[BakerAunt]

Yikes! Thanks for sharing your save with us, Mike. Let us know how the bread turns out.

[BakerAunt]

I fed my sourdough starter on Sunday evening, and I made the dough for my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers. I’ll bake them in a couple of days.

[BakerAunt]

Finally, our area is getting some good rain. On Saturday afternoon, I baked our favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. It started out as “Nutritious Poppin’ Fresh Cookies,” from Pillsbury cookbooklet #30 (published over 25 years ago). The “nutritious” is because the recipe includes 2 cups of old-fashioned oats. I’ve varied it over the years to increase the nutritious component, although I’m well aware that in the end, they remain cookies. I now substitute some white whole wheat flour for some of the AP and add ¼ Cup flax meal. I used some of our supply of pecans from Texas. I baked the cookies as a treat for my husband. He developed a rash last week from some kind of bite, and since he works in the woodlands, where there are plenty of deer, he is being treated for Lyme disease as a precaution.

[BakerAunt]

Friday dinner was Panko-Parmesan Coated boneless chicken breasts. I omitted the garlic and just used onion powder, chives, and pepper in the coating. We had it with cut-up roasted potatoes, rubbed in olive oil, then sprinkled with poultry seasoning and a bit of sweet curry. The potatoes are roasted for 30 minutes at 400F before the chicken breasts are added and the temperature dropped to 375F. I used russet potatoes because I needed to use them up. They were fine, but I prefer the thin-skinned potatoes for this recipe.

We had steamed green beans from the garden.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 2 months ago by BakerAunt. Reason: clarity

[BakerAunt]

Our weather was cooler today and not as humid, so I baked two loaves of Bernard Clayton's Dark Grains Bread. I'm still experimenting with adapting it. This time I cut the yeast from 4 tsp. to 3 1/2 tsp. and the salt from 1 Tbs. to 2 1/4 tsp. I had hoped to slow down how fast it rises, but it still had a very quick rise, and the final loaves still had some sinking along the top. The dough seemed wetter than usual, so it might have needed a bit more flour. I look forward to sampling it tomorrow and will add a note to this post when I do on taste and texture.

Promised Note: The bread still has great taste. It has an open crumb rather than the somewhat tighter texture at which I was aiming. They also look like my beginner bread loaves, with a bit of slopping over the side.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

Thank you for the information Chocomouse. We did pick earlier this year, since we now live here. Usually we would have been picking either this week or the next.

We will have to go back and pick more!

The pie was less tart today, maybe because it had now cooled completely. (We cut into it just shy of four hours out of the oven.)

My husband planted our two blueberry bushes out front this morning. He's put cages around them to keep the little critters out and he has spread coffee grounds around to deter the deer.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

I tried using lime zest rather than lemon zest in a blueberry pie, and added 1 tsp. lime juice. I don't know whether it was this particular batch of blueberries or the lime--and I am tending toward blaming the lime--but the filling was tarter than usual. I'm not sure that I will try adding lime when I am canning blueberry pie filling. (Maybe I should sneak a bottle of gin into the house?) 🙂

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

My husband was supposed to do hamburgers on the grill, but he declared it too hot, so he cooked them on the stove (and did a better job of it than I did on Independence Day). We ate them on split pieces of the Blitz Bread, which went very well. This hamburger from the farmers' market has great flavor. We added sliced tomato and a slice of Gouda cheese, and I had onion as well. We served it with sweet corn and steamed green beans from our garden.

[BakerAunt]

On Wednesday afternoon, I baked my first blueberry pie of the season. I nailed the crust! I used my buttermilk pie crust recipe, with the addition of 3 Tbs. sugar, and I used pastry flour rather than AP flour. I made it with all butter. Instead of an egg wash, I brushed the crust with heavy cream before sprinkling it lightly with sugar. The result is a golden, flakey crust.

As for the filling, I again followed the Cooks Baking Illustrated recipe, but instead of lemon zest, I used the zest of one small lime and also added an additional tsp. lime juice. [See discussion thread on Blueberries and Science on this experiment with adding lime.] The pie calls for ¾ to 1 cup sugar, but I always use the lesser amount, and the blueberries from this farm tend to be sweet enough on their own. The pie came out rather tart, and I think that is because of the lime zest, although it could be that the blueberries were tarter than usual, which we noted when tasting some while picking. (A bit of vanilla ice cream on the side should mellow it out.) When I make my next pie, I will skip the lime zest. It may also be because I’m using those small hard limes, which is all that is available in the store. Unfortunately, the ones on my lime tree will not be ripe until after blueberry season.

[BakerAunt]

I had a cup of shredded zucchini left over from when I made the zucchini-turkey loaf, so this morning I made a new recipe, Zucchini Bread Pancakes (a half recipe of it) from Smitten Kitchen blog (July 27, 2012). My changes were to use canola rather than olive oil, to use all whole wheat flour, and not to use any vanilla. (I'm saving my precious stock for recipes in which it can truly shine.)

I made up the pastry for my buttermilk pie crust this morning. I'm baking a blueberry pie this afternoon--details to follow in another post.

[BakerAunt]

We had leftover turkey loaf, steamed green beans from our garden, and sweet corn, straight from the evening's farmers' market.

[BakerAunt]

I've posted the Turkey and Zucchini loaf as "Turkey and Zucchini Meatloaf with Peach-Dijon Mustard Glaze" in the recipe section. I'm sure that you can vary it with other spices--and perhaps even a different glaze--if you so desire.

[BakerAunt]

We ate the last of the bread today, but no break has occurred in the weather since I baked bread two weeks ago. Usually, there is a cooler day when I can seize the opportunity. Although we did get a nice, albeit all too short rain shower late this morning, it has been an oppressively hot, humid day. As I mulled the prospect of not having bread for sandwiches tomorrow, I remembered the KAF "Blitz Bread: No Fuss Focaccio" that I once baked when I needed bread fast. It bakes in a 13x9-inch pan. We can cut pieces, then slice them lengthwise, and voila—the bread for sandwiches this week in about 1-1/2 hours.

I substituted 1-1/2 cups whole wheat flour for that much of the AP, and I reduced the salt to 1 tsp. I also added 1 tsp. of honey for proofing the yeast. (Yes, I know, but I LIKE proofing yeast and seeing it bubble.) I also added 2 Tbs. flax meal.

Here's the link:

https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/blitz-bread-no-fuss-focaccia-recipe

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

I made a new recipe tonight, “Turkey and Zucchini Meat Loaf,” which I found online at Epicurious, attributed to Bon Appetit (September 1998). I made a number of changes, and we really like how it turned out. The glaze, made of the last of my peach jam from two years ago, and Dijon mustard is particularly tasty. As everyone can use yet another zucchini recipe, and peaches will soon be in season, I will post the recipe in the next few days.

We had it with baked potatoes (cooked alongside the meat loaf) and steamed green beans from our garden.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by BakerAunt.

[BakerAunt]

Those tomato plants are looking good, Len!

We now have 15-20 small green tomatoes among our four plants.

The bush/pole beans have been producing like crazy. My husband thinks we have perhaps another week or so of harvesting beans from these plants. His intention is then to work the spent plants into the soil and plant some of the seed from last year that did produce the lower bush beans.

I may have to go ahead and harvest that large green pepper. I prefer them red, but we don't think the plant will try to produce any additional fruit with it hogging all the nutrients.

The blackberries on the terrace are ripening at only a few a day. The ones in the woods are still red. I don't know if I will have enough to get the 3-1/2 cups of seeded puree I need for jam. (My husband is not keen on the seeds.)

We've had no measurable rain for nearly five weeks. There's plenty of humidity, but the rain keeps missing our area.

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