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For Sunday dinner, I made Pizza Margherita. This is the third time I’ve baked it this year, probably because we still have nice tomatoes from the garden. I went back to the crust I developed the first time with semolina and durum wheat flour, rifting off KAF’s sourdough pizza crust recipe and their directions for Pizza Margherita. This crust seems to be able to hold up to the tomatoes. I did, however, make sure to slice them thinly, and I set the slices on paper towels to draw off juices before I put them on the pizza. We had it with small bowls of lentil soup.
Quick Note: I made it in a half-sheet pan. I noted that KAF suggests, when baking pizza in these pans, to spray with a cooking spray, and THEN drizzle with olive oil. As I've occasionally had a bit of sticking, I followed that tip, and the pizza did not stick at all.
As I had the sourdough starter out, I decided to set up for waffles for breakfast tomorrow. I started with the KAF recipe for High-Fiber Sourdough Waffles, then like my friend Wonky, proceeded to make “a few changes.” ? (We miss hearing from you, Wonky.) I've never seen any reason to buy KAF's "Hi-maize flour, and so one change led to another. I used ¾ cup KAF AP flour, 1 cup white whole wheat flour, ½ cup quick oats, ¼ cup buckwheat flour, and 2 Tbs. flax meal. These are mixed with sugar, buttermilk, and 1 cup starter and allowed to sit overnight. When I make them in the morning, the recipe has a 4 Tbs. butter or 4 Tbs. oil option; I’ll use oil but reduce the oil to 3 Tbs., which is what the substitution chart I found suggests.
I'll add a note to this post tomorrow reporting on my experiment's result.
Promised Note: The waffles did not come out very tasty. In the end, I need some butter in my waffles. I added a bit more milk and 1 tsp. vanilla after tasting the first one, but that only made them tolerable under maple syrup. I froze the extras. I think that eating a single square with jam might be the way to use them up, like a variation on toast.
We got home from my husband's family reunion, and some subsequent shopping at stores in South Bend, which are rather far for casual travel, to browse and see what is available. I was able to pick up some specialty (for here) food items at T.J. Maxx, Tuesday Morning, and Big Lots. We also stopped at Walmart and Aldis, so as not to have to go shopping in the next small town for a couple of weeks. We got back around 3:30, and I pulled turkey/chicken broth out of the freezer, cut up some onion, celery, garlic and carrots, then added lentils and pearl barley. I added an additional tsp. of Penzey's poultry seasoning (salt-free). I'm looking forward to this simple meal tonight.
Skeptic--At least one other person who rated the recipe agrees with us that the Golden Semolina Bread is not a no-knead recipe. KAF says to mix it with the paddle for 8-10 minutes. It's a heavy dough. Before I had my stand mixer, I tried it with the "kneading hooks" that came with my hand mixer. [Note: those kneading hooks are not useful.] Although that hand mixer has pretty good power, it is no match for that dough. It is a thick, sticky dough, and a bread machine or stand mixer is needed. I got a wonderful rise by kneading it in the bread machine, and I would do it again.
The bread was very well received by my husband's cousins, with only a single slice left, and it was still good the next day when I ate that slice. I have figured out that my husband's cousins seem to prefer a white bread, so I will be sure to bring it again to our next reunion. The whole grain baguettes that I baked, using Antilope's recipe as my base, are mostly being eaten by my husband and me. That's ok. I needed to be sure I had a healthy bread for this four day reunion that has, alas, not been as low in saturated fat as what I have eaten in the five weeks prior.
I recommend the KAF Pumpkin Espresso Cake--especially with the modifications I made. It has stayed nicely moist, and it does not need the glaze at all.
Skeptic--Many thanks for posting the low-fat biscotti recipes. I look forward to baking them. My husband and I have already devoured the pumpkin ones.
The cheese crackers did taste better the next day, even though they will never be the same as the butter version. They seem to me to have an aftertaste when eaten on their own, but they work quite well with soups. I used canola oil in the crackers. I could try them with grapeseed oil next time, as it has a more neutral flavor than canola oil and that might work better with the Vermont Cheese powder. Grapeseed oil, like olive oil, however, has 2 g saturated fat per Tbs., compared to canola which only has 1g per Tbs. And canola is supposed to help lower cholesterol. I will try a canola based version with some kind of herb seasoning.
I let my 7-quart Cuisinart mixer handle the kneading of the Whole Grain Sourdough. I find it helps, however, to add the flour in stages, rather than the all at once that KAF seems to suggest in so many of its recipes. I also find it helps, with whole grains, to give them a resting period.
