BakerAunt
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For dinner on Monday, I made Maple-Dijon Mustard and Pecan coated salmon with roasted potato chunks. We also had a salad of spinach, carrots, and mushrooms, with onion on mine.
On Sunday, I was looking through my piles of saved recipes and found "Leftover Apple Cake," a recipe from Laura Holmes Haddad that I likely printed from an email a long time ago, since the note on the recipe developer says she has a cookbook due out in November 2011. I mostly followed the recipe, except that I added 3 Tbs. milk powder and 2 Tbs. flax meal. I cut the salt from ½ to ¼ tsp. and replaced 4 Tbs. of melted butter with ¼ cup canola oil. Instead of a pinch of nutmeg, I used 14 tsp. I overdid the apples, so instead of 2 cups, it was over 3 cups. I used pecans instead of walnuts, as I have a large supply of pecans. She topped hers with 4 Tbs. large-grain sugar, which she noted is optional. She says that it is available in baking and specialty stores (she must have those in Los Angeles), but it is not a product that I have ever seen. I used some King Arthur sparkling sugar instead. We had some cake for dessert, and it is excellent. I would increase the nutmeg to ½ tsp. next time. The extra apple did not affect the structure, and indeed, I think it makes for a great cake.
For lunch on Sunday, I made a new recipe, "Caramelized Squash and Lentil Soup," which was featured in Daniela Galarza's new Substack, A Petite Feast. I actually had a bag of French lentils (probably bought at a TJ Maxx), and I had a butternut squash that needed to be used quickly. I made a 1 ½ recipe because of the size of my squash and used the broth I made on Friday, along with liquid I drained off of last week's roasted Fairy Tale Pumpkin that I let drain before I pureed it. I did not have cumin seed, so I substituted ¼ tsp. ground cumin. It is a very nice soup. I froze two containers for future lunches and will have the rest for three lunches this week.
For dinner, we had chicken salad sandwiches again.
Ok, I have to ask: Mike, what are all the eclair shells for?
On Saturday, I baked Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers from the dough I made a week ago.
For dinner on Saturday, I used the rest of the roasted chicken to make a chicken salad that went very well on the Apple Cider Oatmeal Bread that I baked earlier in the week.
On Friday, I made a small pot of chicken broth using chicken bones from the freezer.
We had more of the roast chicken, the rest of the pasta with goat cheese, and microwaved fresh broccoli.
Skeptic--I have had several fails over the years with the small packages of yeast. When I have to buy it at the grocery, I usually buy the jar.
No baking here today, but I cut into my bread, and my husband and I both agree that the flavor is delicious. I think that I may have slightly overdone the flour, so I will use a different process next time and will also soak the oats in the milk initially for about 5-10 minutes. That will help me figure out how much flour to add later in the process.
Today, I used my Ankarsrum mixer to mix and knead a new recipe:
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/apple-cider-oatmeal-bread-recipe
Details on the recipe itself are in the baking thread for March 1. I am finding that a rest during mixing, while important with my other stand mixers does not seem to work well with the Ankarsrum, because it confuses me on how much additional flour is needed. When I bake this recipe again, I will probably soak the oats for about 5 minutes with the liquid ingredients before adding the yeast. I will then omit the initial resting time, which I think was to hydrate the oats.
I found that the roller and knife did a good job of kneading in the chopped apples and walnuts, something which my older mixer did not do well.
We are out of bread for sandwiches, and in paging through saved recipes, I came upon yet another recipe from the King Arthur Catalog for "Apple Cider Oatmeal Bread." I replaced 2 cups of the bread flour with whole wheat flour and reduced the salt from 1 ½ to 1 ¼ tsp. I had a shy tablespoon of boiled cider and needed 2 Tbs. (forgot to order it last time), so I put some water in the bottle and shook it around to make the 2 Tbs. I used regular cinnamon and Winesap apples. I added 2 Tbs. Bob's Red Mill milk powder.
I'm not sure that recipes with short rest times in the mixing process work so well with my new mixer. (See Adventures with my Ankarsrum Mixer for details.) I thought that I had added enough flour, but during the subsequent folds, I needed to add more. I was talking to my sister as I was kneading and doing the rest time, and I may have cut out one of the rest times. The recipe is not the easiest to follow, and if I keep it, I will re-write the instructions. I baked it in the Emile Henry Dutch oven pot. It took 40 minutes with the lid on and another 15 minutes with the lid off to come to temperature. the loaf has a nice shape. I will slice it tomorrow at lunch.
Chocomouse--Some reviewers used their long bread bakers to do four or five of the rolls and put the others in bread pans. I think a cover is important if you plan to use the Everything Bagel topping because I suspect it would bun if baked uncovered at the high temperature for that long.
Dinner on Thursday was more of the chicken that I roasted yesterday, along with pasta with a bit of olive oil tossed in a log of goat cheese, and microwaved frozen peas.
Skeptic--I haven't eaten a good regular Navel orange in many years, perhaps because I lived in Texas and now live in Indiana. They were always dry and sour. I took a chance on the Cara Cara oranges when I saw them at Kroger here. They only appear seasonally. They are sweet, and the zest from the skin is flavorful. They actually do not produce a lot of juice. I needed three oranges to get to 3/4 cup of orange juice. (I usually eat the pulp after juicing them.) the orange flavor really stands out in baked goods.
I have been craving Orange Cinnamon Swirl Bread. I have Cara Cara oranges, which are in season and are the only ones I like for this recipe, so although I should have put the project off a day, on Wednesday evening, I baked my version of this recipe from Bernard Clayton Jr.'s The Complete Book of Breads. I use the Special Gold yeast, as the recipe has a lot of sugar, but each rise required 90 minutes. I was up until after 1 am., but it is worth it to have this wonderful bread for breakfast in the morning.
I made yogurt on Wednesday. For lunch, I made clam chowder. For dinner I roasted a package that was labeled split chicken, which turned out to be three chicken breasts that were cut oddly. I wonder if that is what they call it when meat cutters are learning their craft? I rubbed them with olive oil and sprinkled them with smoky paprika, then roasted at 365 for 50 minutes. At that point, I brushed them with maple syrup and put them back in for another 10 minutes at 360 F. They were slightly dry but the taste was good. I was experimenting after reading an online recipe that used paprika and honey. I think that the honey would stick better, so I will try it next time. We had some of the chicken with rolls I baked yesterday and microwaved frozen peas and carrots.
I hope your Hot Cross Buns came out ok, Skeptic.
I baked a new recipe today, Chewy Sourdough Rolls. The recipe appeared at least once in the King Arthur Bread Company catalog, and it is on their site. As always, I made a few changes. I replaced 2 cups of the 3 ½ cups bread flour with that much whole wheat flour. I cut the salt from 2 tsp. to 1 tsp. I used active yeast and added ¼ tsp. honey to activate it. The recipe gives a water range of 1 cup to 1 ½ cup, probably because sourdough starters vary. I began with 1 cup and later added an additional oz., for a total of 9 oz.
I used the Ankarsrum to mix and knead the dough. I started with 8 minutes of kneading on second speed, then added another 2 minutes, then 2 more. The dough required most of the 90 minutes to rise because the house is cool. The second rise was slightly less than an hour. I used the 4.2-qt Emile Henry ceramic Dutch oven for which the recipe was designed, but plenty of recipe reviewers had great workarounds for those who do not have this pot. While the recipe called for an oven at 500 F, that is then lowered to 450 F. when the pot is added, I just used a set temperature of 450 F. I also greased the Dutch oven and coated it with farina (cream of wheat) to prevent sticking--a problem that several reviewers mentioned. I baked it for 25 minutes, then for an additional 7 minutes uncovered. I turned it out of the pot to cool, even though the recipe says to let it cool in the pot. We gave it 20 minutes to cool, then I cut a roll apart for each of us to use for our dinner sandwiches. Ideally, I would have let them cool completely, but we were hungry, and it was getting late. We love the taste. I will be baking them again with my changes
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