[BakerAunt]

On Monday, I cut up, tossed with olive oil, and roasted some of the potatoes my husband harvested from our two plants. We had it with the leftover roasted chicken thighs and most of the rest of the green bean, tomato, and feta salad.

[BakerAunt]

We awoke to a cooler day on Monday. I took advantage of it by baking 35 mini-chocolate chip banana mini-muffins. I will freeze some of these, and we will have the rest at teatime.

I then baked a tomato quiche recipe that came last year in an email from Stonyfield Yogurt that I have wanted to try since last year. I used my oil-buttermilk partly wholegrain crust, rolled 1/8th-inch thick and fitted into a 12 x 12 inch La Forme quiche pan with removeable bottom. I'm not sure that I have ever used that pan before. I had to adapt the recipe a bit as I did not have Stonyfield full-fat Greek yogurt but Chobani non-fat Greek yogurt, which is what is sold in my area. I replaced the halved Roma tomatoes with thick slices of tomatoes from our garden. I used 3 tsp. dried basil, as I did not have ¼ cup fresh basil. (If I had planned in advance, I could have bought fresh basil at the market this past weekend. Sigh.) I also halved the salt from ½ tsp. to ¼ tsp., as the Parmesan and crust would have enough salt on their own. I par-baked the crust at 400 F for 10 minutes. The quiche itself baked for 23 minutes. I cut it into fourths and had a quarter for lunch. The rest if for lunches, or even breakfast, the rest of this week.

Once the quiche came out, I mixed up a batch of maple granola that bakes at a lower temperature for an hour before being stirred and baking for another hour. My husband tackled the pile of dishes. I think he was grateful for the mini-muffins and the maple granola.

[BakerAunt]

On Sunday morning, I baked Oatmeal Peach Muffins, a recipe that I adapted from the book, Muffin Magic. This time, I used all white whole wheat flour and added 1 Tbs. of flax meal to my adaptation. For spices I used 1 tsp. cinnamon, ½ tsp. ginger. I added 1/3 cup candied ginger, which I let pre-soak for 15 minutes with the oats and buttermilk. Next time, I might increase it to ½ cup.

I had planned to do more baking today, but it was warmer and more humid than expected, so I will wait until tomorrow.

[BakerAunt]

Our green bean plants have been producing again, while my husband was not looking, so some beans were fatter than optimal. However, I still used them to make our favorite Green Bean, Cherry Tomato, and Feta salad for dinner on Sunday. We had it with leftover roasted chicken thighs, and the last two ears of corn.

[BakerAunt]

Our Early Girls have been a disappointment. They start to go bad on the vine.

Better Boy is doing well.

Dester Indiana is doing well but we have learned needs more sun. We may put it in a pot on the side of the house next year. The Goliath bush is forming some nice large tomatoes.

The cherry tomatoes are abundant.

[BakerAunt]

Italian Cook: I think that the recipes with the stuffing on top of the pork are designed to keep the pork from drying out. The cream soup and milk are also probably there for preventing the pork from drying out. The old temperatures for when pork is done were actually too high, so drying out was a real possibility. I agree with you that this particular workaround is not the best solution.

As for your recipe. You could probably use prepared Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix as the bottom layer. It might need more liquid if it needs to bake longer than the usual baking time for a pan of stuffing. For reference, I bake my Pepperidge Farm stuffing at 350 F for about 20 minutes. Depending on the thickness of the pork, you might need to bake your stuffing and pork chops longer than that.

As long at the pork registers at a safe temperature, there should not be a problem with the stuffing. 145F is recommended.

https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2011/05/25/cooking-meat-check-new-recommended-temperatures#:~:text=minute%20rest%20time.-,Cook%20pork%2C%20roasts%2C%20and%20chops%20to%20145%20%C2%BAF%20as%20measured,best%20quality%E2%80%94juicy%20and%20tender.

If you want to make your own stuffing, King Arthur has a recipe for a "stuffing" bread in which the spices are in the bread, then the bread is turned into stuffing.

Best wishes as you work to recreate a recipe that hits all the memory circuits. I've learned when doing so that it does not have to be the exact recipe, just one that tastes good, is healthy, and invokes the past.

[BakerAunt]

Saturday night's dinner was roasted chicken thighs, microwaved frozen green beans, and an ear of corn each.

[BakerAunt]

In May, my husband planted two organic potatoes that were sprouting. The potatoes came from Kroger. Today, he presented me with a big bowl of potatoes: the fruits of his labor. I took a picture and will see if I can figure out how to post it. I am thrilled with how great the potatoes turned out.

Our Fairy Tale pumpkin finally produced a female flower. My husband hand pollinated it. We now have the start of a small pumpkin!

The beans are starting to produce again! Hurrah!

There are now four Honey Nut squashes. That is a low number, but since we had thought there were only two, it is nice to have double!

The tomatoes are producing, but not at a fast rate. However, the cherry tomatoes are going strong. I should have enough soon to make the green bean salad again.

[BakerAunt]

We had another meal of leftovers on Friday: pork, the rest of the coleslaw, some more of the pasta salad, and an ear of corn each.

[BakerAunt]

Beautiful cake, Joan! It is good to have recipe testers!

Thanks, Mike. I will start looking at freezers.

[BakerAunt]

We did a mostly leftover meal on Thursday of coleslaw and pork with an ear of sweet corn each.

Egg prices seem to fluctuate. I, too, noticed an increase this past week at the local grocery.

[BakerAunt]

Chocomouse--I seem to recall a King Arthur blog post on baking with almond flour that suggested adding a certain amount but not decreasing the amount of flour. My memory is hazy on the point, but it suggested that the almond flour made for a more tender baked product.

It is great to learn here about how others are experimenting with the recipes. I miss that from the now defunct Baking Circle.

I wish that I could have baked the full two dozen, but our freezer space is limited. My husband has suggested that we could get a smaller freezer for the garage, but it would need to be a "front door" one that could sit up on a built-in work area that was in the garage when we bought the house (before a previous owner moved his "shop" to the shed he built across the street). I'm not sure that they make such a thing as a small front door freezer, but I will do some internet searching.

He was impressed by Len's solution to finding space for the chest freezer in the dining room, but we do not have space there either.

[BakerAunt]

On Wednesday, my husband pan-cooked boneless pork, which we had with two ears of sweet corn each (it is the end of the season!) and microwaved frozen peas. My husband reports that eating sweet corn on the cob is great physical therapy for stretching out his mouth area where he had surgery. Too bad that sweet corn season is so short.

[BakerAunt]

Oatmeal Scotchies are so good, Joan!

I was able to buy another dozen lovely Michigan peaches at the farmers market last weekend. On Wednesday morning, I used them in a recipe that I adapted from King Arthur's "Just Peachy Peach Muffins," to make a half recipe (original made 24) and am calling Peachy Keen Muffins. Among other changes, mine has half the sugar (their version produces cupcakes for all intents and purposes) and uses white whole wheat flour. I also deleted the vanilla, which King Arthur tends to use liberally. In a few of their recipes, lately, a lot of vanilla is used to cover up other problems with a recipe. I erred this morning, as I had intended to adjust the 2 ¼ tsp. baking powder to accommodate the buttermilk I used in place of milk. I meant to use 1 ¼ tsp. baking powder and ¼ tsp. baking soda. However, I had not had my coffee before I started baking and realized that I had put in 1 tsp. baking soda rather than baking powder. So, I added 1 tsp. baking powder and hoped for the best. The muffins rose perfectly, so I will keep the "error." I baked them as six large muffins. I will freeze a few of these for fast breakfasts. I will post my recipe adaptation here at Nebraska Kitchen in case anyone is interested in that I changed.

I finished out Wednesday morning by baking Squash Whole Wheat and Oat Quick Bread, a recipe that I adapted from Ken Haedrich's The Harvest Baker. I needed to use up 2 cups of shredded zucchini left over from when I made turkey-zucchini loaf last week, as well as a partial egg (added 1 Tbs. of water to replace the other half). I baked the recipe as four loaves in a 4-well Nordic Ware loaf pan. I will leave one out for dessert tonight and tomorrow. I will freeze the other three. While it was a little warm for baking today, it is about 10 degrees cooler than yesterday.

[BakerAunt]

I made yogurt on Tuesday.

I also made a Greek Pasta Salad, working off of a recipe from Olive/Tomato. I used whole grain penne for the pasta and added green onion, cucumber, red bell pepper, cherry tomatoes from our garden, and black olives. We had it with leftover maple glazed pork tenderloin. It is far too hot today to turn on an oven.

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