[BakerAunt]

We are having more of the beef stew this Christmas Eve, which is good, because I am still baking more tonight for Christmas.

[BakerAunt]

Skeptic--I also can never get the fruit evenly distributed after the dough has had its first rise. I often cheat and just put it in the dough when I mix it before the first rise. With the bread machine, I wait and add it when the machine beeps. That seems to do a pretty good job..

I agree that your rolls sound really good!

[BakerAunt]

On Monday, I made beef and vegetable stew for dinner. The stew meat and the potatoes came from vendors at our farmers' market. It has been a cold, rainy day, so the stew was perfect.

I also finally had the chance to try out my Weston Deluxe Electric Food Mill on a double recipe of applesauce today. The instructions that come with it are minimal, so I watched a few You Tube videos to get some tips on working with apples and on how to set it up so that the sauce can flow more easily into my container. I ended up putting a large bowl on a couple of boxes on a stool next to the counter. While I did have to cut the apples into pieces (my recipe does not peel, core, or remove any seeds) so that it would work with the mill, the processing of each 5 lb. and 3 oz. of apples was amazingly quick. It does leave small pieces of skin, but they are too small to be a problem, and I like the chunkier texture. I have at least 10 lbs. more apples to process, but those will wait until after Christmas. I froze three quarts and set one aside for Christmas dinner.

[BakerAunt]

I hope you sat down for a while with your feet up, Joan! That is quite the accomplishment, and I know all the recipients will be excited to receive your baking.

[BakerAunt]

I made yogurt on Sunday for the first time since before we went on vacation. It will be good to have it at breakfast again.

I also roasted a peanut pumpkin. I had two, but one burst open overnight and made a mess. Usually, I would have processed the pumpkins by now, but there were just too many demands on my time in the autumn. I was particularly sorry to lose a peanut pumpkin, as I think the puree consistency is particularly well-suited to cakes and my cakey version of pumpkin bread.

We finished the turkey, spinach, and rice casserole tonight. It really holds up well.

[BakerAunt]

Here's hoping that the part for Mike's refrigerator arrives soon!

I was going to make stew today, as I need to use some potatoes, and I was able to buy a pound of stew meat at the farmers' market. However, the stew meat is frozen, so we had more of the turkey, spinach, and rice casserole. It does hold up well.

[BakerAunt]

Italian Cook--I'm glad that you liked the peanut butter oatmeal cookie recipe.

Wow, Joan! You had a busy day of baking, too!

What I really want is a taste of what Mike is baking.

On Saturday, I baked a double batch of King Arthur's Spiced Rye Ginger Cookies. My only changes are to add 1 Tbs. milk powder per recipe and to halve the salt. I used a #40 scoop, which gave me 47 cookies. I rolled them in equal parts of white, red, and green sparkling sugar. (King Arthur used to sell the sparkling sugar in colors other than white but stopped doing so.) A dozen of these will be a gift to our neighbors. These cookies are delectably spicy.

After baking the cookies, I experimented with making Eggnog scones by adapting a King Arthur recipe so that I used canola oil rather than butter. I was able to find a low-fat eggnog at the grocery when we did our shopping run, but I had to buy lactose-free to get it and to avoid eggnog with high-fructose corn syrup. I splurged and used 90 g of cinnamon chips and added ½ cup of chopped pecans. I will try a couple for breakfast tomorrow.

Next Day Update: I had two of the scones for breakfast. They are firmer than butter scones but still delicious. I used half whole wheat pastry flour and half King Arthur AP. I might try replacing the AP with white pastry flour next time.

[BakerAunt]

We had more of the turkey, spinach, and rice casserole I made yesterday. It is more flavorful today than when I first cooked it. I think that we can get two more meals from it.

[BakerAunt]

I baked Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers on Friday from dough I made earlier in the week. My husband is happy as he has been without his beloved crackers for several days.

[BakerAunt]

I looked in the bread holder on Thursday afternoon and realized that there was just one thin slice left, so I baked my version of King Arthur's Pompanoosuc Porridge Bread. I use a long, thinner loaf pan for it, which makes for nicely sized slices.

[BakerAunt]

Before Thanksgiving, an email from Stonyfield Yogurt had a recipe for Turkey Casserole that I thought showed promise. I needed to use the rest of the turkey we had frozen after Thanksgiving before we left for our trip, so on Thursday, I used it as a basis to make what I am calling Turkey, Spinach, and Rice Casserole. My ingredient changes were using whole wheat flour and replacing the dried basil with celery salt. I also used Fage non-fat Greek yogurt because that is what I have. I replaced the fresh spinach with cooked frozen spinach. I added 8 oz. of sliced mushrooms. I used brown basmati rice, which I cooked in turkey broth from the freezer, and I added the broth not used in the rice cooker, to the sauce. I also did not layer it but mixed it all together, put it in a 9 x 13" Emile Henry casserole dish and warmed for 20 minutes. It is slightly bland, but my husband likes bland. It made enough for three nights, so I will get a break from cooking tomorrow and can focus on other kitchen projects.

[BakerAunt]

On Thursday, I finally had time to use the spaghetti squash that I had roasted last week to bake my adaptation of Ken Haedrich's Spaghetti Squash and Parmesan Cheese Quiche for lunch today and for the next five days. I have adapted it to replace butter with olive oil, heavy cream with low-fat evaporated milk, and an oil crust. For my crust recipe, I replaced the whole wheat pastry flour with fine cornmeal (by weight). I used 1/3 cup of canola with enough olive oil for half a cup, because I did not know how the cornmeal would work with the oil. I like the flavor. Back when I was making butter crusts, I used a cornmeal butter crust recipe, so it was great to know that I can adapt my oil recipe to make a cornmeal crust.

[BakerAunt]

We went and got our Christmas tree on Wednesday at a Christmas tree farm about 30 minutes from us. They did not have many left, but we found a lovely white fir. That inspired me to bake a double recipe of my soft sugar cookies that use avocado oil instead of butter. I decorated a little over half with red and green sugar, and the rest with some red, green, and white sprinkles. I hope to bake more Christmas cookies tomorrow.

[BakerAunt]

We had the rest of the stir-fry tonight.

Joan--Thank you, again, for the sweets!

[BakerAunt]

Sending positive thoughts that she will be on that list!

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