[BakerAunt]

On Wednesday, I was going to make a stir-fry using leftover pork that my husband had cooked for dinner on Tuesday, but I got busy on something else, and next thing I knew it was nearly 6:30. So, last night, we each had a pork chop sandwich with a slice of bread each and steamed broccoli. Tonight, I will make sure that I get dinner preparations started in a timely fashion, and we will have pork stir fry with celery, broccoli, red bell pepper, mushrooms, de-fatted pork drippings, onion (turns out we had no green onion), and soba noodles.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

Thanks for the report, Mike. Your experience suggests that this recipe does indeed require a large food processor. (Sigh, says the woman whose food processor is unlikely to handle it.) I'll be interested to hear, if you bake it again, if you can prevent the collapse by tweaking the process.

[BakerAunt]

I baked bread on Tuesday morning. I again used the base recipe from KAF’s Oatmeal Toasting Bread, with my usual changes of buttermilk, less salt, and oil in place of butter. I used 1 ½ cups bread flour and 1 ¼ cups whole wheat flour, and ¼ cup dark rye flour. I used Rolled 5-grain cereal flakes (Bob’s Red Mill), which I soaked in 1 cup of buttermilk for about 45 minutes before starting. I also increase the water to ¾ cups. I add the oil after the bread machine does its initial 5 minutes of mixing and near the end of its 5-minute rest period. I find the bread needs to bake for 45 minutes to get to about 197F. I look forward to tasting this new variation on the recipe when I cut the loaf tomorrow.

[BakerAunt]

On Sunday, I once again baked the Lime Bundt cake that I have been developing. This time, I added 2 Tbs. lime juice to the batter along with the zest, and I will do so again, as it gave the cake more lime flavor. I also increased the freshly ground nutmeg from ¼ to ½ tsp. I mixed it by hand, first stirring together the dry ingredients in a large bowl, then in a smaller one, first whisking the oil and buttermilk before whisking in each egg, one at a time, and finally whisking in the vanilla, zest, and juice. I poured that into the dry ingredients, then combined with a cake whisk. (This is a flat whisk that resembles a miniature tennis racket that has Wireax, stainless steel, and made in England written on it. I got it from either King Arthur or Vermont Country Store, and I hope it never breaks, because I've not seen another one anywhere.) The cake had lovely soft consistency. I am confident enough about the recipe tweaks that I’ve now written it in my recipe book.

[BakerAunt]

For Sunday’s dinner, I made the “Pizza Beans” from Smitten Kitchen Every Day. I first made this recipe last fall, but at the time, my husband requested that next time I make it, I add ground turkey, so I did. I had mozzarella on hand, thanks to Mike Nolan’s helpful advice that it can be frozen. (I freeze it in 4 oz. amounts, tightly wrapped in saran, then sealed in a baggie.) I decrease her amount of cheese from 8 oz. to 4 oz. and use one made with part skim milk. I cooked my own large lima beans from scratch. I do not have the Italian type she uses, so I just used the large lima beans sold by Bob’s Red Mill. We like this recipe, so it will stay in the repertoire. It was particularly nice on a cold day in which it snowed heavily all afternoon.

[BakerAunt]

I baked a new cracker recipe on Saturday: Toasty Wheat Oat Crackers. I adapted this recipe, which appears in Recipes from the Old Mill: Baking with Whole Grains, a book I’ve previously mentioned. My ingredient changes were to reduce the salt from 1 tsp. to ¾ tsp., and to substitute 2 ½ Tbs. canola oil for 3 Tbs. margarine. The original recipe formed the dough into a log; after refrigerating for several hours, it was sliced 1/8-inch thick, then put on ungreased baking sheets and flattened until very thin with the tines of a fork. Instead, I formed the dough into a rectangular mass, wrapped it in saran and refrigerated for several hours. I then rolled it out as thin as I could get it by hand onto parchment paper, using saran over the top while I rolled. It filled a large flat baking sheet. I used a pizza cutter to cut it into 3x3 cm. squares. I had to bake it longer than the 15 minutes stated. I also cut the crackers apart at the end of that time, then put them back in for a few more minutes. After removing them, I emptied the parchment onto the hot cookie sheet, made sure that they were all spaced apart, and allowed to cool. The flavor is excellent, and the thinnest ones are nicely crispy.

[BakerAunt]

On Friday, I baked the Easy Italian Honey Whole Wheat Breakfast Cookies again, as I enjoy having one at breakfast with my coffee after eating my steel-cut oats. This time, I still left the vanilla at ½ tsp., and I still added 3 drops of Fiori di Sicilia, but I also rehydrated 2 tsp. of Penzey’s dried orange peel with 2 Tbs. of water. I’m still working on the flavoring, as I am rationing my vanilla, and I rarely have an orange around the house that I can grate for zest. I'll add a note tomorrow on the taste.

[BakerAunt]

Before we left Indian Rocks Beach on Saturday morning, I made my husband wait until the bakery put out its bread at 9:30. I bought another loaf of the 10-grain bread, which we ate at a couple of meals on the way home. I also bought two of the dinner rolls to try. These rolls have that wonderful crusty outside and that soft, light interior.

[BakerAunt]

On Thursday morning, I baked Seeded Crispbread, a Scandinavian recipe I baked last year and to which I posted a link at that time. This time I used the finely ground cornmeal, and the recipe came out better than with the medium grind. As I did last year, I replaced the flax seed with 2 1/2 Tbs. flax meal, since the human digestive system cannot break down flax seed. These make a nice, low in saturated fat, cracker, and they are very easy.

[BakerAunt]

Thank you, Joan.

I tried a new recipe today for Whole Grain Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies, which I changed around and tried to convert into a bar cookie. I'll post about it in the dessert thread.

[BakerAunt]

For dinner on Wednesday, I made Pork Loin Roast with Barley, Butternut Squash, and Swiss Chard, a Cook’s Illustrated recipe that I have made about five times now. I like the recipe, but the author is wrong that the pork loin roast does not need to be turned to cook evenly, since I had the issue again with our apt. oven that I had with the oven that was in the house. I will plan on turning it half-way through cooking time in the future.

[BakerAunt]

Although I enjoyed our vacation, I am glad to be back in the kitchen baking. Today I baked my Barley Whole Wheat Buttermilk Bread.

[BakerAunt]

We got back from our Florida vacation late Monday afternoon. Dinner was a rotisserie chicken and half a package of mushroom noodles (sold by Aldi’s) mixed with some olive oil, and a package of frozen broccoli and some Parmesan cheese. I microwaved the package of broccoli first, then when the noodles finished cooking, added the broccoli to the water and allowed to sit for a minute or so before draining, then adding the olive oil and Parmesan

[BakerAunt]

To go with leftover chicken and potatoes tonight, I sautéed slices of zucchini in olive oil with 1/8 tsp. Penzey's dried garlic and sliced green onions. I added some balsamic vinegar and black pepper at the end. We liked the combination.

[BakerAunt]

For dinner on Thursday, I roasted cubed Yukon Gold potatoes rubbed with olive oil and sprinkled with Penzey’s Sunny Paris. I also roasted 6 chicken thighs, which I drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with Penzey’s Greek Seasoning, an idea that I got from Chocomouse. Because this oven is so small, and I only had a large rectangular Pyrex dish and a square one, I had to roast the potatoes for an hour, then roast the chicken. As the oven seems not to be heating as high as it is set, I used a temperature of 425F, which worked well. We had microwaved peas as well.

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