BakerAunt
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It probably does depend on dishwashing technique. My husband likes to run the water and use soap individually on dishes. (I do not like his method.) I use a small amount of hot soapy water in a dish pan and wash some dishes, then turn on the water (cold is fine) to rise them before putting them in a rack. When I'm baking, I try to work as I go, so that I'm not looking at an enormous pile by the end of the baking adventure.
Riverside Len: It's good to see you posting--perhaps taking out time from watching the Cubs?
Here the highs are still in the 80s--very unusual for this time of year--with only one clear span of cooler weather. As it cools down to 50s or low 60s at night, however, the house stays at around the perfect temperature, and that allows for soup!
My husband does not like onion or tomato in soups, and he does not like most beans. I make my own broth from chicken and turkey bones, and it had begun to pile up in the freezer. I decided that since I come home for lunch to take care of the dog, I would start making my favorite soups for me! I have a great smooth cauliflower soup. I'm working on creating the perfect butternut squash soup. I also have a carrot-curry soup. I make minestrone for me, and I'm going to make my turkey and black bean chili and freeze portions. I also have a chicken/turkey broth vegetable and barley soup. I do miss making my ham and garbanzo bean soup, because my husband does not particularly like ham, so we don't have it, and there are no leftovers.
For my husband, I use the Bob's Red Mill Vegi-Soup mix (split peas, lentil, and barley). I saute ground turkjey, then garlic, and add carrots, celery, red bell pepper (had to sneak that in at first), mushrooms, and zucchini. A tablespoon of Bouquet Garni from Penzey's, a tablespoon of dried chives, some pepper, and a Tablespoon of tomato paste are the seasonings.
Of course soup asks for crackers or breads to accompany it....
Susan Purdy's book's title was changed to The Perfect Cake. It is a lot friendlier than RLB's cake book. I agree that it belongs in every baker's library. I hope to get my hands on her pie book one of these days.
My list would include the KAF Wholegrain Baking Book, because it does discuss techniques for incorporating wholegrains and got me to bake with a wide variety of flours--which is why we need two refrigerators. I also like Bernard Clayton's The Complete Book of Breads, although the recipes use more yeast than necessary, which was typical of bread books of that time, and so need to be adjusted.
This topic made me realize that I've been doing a lot of my baking from the KAF site, some magazines, some e-mails, and this site (and once the Baking Circle). With my cookbooks, I seem to pull from various ones at different times. I probably use the KAF 200th Anniversary Cookbook more than the KAF Cookie Companion or KAF general baking book.
Italian Cook: The rice maker does result in less sticky rice. I have two very simple Black and Decker ones that I bought at Ross. I bought the 4 cup one first, and I found myself carting it back and forth to our place in Indiana, so I left it there and bought a somewhat larger one for here, since at the time two of my stepchildren still lived with us. I continue to use the large for just the two of us, and it will cook just two cups. However, cooked rice can be frozen quite nicely. Rice reheated in the microwave is not sticky at all.
While many rice cookers have complicated bells and whistles, this one is simple: Push the button down and when it pops up, the rice is done. There are even different water fill lines for regular rice and brown rice. I have found that it is not a good idea to let cooked rice sit on the "warming" setting (what the rice cooker switches to when done). I pull the insert out and put it on a hot plate. My rice cooker also has a steamer insert, and I've occasionally steamed vegetables in the insert (although never while the rice was cooking). The nonstick pan is an improvement over the old ones that did not have nonstick.
