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I would happily live on standard time throughout the year.
I plan to make beef stew this week. Usually, I braise the meat for two hours in a mix of beef broth and red wine before proceeding with the vegetables. I bought a bottle of cider yesterday at the farmers' market, and I am thinking of replacing the wine with cider. Does that seem like a crazy idea or a promising one?
I roasted two tiny and one small honey nut squashes from our garden, after seeding, peeling, cutting into chunks, and tossing with avocado oil. I like the flavor better with the avocado oil than with olive oil. We also had leftover roasted chicken thighs and microwaved fresh broccoli.
I made Maple Granola on Saturday. It is popular in our house, so I try not to run out, as we did two days ago.
I also made dough for my Whole Wheat Sourdough Crackers to bake next week.
Joan--galettes are wonderful, and with no top crust, they are calorie saving! I had perfected a part-buckwheat one the summer that I had to cut most butter from my diet. These days, I use my regular oil-buttermilk pie crust but put it into a ceramic quiche dish and par-bake it before adding the filling.
Whatever crust you use, apples need to be partly cooked before being added. When one of my husband's cousins experimented with a galette for leftover apples at a family reunion, the apples stayed hard. She now cooks them slightly, and they are cooked properly. I have not tried it, but it could be that if the apples are sliced thinly enough, they will bake in a galette without pre-cooking them.
I am in awe of your Challah project, Aaron! I'm glad that your synagogue appreciates your baking and allows you use of the kitchen.
I am also delighted that you are able to bake a bread with some whole wheat that Violet enjoys! Maybe at some point you will be able to increase the wholegrain.
Aaron--I, too, have sheeter envy. I could put a sheeter in the Annex kitchen (apt. over our freestanding garage). The price, however, is high, and I would have to prove to my husband that it is worth it. Now that I have developed a second cracker recipe--for which I will post the recipe-in-progress later today--perhaps I can chip away at his financial resistance. 🙂
With the new cracker recipe, those that I can get thinner have a nice light texture. The ones that are thicker (toward the center) are still good and work nicely with heavier toppings. The new recipe--which is not a sourdough--uses lower gluten flours, an idea that I got from a King Arthur cracker recipe that was inconvenient, as it requires the crackers to cool overnight in the oven, so it requires a lot of planning ahead if I baked in the afternoon, so that the oven would not be needed in the evening. I used a combination of half Italian-style flour and a quarter whole wheat and a quarter barley this last time. I plan to substitute spelt for the whole wheat next time. I may at some point see if I can reduce the Italian-style flour, which is the more expensive ingredient.
We had leftover soup for dinner on Friday. We went to a nature preserve dedication and hike this afternoon, so it was good to come home to a dinner that just needed to be microwaved.
Len--King Arthur and some other sites state 200F for quick breads, although I think that I might go with 190-195F.
I was not sure that I was going to cook on Thursday, since I got this year's Covid shot yesterday, which has sapped my energy today. However, I was able to pull myself together and make the planned soup with ground turkey, a variety of vegetables (carrots, celery, red and yellow bell pepper, mushrooms, a mixture of red and brown lentils and yellow and green split peas with some barley, my turkey/chicken broth from the freezer, and kale. I have discovered that the kale is tastier if I first sauté it in olive oil near the end of the soup's cooking time, then add it. We have plenty left over for at least two or three more meals.
Follow-Up on Pumpkin Cake: When I went to trim the cake to assemble it the next day, I discovered that it had not cooked through in the center. I am kicking myself for not having used my trusty digital thermometer. To try and salvage the cake, as my husband wished, I set the oven at 350F and put the halves and the trimmed pieces in for about 25 minutes, which dried them out enough that most of the cake (thankful it is small) is edible. Next time, I will cook it longer and use the digital thermometer!
Mike--I was looking at apple butter recipes, and I may try the one you made, although I will need to halve it, as I only have a 3 1/2-quart crock pot. In reading various recipes, I think that the headspace for canning apple butter should be 1/4-inch rather than 1/2 inch. While someone in the comments on the recipe says 1/2 inch, other recipes, and the Ball canning recipe, say 1/4 inch, which would be the same headspace as jam.
On Wednesday, I baked my adaptation of the pumpkin cake recipe that came with the Nordic Ware 3-D pumpkin pan. The pan bakes the two halves of the pumpkin, which I will assemble tomorrow with some glaze to stick them together. The recipe uses 1 2/3 cups AP flour. I substituted in 2/3 cup barley flour. I added 2 Tbs. milk powder and 1 Tbs. flax meal. I replaced 1/3 cup butter with 4 Tbs. of avocado oil and deleted the water, since my homemade pumpkin puree has more water than canned pumpkin. I look forward to assembling the little cake tomorrow.
I first adapted this cake and wrote up notes on it on October 10, 2020 but never got back to trying it again until today. I am on a mission to use all of my lovely autumn Nordic Ware pans before the end of November.
I roasted chicken thighs for Wednesday's dinner, which we had with leftover roasted potatoes and carrots and microwaved peas. We will have leftover chicken for another two meals with different side dishes.
I baked Skeptic's Pumpkin Biscotti on Tuesday in honor of Halloween. I used autumn-colored sugar to sprinkle on top of them.
I also baked another recipe of crackers from that pizza crust/flatbread recipe that Ken Haedrich has. This time, I replaced half of the whole wheat flour with barley flour and baked each tray for eleven minutes instead of ten. The previous batch was somewhat bland, but these crackers have more flavor. I may try half barley and half Italian-style flour next time. These crackers are still sturdy enough to withstand my covering them with hummus.
I made yogurt on Tuesday. Dinner tonight will be leftover pizza and coleslaw.
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