[BakerAunt]

I knew this one.

[BakerAunt]

Yesterday (Feb. 17), I put most of the that Kamut-Lemon Crispbread that was more like focaccia into the trash. Neither of us wanted to eat it, and there was a somewhat bitter aftertaste, which might have been the anise, but I'm wondering if it was the baker's ammonia. At any rate, I no longer have to look at that waste of good ingredients. I don't plan to try that recipe again.

[BakerAunt]

For lunch on Tuesday, I made a soup experiment. I had leftover lima bean broth and a cup of crushed tomatoes from the casserole that I made last week. I sautéed onion in olive oil, then added some garlic. I added the crushed tomatoes and about 1 Tbs. tomato paste. I put in a bit of sugar, as these tomatoes are rather acidic. I added the bean broth, then seasoned with about ½ tsp. Penzey’s beef base, ¼ tsp. Penzey’s Pico and Gallo blend, and a few shakes of Penzey’s Adobo seasoning. I then let it boil and cooked it down a bit, before using my hand blender to smooth it out. It would probably be good with a bit of Greek yogurt whisked into it, but I’m saving the remainder of that for another recipe. It’s a nice accompaniment to the bread I baked last night.

[BakerAunt]

I was able to guess the correct answer. Like Joan, I have no intention of gaining first hand experience with it. Smoked salmon is as far as I will go, and that is with cream cheese and a bagel....

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

My oven does hold in the heat well when I'm using it, but it seems to be designed to vent the heat when I turn it off if the temperature is over 325 or higher. The fan comes on until the oven is cooled down, probably to around 300F, since when I've baked at that temperature, there is no fan action when I turn it off, and there was for a short while at 325F. So, it would probably not heat up the house too much in the summer.

My husband did mutter about the venting of the heat when I was baking this summer, but in a mostly open concept first floor, it does not stay in the kitchen.

[BakerAunt]

I actually found some black rice in a T.J. Maxx once (on clearance), along with some red rice. I mixed it in with brown rice. Currently I buy Lundberg's Wild Rice combination, which consists of long grain brown rice, sweet brown rice, wild rice, Wehani red rice, and black rice. I usually use a half or a third in combination with brown rice, as brown rice alone can be a bit boring. I don't usually cook the blend by itself because these specialty rice can scratch the rice cooker's non-stick lining. Bob's Red Mill had a wonderful rice blend, but they discontinued it.

[BakerAunt]

On Monday, I baked two loaves of Grape Nuts bread and tried yet another variation. I used 2 ½ cups whole wheat flour and 3 cups bread flour. Two loaves of bread—one goes into the freezer until needed—seem to last about ten days in my house.

We had some of the lemon cake I baked yesterday for dessert. The flavor is good, and it has nice lemon flavor. I would bake the recipe again, but the cake is slightly on the heavy side in terms of texture.

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

For Monday night's dinner, I roasted eight chicken thighs, which I found for 59 cents per pound at the grocery on Sunday. I like roasting a big batch so that we have enough for several more meals. I also cooked freekeh in chicken broth, and we had microwaved fresh broccoli.

I also made another batch of yogurt.

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

I answered correctly. I may have read about this topic.

[BakerAunt]

We had leftover pork roast with barley, butternut squash, and kale.

[BakerAunt]

I wanted to use up some Greek yogurt and lemon juice, so I looked at cakes online, found three possibilities, and decided to use the one from Ciao Florentina as my base recipe:

https://ciaoflorentina.com/lemon-greek-yogurt-cake-recipe/

I made a few changes in that I substituted in ½ cup barley flour for that much AP, and as I had no lemon zest, I added 1/8 tsp lemon oil. I have a Nordic Ware loaf pan with citrus slice design on top, so I chose that pan and used the Grease to coat it. I lowered the baking temperature to 325F and baked for 50 minutes, which was when the tester came out clean. (I baked it on the third rack up in my oven; Nordic Ware pans do better there.) I let it cool on a rack in the pan for 10 minutes while I made a glaze from another online recipe that combines 1/3 cup sugar and 1/3 cup lemon juice, which are heated together until the sugar dissolves and mixture is clear. I turned the cake onto a rack set over a tray and used a pastry brush to brush on the glaze. It was a lot of glaze. We will have it for dessert on Monday. I'll post then about taste and texture.

[BakerAunt]

I had to guess and got it wrong.

[BakerAunt]

That bread looks wonderful. Too bad that Word Press doesn't have a "taste" function. 🙂 Seeing it makes me start thinking about starting a rye sour of my own....

Thanks for pointing out the timing issues. I've put sticky notes in my cookbook.

[BakerAunt]

Back when I was making pot roast, I used a Dutch Oven, and it cooked for a long time at a low setting, so yes, that would be using the oven as a slow cooker. That is also the idea behind the pork roast recipe that I wrote about in the cooking thread. I'm now wondering if the pork roast recipe assumes an oven with a visible element, and that is why the author had no trouble getting the roast to cook, but the rest of us cannot.

I recall when my Thermador oven (left behind in Texas) developed a stuck relay while I was baking a chocolate cake. Fortunately, I was right there in the kitchen, saw the fire start, and turned off the oven.

A year or so ago, there was an oven fire in the South Bend/Mishawaka area that occurred when the husband set the oven to self-clean, then went out to run an errand. Fortunately, a neighbor saw the smoke and called in the alarm. The house was damaged but repairable.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

Michael Pollen on coffee:

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/02/10/npr-michael-pollan-explains-caffeine-cravings-and-why-you-dont-have-to-quit?utm_campaign=The+Thread_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sfmc_&utm_content=

• This reply was modified 6 years, 1 month ago by BakerAunt.

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