BakerAunt
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
December 12, 2020 at 11:53 am in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of December 6, 2020? #27740Every 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.
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.
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.
I've baked that sourdough chocolate cake, CWCdesign. It is delicious.
I agree with Mike that the King Arthur baking books are good, and I have baked more than a few recipes from those books-. The Whole Grain baking book is a favorite; I also find the 200th anniversary cookbook very good.
When I started the low-saturated fat way of eating, I looked in vain for a cookbook that would be useful. Searching on line was also frustrating. What I found are "low fat" cookbooks and online recipes that assume all fat is bad (the old message before healthy fats were understood) or recipes that are vegan, which since I keep milk and eggs in my diet, are not useful for me. I've been putting together my own recipes in separate binders--in part so that I don't have to look at recipes that I can only bake when I have more people around to eat them.
On Thursday, I baked my Cinnamon Apple Barley Quick Bread to use the last two Jonathan apples. I adapted this recipe from a Bob’s Red Mill one that was gluten free. I am irritated with myself that I forgot to sprinkle the second layer of apples with the cinnamon sugar, which I only noticed after it was in the oven, although even then it would have been too late, as I had put the batter atop the apples. I sprinkled the top with red and green crystal sugar, so it made a festive presentation. I may adjust the baking powder and baking soda in the recipe, as I think the baking soda loses too much of its oomph as I am layering in the apples and cinnamon sugar.
Aaron--You might check the weight vs. volume measurement for the ingredients in that recipe. I have found in some of the KABC recipes that they must have done a formula conversion from volume, and it is not necessarily accurate. It was why the Spelt bread I made from their recipe always worked with volume but was a disaster when I used their weights. Once I weighed the volume amounts, I realized the difference was substantial. (And yes, I do stir the flour and use a spoon to put it into the measuring cup.)
I have several of RLB's baking books. I baked a cake recipe, with disastrous consequences, and assumed it was, perhaps my fault, and it might have been. Once I found Susan Purdy's cake book, I never went back. A friend, who has a friend who does cakes for special events, told me that friend always goes to Purdy for "crucial" cakes. The cake I baked for our weeding reception came from Purdy's book.
I have Beard's bread book, but I don't think that I ever baked any of the yeast breads. I have a hazy memory of baking a quick bread, but I do not recall it, so it must not have been memorable.
I have Hamelman's book but have been too intimidated to bake from it. I have several of Peter Reinhart's books, but I've not baked any bread from them. I tried a graham cracker recipe, but it wasn't what I was seeking in terms of taste and texture. That may have been because I needed a non-butter recipe, so perhaps any would not have been what I sought. I tried a cracker recipe as well--searching for some alternatives--but I found it only ok.
I'm surprised at how many of my bread recipes came from those little Pillsbury cook booklet that used to be sold next to the checkout stands thirty years ago. Those, and some of the magazines, had more approachable bread recipes.
I should make a New Years Resolution to bake more new recipes from my bread baking library.
My guess is that the bread flour, because of its gluten, would produce a less tender scone. I have substituted half whole wheat pastry flour (stone ground from Bob's Red Mill) with good results. Also, using half of the KABC Irish wholemeal flour produces a tender scone.
I stopped using KABC whole wheat flour in favor of Bob's Red Mill because the stone grinding seems to me to improve the taste. It also has those specks of bran.
Your soup sounds delicious, Skeptic.
For Wednesday dinner, my husband cooked some pork, and I roasted the last of the sweet potatoes from the farmers’ market, drizzling them with a bit of maple syrup ten minutes before they were done. Microwaved frozen peas completed the meal.
We should be able to coast on leftovers from last night and tonight through the end of the week. More time for baking!
Skeptic--I've made the faux springele recipe from King Arthur. I tried making real springel some years ago without the Bakers' Ammonia. They were very hard, which may be normal, and I did not much care for them. That recipe came from a magazine.
I made a great--no butter--gingerbread cookie with springele molds last year. The recipe is probably at the House on a Hill website. They make springele molds but no longer sell them directlt.
I'm not sure about the mat, as that was not something I had to use.
I am pretty sure that there is a recipe or two here at Nebraska Kitchen, I think from Laura.
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