some testing, and when I used an alkaline solution, baking soda, the surface of the bagels got darker. I don't think it affected texture much.
What the boiling does is to gelatinize the starch on the surface, which changes the surface texture to add some shininess and a bit of a snap when you bite in. I think it may also help hold the toppings on.
I spent Monday evening after dinner baking. I still have some blood oranges, so I made the Chocolate Olive Oil Cake with Blood Orange Glaze. (The glaze will be added tomorrow.) This time I baked it in 6-cup and a 5-cup Bundt pans, so that I can freeze one for later, along with enough juice to make the glaze.
My other baking project was to adapt my oil-based cranberry scone recipe by using frozen blueberries and some lemon zest in place of the cranberries. I baked them in the Nordic Ware scone pan. I will sample one for breakfast tomorrow.
I made Cornmeal Pumpernickel Waffles for a later breakfast on Sunday. While my waffles are a delightful holiday treat, I also made them because we are celebrating ten years since we drove to a place outside Detroit and returned with Annie, our Australian Cattle Dog. She is very fond of waffle edges.
Sunday was also a day for a baking experiment. I had a jar of orange marmalade in the pantry, so I decided to make another try at a butter-free version of my Orange Marmalade Oatmeal Crunch Bars, a recipe I adapted from a little Pillsbury booklet (#51), which I used to buy at the grocery years ago. I have posted the recipe at Nebraska Kitchen in its first butter and coconut glory. My first attempt to bake it without butter a couple of years ago was ok but not great. This time I used ½ cup avocado oil plus 2 Tbs. water. I also reduced the shredded coconut to 30g and added ¼ cup each of powdered milk and flax meal. I will try cutting some for dessert tonight.
Update: the bars came out very well, with just the right amount of sweetness, and chewy in texture. To cut them, I had to start each row with a knife on the edge, but then I could use a pizza wheel to cut strips to the other side, where I again employed a knife to finish the cut. I cut the strips easily with a knife.
