BakerAunt
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My husband transplanted the three tomato plants into the garden today. It joins lettuce, a few radishes, carrots, snow peas, and green beans. Only the lettuce and a few radishes have produced this early. He planted some seed from the small spaghetti squash and honey nut butternut squash that I also bought at last year's farmers' market. We will see how they do.
The black raspberries on the terrace will be abundant if we continue to get rain, and the blackberries are finishing blooming and starting to fruit.
On Sunday, I baked the Apricot Oatmeal Bars (at Nebraska Kitchen), but I used my strawberry-blackberry jam. I also replace the AP flour with white whole wheat and reduce the light brown sugar to ½ cup. These will be dessert through Wednesday.
I don't have a separate freezer either, Joan. However, we have two refrigerators, which means two freezer compartments. It comes in handy for freezing pumpkin puree, blueberries, an extra loaf or two of bread. It is a half hour drive to better grocery stores in the larger town northeast of us, so we shop every three or four weeks and stock up.
The refrigerator in the garage apt. also stores most of my wholegrain flours.
On Saturday, I made dough for my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers. I will bake the crackers next week.
I did not notice any difference in the Grape-Nuts bread with the lesser amount of salt, so I will make that change permanent.
I went ahead and ordered two of the Volrath pans. I will post back with a review once they arrive and I test bake them.
I agree that oil cookies are different, so as long as the eater knows that, they shine in their own right.
I had not expected to bake bread on Friday, but after lunch we were down to a single slice. I baked two loaves of my adaptation of Grape Nuts bread. I decided to cut the salt further to 1 ½ tsp. My concern is that both the Grape Nuts and the malted milk powder contain sodium, and I want to keep the bread in a healthy range. We will see how it tastes when we slice into a loaf tomorrow.
It's always nice to have a major portion of the meal tucked away in the freezer, Joan.
Dinner on Friday was black-eyed peas, cooked with a ham hock, then combined with sauteed in olive oil chopped celery and garlic and brown rice, with parsley and freshly ground black pepper added at the end. We have enough for at least two more meals.
Thanks for sharing your test information, Len. I appreciate your baking cookies in the interest of science!
I did some measuring. The Vollrath pan would fit my oven better, with the 20x15 dimensions. the 16 inches would take the pan all the way to the door and not leave much room on the sides. I suspect an error in their height measurement of 2.5 inches; that is probably cm. which would equate to 1 inch, since what is pictured is clearly a sheet pan, and that is what the reviewers state.
The Winware at 21.75x16 would not allow enough air circulation.
So much was cheaper and better made 25 years ago. I still have my sideless Calphalon nonstick baking sheets, although I almost never use them anyore, as the light colored and heavier Vollrath cookie sheets work much better. The Calphalon sheets made in America were slightly thicker and baked more evenly than those made after the move to China. A fellow baker had the same observation.
I am still dithering over which sheet pan to buy, especially as I would like to buy two for certain recipes.
Thank you, CWCdesign! The site would not let me print without a Facebook account. (I have never been on Facebook and see no reason to start now.) However, I was able to copy and paste it into a word document and print it.
That is an interesting technique she uses of turning the "loaves" twice during baking. I know that she does not want the baker to use parchment, but I am wondering how much of a mess it would be to clean up the baking sheet afterwards. I assume that not using parchment contributes to caramelization of the sugar on the outside.
Thanks for explaining the difference between tofu and tempeh, Cwcdesign. I still haven't tried other, and I think that my husband is a hard no on both.
On Thursday, I made fish and chips for dinner, using the swai. I reduced the fish cooking tine to 18 minutes, and that kept it from being dry. I used some Greek yogurt mixed with dried dill and dashes of garlic powder and roasted onion powder as a condiment on my piece, which cut the catfish taste. We still have two more pieces in the freezer. We had it with a mixed greens salad with cherry tomatoes and mushrooms.
I miss having sister time.
Before I baked the Key Lime Tartlets last week, I did a google search for egg white recipes, as the tartlets would use three egg yolks. On Wednesday, I used one of the whites to bake a recipe from Epicurious:
https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/3-ingredient-hazelnut-cookies
Note: It uses a pinch of salt, so it is actually a 4-ingredient recipe.
My husband is not fond of hazelnuts, and I had no whole ones, so I substituted pecans, as one reviewer also did. I toasted the pecans for 12 minutes at 350F, which was fine, before using my small food processor to coarsely grind them. I used the whisk attachment with my hand mixer to whisk the egg and salt, then folded in the sugar and the pecans. I used my Zeroll Scoop #40 to form the cookies, ending up with ten rather than twelve. I baked them on the third rack up (a bit above center) for 18 minutes. These ae a light cookie (gluten-free) and are crisp on the edges and chewy in the center. The recipe is a keeper for when I have a leftover egg white.
We will have leftover stir-fry on Tuesday.
I made another batch of yogurt today.
Growing plants from seeds is so much fun! My husband has a small tangerine tree that he started from seeds that came from tangerines we bought in Florida two years ago. It is still small, and he does not know if it will ever have fruit. He also started a tree from a blood orange seed I found this year. Most of the blood oranges do not have seeds or have ones that are not promising, but I found one, so he planted it just to see, and now we have a small plant.
He is also planning to try some of the heirloom squash seed from the honey butternut squash and the small spaghetti squash we bought. I can always get the larger ones at the farmers' market.
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