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No one in my family ever claimed "an old family recipe," except for a great-grandmother's potato salad, which is made with mashed potatoes, chopped onion and celery, hard boiled eggs, dill pickles, mayonnaise, and mustard. My mother never used a recipe on it, so my sister has worked up one that she thinks is pretty close. I've not seen anything like it.
Oops: it also had chopped iceberg lettuce
My mother was clear that her pumpkin pie recipe came off of a can of evaporated milk. I've changed the recipe over the years, so I can now claim it is truly my own. One thing that surprises me with this article is that so many of these cooks and bakers did not do any experimenting but followed the recipe as given. Even with recipes that I really like, I find myself introducing variations.
Ok, today I decided to make the spaghetti squash quiche recipe for lunch--Hah! It is in the oven now, and although I started working on it shortly after 10 a.m., it won't be done until almost 3. I'm hoping that I can talk my husband into having it as dinner.
I thought that the quiche pan Haedrich was using was a bit small, but it may also be that the one I have exaggerated its claim to be 9 1/2 inches, I think maybe it was more like 9 inches. And maybe I put too much of the spaghetti squash in. At any rate, I had overflow when I was adding the egg mixture even before I put it in the oven (should have stopped with the sauce sooner). I scrambled some still leftover egg-milk mixture and ate it separately. I wish that I had paid attention to my instincts and used the 11-inch quiche pan with removable bottom that I have and made a bigger crust. (Somewhere I'm sure that I have a 10-inch tart pan with removable sides. Sigh. I keep waiting for our contractor to get off of his current job and get with the remodeling.) I am not looking forward to clean-up. I did have the crust on a rimmed pan, but I had not thought to line that pan with parchment.
On the positive side, I adapted a recipe that I have for a cornmeal pie crust and used that for the quiche. It came together well and blind baked well.
I'll report separately on taste, etc.
After the morning muffins, I settled down for an afternoon of baking. We had found lovely strawberries on sale at Aldi's yesterday, so that means strawberry shortcakes for dessert again. Instead of a pound cake this time, I used the cake part of a KAF recipe titled Lemon Custard Cake that is designed for an 8-inch Maryann-style pan.
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/lemon-custard-cake-recipe
I made it in my Chicago Metallic Pie Bowl pans. I have two, and there are four wells per pan, with each well like an individual Maryann pan. Here's what they look like. Mine were a T.J. Maxx splurge, and I've used them in this recipe before.
I made a few changes to the recipe. I do not have or use the Cake Enhancer that KAF sells, so I left it out. I also left out the lemon oil and/or zest and used 1/4 tsp. strawberry extract instead. I've baked these before for shortcake, but they always seemed a bit dense to me. I wondered if I could get a more tender cake if I used Bob's Red Mill unbleached, extra-fine cake flour. I substituted it in by weight, as it is denser than the KAF flour. Of course, I used my new best friend--the grease-- for the pans, and it worked great. I baked them for 20 minutes at 325F. The little cakes have a nice tender texture but still hold up well to having sliced, sugared strawberries spooned into the middle and down the sides. I will bake this recipe with these changes again.
I also baked a loaf of the Buttermilk Grape Nuts bread, as we are almost out of bread.
I'll end the evening by feeding my sourdough starter and making up the dough for my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers. I've promised my younger stepson back in Texas a care package.
I've used it for nearly two months after the sell-by date. As long as it smells ok, I think it is fine for baking. I probably wouldn't use it for salad dressing.
You can freeze buttermilk, and I've done so. It will separate when it thaws, so you have to whisk it back together.
I note that even with the rye starters, Ginsberg's recipes usually have a sponge stage that is "overnight" or 10-12 hours.
He says that refreshing his starter once or twice a week "strikes a happy medium--as long as I make sure to build my sponges on cultures that have never gone more than 36 hours since their last feeding" (37).
