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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.
We returned last night from a two day excursion. Our gardening covering had blown off, but the plants were ok. My husband covered it again after we got back, and the plants did well although it got down to 30F elsewhere in the area. We'll see if we get any more tomatoes.
On Sunday afternoon, I baked Low-Fat Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers from the dough I made on Friday evening. I think the taste is better, in this non-butter version, with only letting the dough rest two days in the refrigerator. The special dried milk that I added may have helped as well.
On Sunday evening, I baked a new recipe, “Bittersweet Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies,” from a magazine I saw at the store, “America’s Best Pumpkin Recipes, published by Centennial Kitchen (p. 34). I’ve never heard of this company, but what persuaded me to buy the magazine is the nice selection of pumpkin recipes that use oil rather than butter. These cookies are one of those. However, I had to substantially reduce the 2 cups of bittersweet chocolate chips specified. 15g of chips has 3g saturated fat. I used 60g—and that is approximately 1/3 cup. I also replaced half the oil with buttermilk (thanks Riverside Len for that tip!), and for good measure mixed in 1 cup of quick oats. I thought that the oats would stabilize the cookies, since I was deleting 5/6 of the chocolate chips. I also cut the salt from ½ to ¼ tsp. The cookies did not flatten as much as the ones in the picture, so probably ½ cup would have been enough, or next time, I could flatten them. I also used white whole wheat flour. I ended up with 40 cookies; each is .45825g saturated fat.
I have an oat-pumpkin-chocolate chip cookie recipe from KAF that makes large cookies that are then glazed, and which I often would bake in the fall. I’m avoiding them this year, so these cookies should provide some of the same flavor profile with much less saturated fat.
My sourdough starter was punchy after being fed yesterday, so on Friday, I decided to use it. I chose “Rustic Sourdough,” from Sift (Spring 2016), p. 65. I’m sure it’s on the website, and I am also pretty sure that I’ve baked versions of this recipe before. It calls for 5 cups KAF AP flour in addition to the starter. I mixed together 2 cups Irish Wholemeal flour, ½ cup dark rye flour, and 2 Tbs. flax meal. I added that to the yeast, sugar, sourdough mixture, mixed, then let rest 15 minutes. I added 2 ½ cups KAF AP with 1 ¾ tsp. salt (reduced from 2 ½ tsp.). The dough was not quite right, so I added ¼ cup whole wheat flour. I kneaded on 3 (Cuisinart Stand Mixer) for 4 minutes, then for an additional minute. I put it into a dough bucket to rise.
The first rise was an hour. I de-gassed the dough, preshaped it, waited 5 minutes, then shaped into one loaf, which I put into my hearth pan (not sure if KAF still sells these, but others do). I let it rise 50 minutes, slashed it, sprayed it with water, and put it into a 400F oven. After 5 minutes, I sprayed it again, and I did that again after another 5 minutes. I then baked for 28 minutes, until it reached 201F.
I'll add a note to this post tomorrow about taste and texture.
Promised Note: The Irish Wholemeal flour gives this bread a great flavor. The hearth pan was just the right size for a nice sandwich loaf.
I’ve been yearning for chocolate, so on Thursday afternoon, I baked Espresso Brownie Bites, a recipe that came with the Nordic Ware Bundt Brownie Baking Pan. I decided to try it with half oil and half buttermilk, and I reduced the espresso powder to 1 tsp. I used Double Dutch Cocoa. I used THE grease to coat the pan cavities. These came out very well; indeed, we like them better than the ones made only with oil, and I saved 3.625 g of saturated fat overall by making the substitution. Each of the twelve has about .833g saturated fat.
Thursday evening, I made up the dough for a double recipe of my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers, using the substitution of 1/3 cup oil for ½ cup butter. As an experiment, I added 2 Tbs. special dried milk to the dry ingredients before mixing them in. I’ll bake the crackers later this week.
For Thursday night’s dinner, I made stir fry, using two left over boneless pork slices from earlier in the week, celery, two red bell peppers, mushrooms, broccoli, the drippings from de-glazing the pork pan several nights ago, the leftover beans and tomato sauce, and green onion. I mixed it with soba noodles. The two red bell peppers and the green onion are from our garden.
Skeptic--your dinner sounds so good! I do miss having the occasional baked beans. My husband is just not a fan of them.
