[aaronatthedoublef]

Just saw this! BA - I have used our pasta maker to roll out cracker dough. It is only about six inches wide so I need to roll out six or more sheets of cracker dough as opposed to three bigger sheets. I think I started with 100 g of dough if I remember correctly.

Plus it needs extra flour to make sure the cracker dough didn't stick. Between the extra rolling and the extra clean up the pasta maker did not appear to offer me any benefit over my rolling pin.

Now a sheeter that is a foot or two wide could handle an entire batch at once!

I remember a "Good Eats" where Alton Brown used a pasta maker attached to an ironing board to roll out strudel. It was long and strudel dough is not wide so it was perfect. We just installed an ironing board that folds away into the wall - like a Murphy Bed ironing board so maybe something like that for Mike's fold-away sheeter? The problem with the foldaway ironing board for this is that it is smaller than a standard model - shorter & narrower. Plus with the cabinet it weighs over 100 pounds so installation is not trivial.

I have a milestone birthday next month and while I might be able to justify the cost, I have not place to put it and if it is a big project to take it out it won't be used very often. My family gave me a panini press that I am not allowed to leave on the counter so it is almost never used. Take it out, set it up, wait for it to heat up, make panino (or panini), then wait for cool down, clean up, put away... it's easier to just make hot sandwiches in a pan on the stove. Not as good, but much easier.

But a Murphy Bed sheeter arrangement would be cool. You would still need to be able to break it down and clean it easily.

I went to a local bakery for the first time and she rolls out all her croissants by hand. She said it takes her four days to make them.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Just looked at Webstaurantstore and they have a TON of BRM stuff.

It's large quantities but you may be able to find what you are looking for there, too.

They only had WW pastry flour and not regular pastry flour, enfortunately.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I made bread. Had a good rise then it spread in the oven and is sort of flat. Maybe it was over proofed.

I made it over the course of 24 hours. Normally I do it over three days. I wanted to tame the sour flavor and that worked.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I'm with you Mike. Walmart is trying to our Amazon Amazon and has become a "marketplace". There is no oversight. I've seen five pounds of flour for outrageous prices like $50+.

I am also buying less from Amazon for the same reason.

[aaronatthedoublef]

BA, it appears you can still find BRM coarse grind. Here is a search response for it. I've ordered some pastry flour from Vitacost. I'll see how their service is.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I barbecued a chicken Sunday. It was a cooler morning and I have not used the Weber in a long time but it still works! I had a little too much smoke, I think. And when I grill it I cannot throw the vegetables in the pan with the chicken.

Not sure what else I'll make this week. And school lunches start tomorrow (Wednesday).

[aaronatthedoublef]

BA, for my pizza I started with all bread and then went to bread and whole wheat. Then pastry and whole wheat. Then I added flax meal and sometimes some chickpea flour. Now I am at whole wheat (I like white if it's not too expensive), pastry, flax, and some bread. I may try semolina in the next batch.

Violet and I made "tea" sandwich cookies. They were a little big for typical tea cookies. Each cookie was an ounce. Next time I'll make them a half ounce.

I made biscuits, Added the right amount of salt this time. I still had butter leaking despite a long chill in the fridge and the oven at 425 on convection (the recipe says 350). I may ping the baker before I bake the rest.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks Mike. Thanks Joan.

Mike - what's your dough hydration? My pizza dough is about 75% right now. Bread flour has worked the best so far.

I did try semolina a couple of times but my family was not thrilled with it. That was a while ago and it is fun to try new things every now and then. But most times they do not want me to mess with the basics.

I personally like provolone or fontal cheese with mozzarella, for example, but I am the only one... My last experiment was using aioli under the sauce to give a strong garlic taste. Everyone liked that.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I made pizza last night. I used bread flour to roll out the rounds and then, per suggestions here, I used semolina on my metal peel. The semolina works great for sliding the pizza off the peel! Thank you. It does not work well for rolling out the dough. So I need both or I use a ton of flour on the peel and it transfers to the pizza. I use much less semolina and I kept it off the floor.

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[aaronatthedoublef]

S'mores pizza! Violet will love that! How did you make sure the pizza didn't stick to the grill?

[aaronatthedoublef]

Kate has Hulu set up so I'll have to watch this. I have not found good Italian beef outside of Chicago. Portillo's has become a chain and they have passable food in Minneapolis but it is kind of like eating at an Uno's after you've had the real thing when it was a dive in Chicago.

Now the country will wreck another Chicago staple.

I like Jeremy Allen White and he seems to be making a career out of playing seedy Chicagoans!

[aaronatthedoublef]

I unsubscribed from Bobs. At this point I'm looking for substitutes. It's really disappointing. And Whole Foods (I know that's not an option for everyone here) is upping their store brands for some of the main things I bought from Bobs and their store brand is usually pretty good and less expensive.

[aaronatthedoublef]

The bread looks great. At this point I don't make any KABC bread recipes. Mike's glass bread looks good so I may try that.

Netflix has a kids' version of the Great British Baking Show called "Jr. Baking Show". It is so much better at then the adult show at this point. There is none of the snarkiness. It's shorter too as there is only a technical and a showstopper. And, of course, Violet loves to watch it with me so that is fun.

I made scones this week. We came home from Maine this past weekend. No bakeries where we were staying but great views of the ocean! My in-laws stayed over at our house Saturday so I had scones for them Sunday morning before they took off. I was out of raisins so I used chocolate chips. I think it was a little too sweet but my kids loved it. My father-in-law introduced his grandchildren to "breakfast chocolate" when the boys were little!

I had big plans for other baking but things happen. I took Sam back to school and one look at the bags he meant to take on the train told me I needed to drive him all the way in so that was an extra three hours. An hour and a half of that was with my son so it was well worth it.

Then I went to donate blood another day and I was giving platelets instead of blood. That involves lying on my back with tubes in each arm for two hours while they draw the blood, take out the platelets, and put the blood back in. It was a three hour session with everything. So maybe I'll get to do something today or tomorrow.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Happy anniversary BA and Chocomouse! And to all the family,

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks BA.

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