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I made my Spaghetti Squash-Turkey Casserole [Lasagna] for Friday night’s dinner. I made the sauce with the last of our ripe tomatoes, but I was two pounds short and had to add a can of chopped ones from the store. It should last us for four nights. We had it with microwaved peas.
I tried a new recipe, “Crispy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies,” from Jenny Jones’ s blog. I made one change, in that I substituted half buttermilk for half the oil, in order to save about 3.75g saturated fat and justify including nearly ¼ cup (60g) dark chocolate chips. The sixteen cookies have .75grams fat each. These are pretty good, although they will not replace my beloved butter-based ones. They seem to have a slight aftertaste from the oil. The recipe did not specify what kind of oats to use, so I used quick oats, which worked well.
Len--Thank you for introducing us to Jenny's website. I am going to try some of those no-butter recipes.
Len--these look great! I might try buttermilk for the milk.
Note: Oil does have saturated fat, but a LOT less than butter. Canola has 1 gram of saturated fat per tablespoon, and from what I have read, can help lower cholesterol. Olive oil has 2 grams per tablespoon, as does grapeseed oil. It's not clear that either of those has cholesterol lowering ability, but both have much less saturated fat than butter, which has 7 grams of saturated fat. Thus, an oil crust is a substantial savings in terms of saturated fat.
I made Clam Chowder for lunch on Wednesday, using olive oil to sauté the onion. (I threw out the bacon grease when I went on the low-saturated fat diet). It was my usual recipe from an old Betty Crocker cookbook. I used two cups, unpeeled Kennebec potatoes from the farmers’ market. I used canned, chopped clams, but I prefer minced. The “secret” ingredient is celery seed, first added by my college roommate, who taught me to appreciate celery seed.
For Wednesday dinner, I soaked, then cooked a package of black-eyed peas—one of the few legumes that my husband enjoys. I also made a sauce for spinach noodles and broccoli using some defatted chicken-sweet potato drippings from the freezer, some onion, ½ tsp. dried sage, a couple Tbs. of my homemade pumpkin butter, Parmesan cheese, pepper, and a bit of the pasta water. Some rotisserie chicken completed the meal.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by
BakerAunt.
On Tuesday afternoon, I baked three loaves of Grandma A’s Ranch Hand Bread, which I have not made for a long time. The recipe was originally posted at the KAF Baking Circle, but it is now here at Nebraska Kitchen. I use a 7-quart stand mixer, but Zen worked out a scaled-down single-loaf version, and it is posted here as well. I used 5 cups whole wheat flour, ½ cup flax meal, 2 ½ cups bread flour, and 2 cups AP flour. I substituted 3 Tbs. honey for the sugar, replaced 3 ¼ cups of water with buttermilk, and used 4 Tbs. of canola oil rather than butter. I also reduced the salt to 4 tsp. from 4 ½ tsp. It was cool in the house, so both rises took longer than an hour. The loaves were done after 43 minutes in the oven.
OK--it's time to get some baking going this week, especially here with highs in the 40s. (Update: it actually got into the lower 50s.)
On Tuesday morning, I baked a healthier version of my Harvest Pumpkin Cake. It comes from a recipe in King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion (p. 194), but the texture is definitely that of a cake not a bar cookie, so I changed the name. It is a favorite of my younger stepson who often requested it for his birthday. I wanted to see if I could make some healthy tweaks to it, so I substituted ½ cup barley flour for that much AP flour, reduced the sugar to ¾ cup from 1 cup and the salt from 1 tsp. to ¾ tsp. I have always added ¼ cup powdered milk. I added 2 Tbs. chia seed and 1 Tbs. flax meal this time. I always use my own pumpkin puree. I will forgo the lovely low-fat cream cheese (Neufchatel) frosting—which includes 3 Tbs. of butter—and serve pieces with pumpkin butter dollops on top.
I'll add a note this evening about how we like this version.
Note: The changes shifted the cake closer to a bar cookie, although it is still a cake. We liked the flavor, and we both enjoyed spreading a layer of pumpkin butter over the top. (Saturated fat content is 1.125 grams for 1/8 of the 9x9-inch cake.)Thank you for letting us know. I hope that all continues to go well, and I'll keep both of you in my prayers.
For Sunday dinner, I roasted chicken thighs on a rack (and removed skin before eating). I made ratatouille for the last time this season, using our tomatoes, and two somewhat pitiful small bell peppers from our garden, along with yellow summer squash from the grocery, and two small eggplants, onion, and garlic from the farmers’ market. We had it over a mixture of brown and other rice.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by
BakerAunt.
Aurgh! I hate it when I do that!
For some reason, pumpkin pies are particularly susceptible to having ingredients accidentally omitted. I once put a pie into the oven, then turned to my left and saw the brown sugar in its cup on the table. (So much for mise en place when the ingredient stays en place!.) I pulled the pie out, ladled the filling back into the bowl, put in the brown sugar and mixed it, then put it back into the oven.
Len--maybe a small scoop of low-fat frozen vanilla yogurt on top would help?
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This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by
BakerAunt.
I didn't realize until I saw this article that the Arby's promotion is timed for duck hunting season--even though Arby's uses farmed ducks.
https://www.geniuskitchen.com/article/after-venison-success-arby-s-returns-with-a-duck-sandwich-1116
On Saturday evening, I made six mini-loaves of the wholegrain pumpkin bread, which I baked a couple of weeks ago. It’s my adaptation of a recipe at Nebraska Kitchen that was first posted by lemonpoppy at the KAF Baking Circle. I made it with the same changes I made last time, except that this time I increased the quick oats to 1 cup.
I made pumpkin butter on Saturday afternoon, using a recipe from Kelsey Youngman on the Food & Wine website. I began by roasting a pumpkin that is slightly less than 3 lbs. I followed the directions, except that I had no apple cider, so I substituted 1 Tbs. of boiled cider and 3 Tbs. water. The pumpkin butter is not too sweet, which is what I like. Here's the link:
https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/pumpkin-butter
For Saturday dinner, I made Salmon and Couscous, but this time, instead of dill, I used ½ tsp. of Penzey’s Greek seasoning, which I’d not used before. I like the taste and will use it again.
Thanks for digging into the story, Mike. I remember when I split the half breast in half, I was having trouble cutting it, but I figured that was because a fresh one is harder to cut than one that is mostly defrosted. The cooked one was also hard to slice, likely because of the membranes. What Joan noticed went right past me, because I had not seen it before. It makes me angry that I paid more for what is supposed to be a more healthy part of the chicken ($1.79 on sale), and what I bought is actually not flavorful and may not even be that good for me. Worst of all, I have another three halves in the freezer. I'll follow Joan's method and try to cut it out.
I wonder if this is why Navlys said, "I'm done with Perdue," in an earlier post about cooking a chicken breast.
I'm not surprised that two restaurant chains are not going to buy these chickens--it would degrade the food they serve. No company is listed on the package that I bought, which is typical of chicken available at the one grocery store in town. I've also had issues with beef that I've bought at that store.
Maybe sticking with the small chicken thighs is not such a bad idea.
For Thursday night's dinner, I made my panko-oat bran coating to roast a boneless half chicken breast with potatoes. I rub the chicken with mayonnaise, then roll it in the coating, which includes parmesan and various spices. As usual, I roasted the potatoes that accompany it for the first 40 minutes, then added the chicken. However, the chicken came out oddly, even though I've made this recipe many times before. It was "chewy," as if it had a lot of gristle, which is not supposed to be the case with a chicken breast. It was done, and it was not dry, but it was chewy. It was a particularly large half breast, and we only ate half. Has anyone else had this issue with a boneless, skinless breast? It is from a package of four, and I'm wondering if I should find another way of cooking the remaining ones, including the one that is the other half of this one.
I also roasted a "peanut" pumpkin, then scraped the pumpkin from the shell and pureed it in my food processor. I'll freeze most of it for later use.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by
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