[BakerAunt]

Happy Anniversary, Mike and Diane!

[BakerAunt]

Update on the pickles: I could taste the dill flavor more today. I really like their crunchiness!

[BakerAunt]

Your cake is beautiful, Joan. I think it looks much better than it would have as a loaf! While the lacy look may be because you had a lot of glaze, it works well.

I'm impressed that you were able to find good oranges, but then, you do live closer to Florida than I do.

[BakerAunt]

I had planned to bake sweet rolls on Tuesday, but I realized at lunch that with both of us eating sandwiches--my husband because he always does and me to take advantage of our tomatoes for turkey bacon sandwiches--that we needed more for tomorrow. I baked a tweaked version of King Arthur's Chewy Semolina Rye Bread. My tweaks are replacing 1 ½ cups of the water with buttermilk, adding 3 Tbs. special dry milk, omitting the dried onion and vital wheat gluten, cutting the salt by a third, and replacing 2 Tbs. sugar with 2 Tbs. honey. I used Bob's Red Mill dark rye flour, but I think the recipe uses medium rye, judging by the picture that accompanied the recipe in the catalog. The bread bakes nicely in the Emile Henry long baker. Unfortunately, the battery in the instant read thermometer is failing, and I did not have a replacement, so I had to use one of my other thermometers, which is rather slow. The bread needed about 8 minutes longer after the upper time the recipe specified.

I was able to time the baking, so that when I took out the roasted chicken breasts I made for dinner, I could turn down the oven temperature and put the bread in to bake within about 15 minutes.

[BakerAunt]

When we grocery shopped this morning, I found a package of three bone-in large chicken breasts that were marked down for quick sale. I roasted those for Tuesday night dinner, which will give us plenty of leftovers. I also thawed some chicken broth and made another farro stir-fry using green onion, red bell peppers, mushrooms, and half-cut squash (the zucchini-type one that has the seeds in a bulb at the end). I had two tomatoes that needed to be used quickly, so I cut those up and threw them in, along with some of the kale from the pot my husband still has on the porch, although it is getting tougher. There is enough for one or two more nights.

[BakerAunt]

We were given six small reddish gold pears over a week ago. We each ate one, but they are not a flavorful variety for eating raw, so on Monday evening, I cut up the rest of them and baked six large Pear Cardamom Oatmeal muffins. I will have one for breakfast tomorrow and freeze the others--if I can find space in the freezer!

[BakerAunt]

I roasted potato chunks on Monday to go with leftover pork and the rest of the green bean salad. I used some of the potatoes that my husband grew.

I ate a pickle spear for lunch today. While it is nice and crunchy, it does not have much dill flavor. Perhaps I should have used more dill seed. I will still enjoy them, but I will think about how to adjust the spices.

[BakerAunt]

For Sunday dinner, my husband pan cooked some boneless pork, which we had with leftover potato wedges from yesterday and more of the green bean salad.

Hugs, Joan! I know that you have lovely memories to sustain you.

[BakerAunt]

Well, heat is not involved, but the cooking thread seems the best place to put today's effort:

At the farmers market yesterday, I talked with one of the vendors who had small cucumbers for pickling. He offered to send me a link to the recipe he uses for refrigerator pickles, so I bought six. On Sunday, I printed the recipe from the blog Well Plated. I followed it except for deleting the garlic at my husband's request, and I replaced the fresh dill with 1 Tbs. dill seed, after consulting internet sources for amount. As I have pickling salt, I used that instead of kosher salt. The recipe stated that it was fine to quarter the cucumbers for spears, so I did that instead of making coins. I have a Ball wide-mouthed quart canning jar that I picked up at the local thrift store a while back, so I used it, along with a screw lid from the packet I bought to fit it and the large jars of honey we buy. We will start sampling them tomorrow at dinner time.

Here's a link to the recipe:

https://www.wellplated.com/refrigerator-pickles/

[BakerAunt]

This evening, I am baking Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers from dough I made last week.

[BakerAunt]

For dinner on Saturday, I made Crispy Oven Fish and Chips with Dill Tartar Sauce. I also made what will probably be the last green bean, cherry tomato, and Greek cheese salad of the year, as the green beans are slowing down. I think that I have made the salad seven times this summer, and we are fine with that!

[BakerAunt]

I made yogurt on Friday. I could not make it earlier in the week, as I had no more Stonyfield yogurt to use as starter until we did our big grocery run yesterday.

[BakerAunt]

I baked the full recipe for my adaptation of The Shipyard Galley's Zucchini Muffins on Friday morning, as I had 2 cups of grated zucchini from last week that I needed to use. I made twelve regular muffins and six large muffins. I froze the large ones for quick breakfasts, as I was out of muffins in the freezer. Future me will thank Past me for doing that.

[BakerAunt]

Yes, Len, I recall reading a blurb from King Arthur that they were changing the name because too many people thought that white whole wheat flour meant white flour. While it is true that the nutritional value is a bit lower for white whole wheat flour, it is still a wholegrain flour. Unfortunately, baking literacy is not strong amongst King Arthur's clientele. Bob's Red Mill used to carry a white whole wheat flour, which they called "ivory" flour, but they stopped offering it six or seven years ago. I suspect that BRM stopped carrying it--along with barley flour and a number of other products--because they wanted to cut the variety of products they carry.

BTW, your oatmeal cookie substitutions sound great! And I agree, Martha has probably never eaten one.

[BakerAunt]

That's a great pizza, Joan!

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