[BakerAunt]

Italian Cook: I remember seeing recipes for "homemade maple syrup." Yuk.

I bought maple sugar from Vermont Country Store earlier this year when King Arthur announced being sold out for the season.

CWCdesign--The only thing I miss about where we lived in Texas was that we had our own pecan tree.

[BakerAunt]

Italian Cook--I read that oil cakes should be mixed gently, or the cake texture may become tough. I will often beat the oil in with the sugar and butter, and the eggs. However, I mix in the dry ingredients gently by hand. That seems to help keep my cakes more tender.

[BakerAunt]

I had made some room in the freezer with what I used last week, so on Sunday I was able to bake two loaves of my Buttermilk Whole Wheat Grape-Nuts Bread—one to eat and one to freeze. The house is cooler, and my husband started the fire later, so the two rises took longer than usual.

[BakerAunt]

Gee, someone in Georgia usually has pecans on hand? 🙂

[BakerAunt]

On Sunday, I made another batch of yogurt.

Dinner tonight will be leftover stir-fry.

[BakerAunt]

Thanks, CWCdesign. I had a hazy memory that Cost Plus had merged/changed name, but as I am far away from stores these days, I sometimes forget what exists and what does not.

[BakerAunt]

A note on the oil-based Lucia buns. They are good, but without the butter to carry the flavor, and to provide additional flavor and tenderness, the taste is somewhat flat. I will go back, next year to using half butter and half oil. I wanted to give the oil-based a try because there are other Christmas treats that I want to bake and consume.

[BakerAunt]

Grinding flax does not sound like something that I would want to do. I probably won't try the recipe unless I can figure out how to make flax meal work in it.

[BakerAunt]

Aaron has Donut Day. I'm preparing for Saint Lucia's Day tomorrow, as a nod to my Swedish heritage. On Saturday, I experimented with my standard recipe for Lucia Buns, based on notes that I made last year. I decided that I would try them with 1/3 cup oil replacing the ½ cup of butter. (Last year, I used half butter and half oil.) I let the bread machine do the kneading. They baked well. Tomorrow we will have some with breakfast.

[BakerAunt]

Len--I'm fond of pasta in shapes. Think of the alphabet ones, but these are little Christmas trees, santas, and shooting starts. This particular brand is Riese, and it is made in Germany. I've bought similar pasta that was shaped like pumpkins and leaves for fall, and once I found bunny rabbits for Easter. It's the kind of ingredient that I would usually pick up at T.J. Maxx or Tuesday morning seasonally. I suspect that Cost Plus (does it still exist?) and some other stores might carry it as well.

[BakerAunt]

Saturday night dinner was stir-fry, made with celery, carrots, red bell pepper, mushrooms, broccoli, green onion tops, leftover pork, deglazing from when the pork was cooked, and soba noodles.

[BakerAunt]

That is pretty much what I have read, Kimbob, in terms of nutrition. The article says flax seeds also need to be ground, not just soaked. My concern is that grinding might throw off the bread recipe.

Using flax meal in the bread soaker step does not seem like it would work.

I'm not sure if coarsely grinding flax seeds before making the soaker for the bread that includes flax seeds would throw off the recipe.

[BakerAunt]

Every now and then, I miss having moderately spicy food, which my husband cannot eat. For lunch on Saturday, I made soup, using chopped red onion that I needed to use up, a chopped small stalk of celery, 2 chopped carrots, a chopped bell pepper, and 2 large cloves of garlic. I cooked those in some olive oil, before adding a can of chopped tomatoes with hatch chilis (mild). I used about a cup of turkey renderings that I accidentally thawed, 3 ½ cups of frozen broth from last year’s Christmas turkey, and 1 ¼ cups of cooked black beans that I’d frozen. (The beans were what I thought I was grabbing from the freezer last night instead of the turkey renderings.) I seasoned with ½ tsp. Penzey’s chili powder and a couple dashes of cayenne (old so not so hot). My final addition was Christmas shaped pasta. It is just what I was craving, and I have enough for lunches into next week.

[BakerAunt]

With some trepidation, I roasted our last queen squash on Friday. Before I put the cooked bulgur in and returned it to the little oven, I had my husband taste it. He pronounced it fine, so we proceeded; otherwise, I would have tossed it. While not as sweet as some we have had, they did not have the slightly bitter taste. We had it with leftover pork, leftover sweet potatoes, and microwaved fresh broccoli.

[BakerAunt]

My copy of Living Bread arrived today. It is definitely NOT a beginners book. I'm not even sure how much baking I will do from it. However, a lot of the book is about various bakers and the breads they bake, and there is a lot of information about European flours with great photographs. I do expect at least to read a lot of the information. Whether I will get up my nerve to bake any of the breads--or can even find all of the ingredients--remains to be seen.

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