BakerAunt
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I made soup for Thursday night dinner. I had a package of Pereg Soup Mix (Pereg is a natural foods company that has been around since 1906), which I had picked up at T.J. Maxx, then forgotten about. It’s a mix of barley and various kinds of beans, with an expiration date of fourteen months ago. Oops. I’d used another expired package a while back, and I had trouble softening the beans, despite lengthy soaking. So, I grabbed my newly purchased copy of J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Food Lab and read that beans should be soaked in salted water and cooked in salted water.
I used about 1 Tbs. coarse salt for the soaking, which was about 14 hours by the time I got around to them. I drained them, then used another 1 Tbs. coarse salt in the water in which I cooked them. I had beautifully done beans and barley in an hour. In a separate, larger pot, I sautéed carrots, celery, half a leftover red bell pepper, and mushrooms in olive oil. I added three cloves minced garlic, then ¼ cup Penzey’s dried onion re-constituted in 1 cup chicken broth. (That’s my workaround, since my husband seems to do ok with dried onion.) I added leftover browned ground turkey from the pizza earlier this week, and some more chicken broth. I seasoned with 1 Tbs. Penzey’s Bouquet Garni and 1 tsp. of Penzey’s Forward (salt free substitute of spices to use instead of salt). I simmered it for 15 minutes, then added the bean mixture, along with freshly minced parsley, and let it simmer for 40 minutes. It has fabulous taste, but it is a bit salty from how I cooked the beans, so perhaps I’ll use somewhat less salt next time. (The Food Lab does not specify how much salt is needed to get the good result.) We ate it with cornbread.
Welcome back, Chocomouse!
On Wednesday, I made another batch of Wholegrain Maple Granola. (My husband is snacking on it a lot.)
I also made up dough for another batch of his favorite snack foods, my lower-saturated fat Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers. These, however, won't be baked for 4-5 days, which improves the flavor of the dough.
My third baking project on Monday was to bake Barley Crispbread for a second time, using as its basis Jan Hedh’s recipe—with my guesses as to what the flours should be. With barley and rye, topped with sunflower seeds and sesame seeds, it is very tasty and mostly wholegrain. I cut the salt back from 18 to 10g this time, as when I first baked it, my husband and I both disliked how overly salty it was. I also changed the mixing directions a bit, so it wasn't quite as bad to knead, although I was still stopping the mixer and adjusting the dough over the 15-minute period.
I also roll each dough half to 40x36 inches, as I do not have a baking sheet or an oven would accommodate a depth of 40 inches. The 40-inch length of the pan just fits.
