[BakerAunt]

On Saturday, I made dough for Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese crackers, which I will bake later next week. When I went to the store, all the gallon jugs of 1% milk were marked down to $2.50, but the expiration date is March 2. (Ditto for the 2% milk.) I could have bought a half gallon with an expiration date further out but for $2.69. My sourdough is milk-based, so perhaps a couple of sourdough projects will be in order to use up as much of the milk as I can.

[BakerAunt]

On Saturday, I noticed that the small fairy tale pumpkin that we grew, the only one that developed enough to harvest before the late autumn freeze, was starting to get a spot, so I roasted and processed it. The yield was 17.4 oz. I'll use 16 oz. to make pumpkin bread next week.

For dinner, we had more of the pork loin roast with butternut squash, barley, and kale.

[BakerAunt]

I had two overripe bananas in the freezer, and two more in the refrigerator that Scott insisted were overripe. Actually, they were not, but I think he wanted Banana Oatmeal Muffins, so I baked those on Friday morning. The recipe made 15.

[BakerAunt]

We took a break from the pork roast on Friday, and I made Pecan Crusted Salmon with roasted potato chunks for dinner. We also had microwaved fresh broccoli.

[BakerAunt]

On Thursday, I baked my olive oil and barley version of the Lemon Oatmeal Cookies recipe that Joan introduced to us at Nebraska Kitchen. I got 32 cookies, using a #30 scoop. The cookies on the second of the three baking sheets got overbrowned on the bottom. As the first tray had to bake longer than 13 minutes, I thought the second would bake in the exact time. Wrong. I pulled the third sheet, with just cookies out at 12 minutes, and they were fine.

[BakerAunt]

Thursday night's dinner will be a re-run of last night's.

I made another batch of yogurt today,

[BakerAunt]

Wednesday's dinner was Pork Loin Roast with Barley, Butternut Squash, and Kale. I like to make this recipe twice in the winter. The roast came from the farmers market several weeks ago, while the butternut squash came from the autumn market. We had sunny weather, which melted much of the snow, but the high was still in the mid-30s today. For dessert, we had thin slices of the Orange Barley Pound Cake I baked yesterday.

[BakerAunt]

Wednesday's dinner was Pork Loin Roast with Barley, Butternut Squash, and Kale. I like to make this recipe twice in the winter. The roast came from the farmers market several weeks ago, while the butternut squash came from the autumn market. We had sunny weather, which melted much of the snow, but the high was still in the mid-30s today. For dessert, we had thin slices of the Orange Barley Pound Cake I baked yesterday.

[BakerAunt]

I saw this cartoon and wanted to add the link to this discussion:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/family/daddy-daze-by-john-kovaleski/ss-AA1X2lUr#image=1

[BakerAunt]

On Tuesday, I baked Orange-Barley Pound Cake, a recipe that I adapted last year from a favorite Martha Stewart one. This year, I used cream cheese rather than replacing it with Greek yogurt because I needed to use up the 4 oz. that I had left after baking the pumpkin squares last week.

For those interested in the changes, I posted about it last year in this thread:

What are you Baking the Week of February 2, 2025?

[BakerAunt]

Chicken and chocolate are known cures for whatever ails a person!

We had more of the soup and pumpkin soda bread for Tuesday night's dinner.

[BakerAunt]

Thanks, Len, and thank you so much for the original recipe. It has become one of our favorites.

[BakerAunt]

That is excellent advance meal prep, Len. Future you will applaud your efforts!

Joan, I hope your head feels better soon.

On Monday, I roasted and pureed two more small pumpkins. I will freeze it.

Dinner was more of the soup and Pumpkin Soda Bread. We cut into the second loaf tonight.

We had another half inch of snow overnight, but I am grateful we did not have as much as Mike did in Nebraska. Our roads were in good shape, a blessing, as I had a doctor's appointment today.

[BakerAunt]

CWCdesign. I was trying not to step on Len's toes by not posting my variation, but since you asked about using the Zo, I hope that is OK with Len. I have a copy that I wrote up for myself that uses my Zo for mixing and kneading a single loaf or for buns. I have posted it in the recipe section for you. Enjoy!

The amounts I posted in the Ankarsrum thread are for two loaves. That would be too much dough for the bread machine.

[BakerAunt]

Today, I tried two loaves of Whole Wheat, Rye, and Semolina Bread, using the Ankarsrum to mix and knead it. This is Len's recipes, with a couple changes I made and doubling it. I will list my ingredients and amounts at the end of this post. I initially held back 86 g of the bread flour, but all was required. I kneaded it for 8 minutes, then another two, then two more. The house was cool, so I needed to add 15 minutes to both rises. The loaves had lovely oven spring, much more than with my previous mixer. I achieved similar heights with this bread when I baked a loaf in Florida. At the time, I attributed that to the humidity there, but I was also using a bread machine, which may have done a better job of kneading. Perhaps this is another example of how the Ankarsrum does a better job of hydrating the flour than my last mixer did.

List of ingredients:
115 g semolina flour
117 g dark rye flour
229 g whole wheat flour
2 Tbs. milk powder
286 g bread flour
1 1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup water
3 1/4 tsp. yeast
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 Tbs. honey
2 eggs
6 Tbs. olive oil

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