BakerAunt
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I picked black raspberries again today. We had a nice rain which is helping them. I learned my lesson, again, yesterday and today wore my heavy pants and hemp work shirt/jacket to prevent scratches and punctures.
I always think of Cass on Flag Day, as it is his birthday.
I love apple kuchen, Kimbob, although I have never baked it myself. When I was in high school, our German club, with our German born teacher, would make it every year for a fundraiser Apple Strudel Social. I still think of Frau Hodjera.
A cool front came in, along with additional rain, so Sunday was perfect for baking and cooking. I baked maple granola, then after roasting a chicken, three loaves of what I am calling Lake Maxinkuckee Multigrain Bread went into the oven. I have been working on this bread recipe for a while now. With these loaves, because the farmers market eggs I got were small (many were 50 or 52 g when weighed), I used three instead of two. I ended up adding some additional whole wheat and bread flour. The loaves baked beautifully. Two are higher and fuller than the third, although I weighed all three and used the same amount of dough. We will slice a loaf for lunch (or maybe even at breakfast) tomorrow, and I will freeze the other two.
For dinner on Sunday, I roasted a large chicken that I had bought on sale and frozen. It was close to seven pounds. I started it with the bottom side up, roasting at 360 F for 40 minutes, then turned it over and roasted for another hour and 20 minutes. It was not quite done, so I gave it another 15 minutes. It came out just in time for my three loaves of bread to go into the oven. We also had roasted sweet potato chunks that I did in the countertop oven and microwaved frozen peas. I made gravy with the defatted drippings and deglazing, which we will have as part of tomorrow's dinner. All of this baking and cooking generated a lot of dishes. Scott helped me keep up on them, so the clean-up was manageable.
I bought two bell pepper plants from the farmers market vendor who is my go-to guy for plant starts. The two that Scott started are very tiny, so I hope that this way we may have a chance of getting our own bell peppers this year. they will have to go into pots, as the garden space is limited, and we want our beans to do well.
I made Salmon and Couscous with Penzey's Greek Seasoning for dinner on Saturday because I could bake it in the convection oven. We had microwaved fresh broccoli as well. For dessert, I pulled out a small Blood Orange cake that I had frozen, as well as a bit of Blood Orange juice, which I used to glaze it. Beginning tomorrow, the current high humidity is expected to lessen, with temperatures expected to revert to the usual seasonal highs in the upper seventies for this time of year.
I picked about a half cup of black raspberries from the patch on our terrace on Friday. These are the first of the season, helped along by the rains, and by my husband hand watering with buckets of lake water. We have not checked how they are doing in our woodlands yet.
My husband tells me that we have tiny tomatoes on the cherry tomato plants, but I looked and do not see them yet.
I made dough for Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers on Friday.
I made yogurt on Friday,
That's interesting, Skeptic and Len. I will have to look for colored cauliflower.
For Thursday night's dinner, I improvised a Shepherd's Pie, with a recipe from Martha Stewart as my base recipe but departing from it in major ways. I used ground turkey rather than lamb or the beef I sometimes use. After browning the ground turkey, I added sauteed carrots, yellow and orange bell pepper, celery, two leftover mushrooms, some kale that needed to be used, and a cup of frozen turkey broth. I seasoned it with dried rosemary, sage, and thyme. For the topping, I used leftover muddled mashed potatoes, combined with 5 oz. of leftover ricotta cheese. I baked it in an 8 x 10-inch dish at 380 F for 35 minutes. We like it, so I may be making it again sometime, but for now, we have leftovers for tomorrow.
Fortunately, I have a non-fussy sourdough, and "discard" is never a problem, as I have to keep my husband in cheese crackers.
Before we left for San Diego in April, I cut up the rest of my apples and made a small batch of apple pie filling by par cooking the apples and filling ingredients as I always do. However, I froze the four cups or so of filling, which was not enough for a pie. On Wednesday, I pulled it out of the freezer and spread it in a ceramic dish (sprayed with nonstick), then covered it with the crisp topping that my friend in California and I concocted for a peach crisp when we visited there. I used whole wheat pastry flour instead of regular flour and replaced the almonds with pecans. I baked it at 350 F in the countertop convection oven for 35 minutes, using the so-called "re-heating position," which I think works better. The apple crisp is delicious. We each had some for dessert, with a dollop of frozen yogurt.
I love the way the community here at Nebraska Kitchen encourages each other to try new recipes and reports results of experiments.
Wednesday night dinner was the rest of the stovetop barbecued chicken with brown rice. We had microwaved frozen mixed vegetables on the side.
I agree with you about tomatoes, Mike, but sadly, we do not have enough garden space that gets sun to allow us to plant as many as I would like.
The heat and humidity of the past few days continue, but we had good rain overnight, which slightly cooled us down, although not much because the air is so warm. I took the opportunity on Wednesday morning to bake a dozen Lemon Ricotta Blueberry muffins, using another one of the lemons that my sister gave me when we were in California. I replaced 2 Tbs. of the milk with 2 Tbs. of lemon juice and used 3 Tbs. of kefir for the remaining milk. Scott and I each had one for teatime.
We were almost out of bread, so with the temperatures still in the lower eighties, I baked Ellen's Bun (yes, that is my adaptation of "Moonie's recipe) as twelve rolls in a 10 x 10-inch square pan. (If USA pans ever makes this size again, I would buy another one.) Rolls do not need as long to bake as loaves of bread, so the oven was not on for too long. I ran the hood fan both times after using the oven, and it helped move out the heat not contained in the oven.
Congratulation on your first sausage making, Joan. I've never tried it. Yours looks good.
For dinner on Wednesday, we had the last of the pork tenderloin sandwiched on rolls I baked earlier today, accompanied by large salads.
I'm a firm believer that one can never have too many squash!
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