BakerAunt
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At the local thrift store, a couple of weeks ago, I found a heavyweight, square muffin pan, with a capacity of 6 cups, that makes 12 muffins. The brand name is Technique. I decided to bake Ellen's buns on Monday and to divide the dough into the pans. They baked about 3 minutes faster than when baked in a 10 x 10-inch pan. It made great little sandwich buns for our chicken salad tonight.
As I was heating up the oven anyway, I also put together a double recipe of my adaptation of the Soft Oatmeal Cookies from Jennie Can Cook. I usually use white whole wheat flour, but this time I decided to use whole wheat pastry flour, since I have to buy it in 8 lb. bags. I have not tried the cookies yet, but Scott had one after dinner, and he gave great reviews to the new, softer version, so I may be making that substitution from now on. With the increase in electrical utility rates, I am trying to plan my baking, so that I use an already heated up oven for a second bake.
Italian Cook--I thought about your question overnight and pulled out my copy of The Elements of Style (Strunk and White), the only book on writing and grammar that I think is worthwhile because it is easy to read, well organized, and nice and short. I'm puzzled as to what your teacher meant, as I do not think that there is any rule about overusing words ending in "ing." Now, words ending in "ize" are another matter, as Strunk and White note. Those should be used sparingly.
So, I would say, go ahead and use words ending in "ing" as much as you wish.
On Monday, I de-seeded the rest of my blackberries. I got 12 oz. to freeze for my brownie recipe and 8 oz. to freeze for my coffee cake recipe.
I made chicken salad for dinner with the rest of the roast chicken breast. We had it on the rolls I baked.
On Sunday, I made dough for Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers. I divided it into four pieces, wrapped each in saran, and refrigerated them. I will bake the cracker later this week after the dough rests in the refrigerator for three or four days.
We finished the soup on Sunday night and had a slice each of the last small loaf of pumpkin bread that I thawed from the freezer for dessert.
Saturday's dinner was another easy one. We had more of the roasted chicken breast and the rest of the green bean, cherry tomato, and feta salad. However, we also each had an ear of sweet corn bought at this morning's farmers market.
Earlier in the day, I made more cucumber salsa to use up two more of the pickling cucumbers that got overripe in the garden. I peel off the yellow skin, seed them, then cut them up before adding them to my tomato salsa. Then, Scott came in with another two., so there will be more cucumber salsa in my future.
I also made yogurt.
What I want is an appliance that is a multi-cooker that is NOT an insta pot. I want it for warming up soup in motel rooms and perhaps for doing some other quick motel room cooking when we travel. Right now, I'm using an older, larger rice cooker, which does heat soup quickly, and I can also use it when we are in Florida and want rice. I'd like to expand my motel room quick cooking since we have been relying on Progresso soup, and I only buy the reduced sodium. The problem is that Progresso stopped making a reduced sodium beef soup and only makes a chicken and rice and a chicken and noodle, the latter of which is too sparse. I noted on our last getaway that the chicken and rice soup seems to have less by the way of chicken and vegetables now, a quiet form of shrinkflation.
I'm not sure how my own soups would heat up in the rice cooker. I looked at a multicooker at Green Pan that has ceramic lining, but it is too large to cart on trips.
Ooh, Joan--peanut butter pie with chocolate crust. Who needs Reese's peanut butter cups?
We had more of the green bean, cherry tomato, and Greek cheese salad as well as more of the roasted chicken for Friday's dinner. Lazy summer meals are great.
My baking on Thursday: I have been craving English muffins--specifically the Easy Buckwheat Oat English Muffins, a recipe at Nebraska Kitchen that I moved from its posters original post at the last rendition of the King Arthur Baking Circle, and that I have made several times in the past. It has always been a difficult dough to work with, but I thought it would be ideally suited to the Ankarsrum. I make a few changes to the recipe, such as substituting 1 ½ cup of buttermilk for part of the water and reducing the salt to 1 tsp. This time, I also added 2 Tbs. milk powder and 1 Tbs. flax meal. I also decided that instead of oat flour I would use an equal amount of old-fashioned oats. The recipe definitely mixes better in the Ankarsrum. I could never get the paddle on my previous mixer to do the work correctly and would resort to the dough hook. I even did the dough in the bread machine, but due to its stickiness that was a messy clean-up. I mixed the dough on the first speed, then on second speed for 5 minutes before adding 2 minutes, then 1 minute, then another 1 minute. I think that it is easier to get the dough completely hydrated with the Ankarsrum.
I left the batter-like dough in the mixing bowl to rise. Ankarsrum comes with a cover for the mixing bowl for just that purpose. After two hours, I turned out the dough onto my Silpat mat coated with plenty of semolina, which made the shaping much easier. I covered them with an old deli cover to rest for 20 minutes but started heating my cast iron pans, coated with a little Vegalene, at 15 minutes. I should not have pre-heated the pans for so long. I had to turn them off and let them cool slightly before I could proceed, although, since the muffins cool down the pan when they hit it, I should have allowed for that temperature drop. It is hard to maintain a consistent pan temperature on the stove top. It ranged from 270-330 F. I used a cast iron flat, round flat griddle pan for three at a time, and a Le Creuset "skinny" rectangular griddle pan for another three, then did the second batch. I used my instant read thermometer to make sure the centers were at 185-190 F. I am looking forward to having a couple, toasted, tomorrow with Land o' Lakes Sweet Cream spread (canola oil and butter) and some of the pear jam I made last year. I like that the recipe does not require muffin rings, and yes, they are not the greatest circles. Coating with the semolina makes them easier to move to the griddle pans.
Thursday night was more soup for dinner at our house. That was good because it gave me time for my baking project.
We found three large bone-in chicken breasts on sale at the grocery store yesterday, so for dinner on Wednesday, I roasted them. I think that most people do not want to deal with the bones, but Scott cuts off the meat after I roast the pieces, then I freeze the bones for broth, so that is a win. Scott harvested more of our green beans, so I made our favorite Green Bean, Cherry Tomato, and Greek Cheese salad. Most of the cherry tomatoes were from the farmers market, but four of them were from our plants.
After dinner, I made another jar of refrigerator dill pickles, using our pickling cucumbers and dill from our garden.
You can never go wrong with blueberry muffins!
Good luck with your beans, Len. Our green beans are producing well.
Tuesday night's dinner was some of the soup that I made on Sunday.
I needed to use up two pickling cucumbers that Scott missed in the garden, so the skin had yellowed. I pared them, then cleaned out the seeds before dicing them. I mixed them with a can of Del Monte tomatoes with Hatch chilis, then added some chopped onion. It needed some punch, so in went two tsp. of Penzey's Salsa & Pico seasoning. I bought a large bag of Tostitos at the grocery store, so I will be having the salsa and chips along with my lunch.
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