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Ah, such yummy baking from Aaron and Mike!
It has been a slow baking week for me, so I needed to do something about that today. On Friday, I baked Eggnog Barley cake in my Christmas wreath Nordic Ware Bundt pan. I replaced 1 ¼ cups of the AP flour with barley flour. I found a high quality "low-fat" (still 3.5 g saturated fat per half cup) eggnog (Organic Valley Reduced Fat Eggnog) when we were at Kroger earlier this week. The Kroger brand was lower in saturated fat, but it used high fructose corn syrup. The cake is excellent, as we each had a slice for dinner.
My husband's mouth is still somewhat sore, so I baked a double batch of my new recipe for Drop Sugar Cookies that use avocado oil rather than butter. I did two-thirds of the cookies by rolling them in combined red and green sugar and rolling the remaining one-third in red, green, and white sprinkles. It is nice to have a sugar cookie for Christmas again, especially for afternoon teatime.
December 14, 2023 at 5:58 pm in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of December 10, 2023? #41305For dinner on Thursday, I made my lighter version of my mother's hamburger stroganoff, which we had over a mixture of brown and wild rice. We also had microwaved frozen peas.
On Wednesday, I made dough for Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers that I can bake early next week.
December 13, 2023 at 6:09 pm in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of December 10, 2023? #41298Thanks, Joan. It is better today, but he has to be careful how he eats.
I made applesauce on Wednesday as a treat for my husband, who is recovering from a dental procedure.
December 12, 2023 at 9:48 pm in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of December 10, 2023? #41290My husband had a dental procedure on Tuesday, so his mouth was too sore to eat last night's leftovers. I pulled out some chicken broth from the freezer and warmed it up for him. I decided to eat an improvised dinner of scrambled egg with onion, mushrooms, and low-fat mozzarella, with raw carrots on the side.
December 11, 2023 at 6:28 pm in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of December 10, 2023? #41283Our dog had her return visit to the vet to remove her bandage and stitches on Monday. It is good to see her right ear again, but it will take a while for the fur to grow back.)
We never waste at trip, so we also did our big grocery shop, as the veterinary practice is in that larger town. Aldi's had good prices on turkeys and hams, so we bought one of each. We also went to Kroger and Walmart.
After we returned home, I made yogurt. For dinner, I roasted chicken thighs and sweet potato chunks on separate pans, and we had it with microwaved fresh broccoli. We have "planned overs" of the meal for tomorrow. For dessert, I pulled out my last frozen loaf of zucchini bread. That was in part to make room for the turkey in the freezer!
I have not had a problem with flours or special dry milk past the expiration dates. Baking powder would be another matter. I have not used the dough improver, so I have no idea about that one.
Both dessert pizzas sound delicious, Skeptic!
December 10, 2023 at 6:01 pm in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of December 10, 2023? #41268I made black bean and pumpkin soup for a late lunch today. I mostly follow the Smitten Kitchen recipe, which was her rift on a Gourmet recipe. I froze two of the servings for future lunches. I will eat the rest during this week.
We had most of the leftover black-eyed peas, rice, and ham for dinner on Sunday.
Thank you, Joan. Let me know if you want me to post my working copy of the recipe, and I will do so.
We used up the bread on Saturday, so I baked two loaves of my version of Grape Nuts bread. I have been trying to make it more whole grain, but the whole wheat flour was covering up the malt flavor, so this time, I used white whole wheat flour and increased the malt by a tablespoon. I hope it will hit the taste and texture of past loaves. Otherwise, I may have to go back to more of the regular flour.
We had salmon and couscous for dinner on Saturday with microwaved fresh broccoli. It was an easy dinner to do while I tended my apple butter and bread projects.
Apple Butter saga continues on Saturday.
I let it set out a bit to warm it up, then put it in the crockpot on low. I realized it might take a long time. Part of that might be that my crockpot is older and does not do the high temperatures of new ones. As for canning, the Ball canning book said that the apple butter should "heap on a spoon," and be bubbling for the canning process. I realized that would not happen on low, so I turned my crockpot on high and kept an eye on it, stirring as needed, and occasionally reducing the heat. It took another four hours, but I was able to do other things while I watched it. After dinner, I decided it was thick enough. I canned three 8 oz. jars and one 4 oz. jar. I had not quite enough for a second 4 oz. jar, so that went into the refrigerator. The headspace in the jar needs to be ¼ inch, and I processed for ten minutes and let them rest for five minutes before removing. Each jar sealed shortly after I put them on the mat to start cooling. I will check the seals tomorrow.
I am craving sugar cookies. Instead of giving in and baking my lovely butter ones (I'm saving my butter splurge for the Pfeffernusse), I googled oil sugar cookies and looked at the top three. I liked one but decided to look further. It turned out the one that I liked was taken directly from the Betty Crocker website. I read the comments and thought about the two oil-based cookies that I do bake--Big Lake Judy's molasses cookies and King Arthur's spiced rye cookies. I also considered the oil-based maple cookie that I am developing. Some commentators found the cookies too oily, bland, or tasting of baking powder.
I set to work. I used half white whole wheat flour, so that I can claim some nutritional value. I added 2 Tbs. of milk powder, since it seems to help with taste and texture in cakes, and again, it upped the nutritional profile. I cut the oil from 2/3 to 1/3 cup. The recipe stated vegetable oil; I used avocado. I also cut the baking powder from 2 tsp. to 1 tsp. I added ¼ tsp. freshly grated nutmeg to the wet ingredients. I made sure to beat the oil and sugar together well, then added the eggs, the vanilla, and the nutmeg. I mixed the baking powder with the dry ingredients and added half to mix before adding the other half. I used a #30 scoop and got 17 cookies, which I put on two parchment lined baking sheets. First, however, I dropped each cookie in red and green sugar. I pressed them down a bit. I lowered the baking temperature from 400F to 375F. I baked the first tray for 12 minutes, which got them a bit browner on the bottoms than I like, so I did the second for 11 minutes. The result is a very nice, slightly cakey cookie to go with tea!
Well, the apples cooked for 10 hours. I pureed them with my stick blender. After two more hours with the lid off, the apple butter has not yet reached a thick enough consistency. I am going to give it another half hour, and then I will put it into a covered container in the refrigerator. I can cook it down more tomorrow, then decide if I will can some of it.
On this Friday morning, I cut up the apples, mixed them with the spices and sugars, and started the crockpot for the apple butter recipe that Mike made, and to which he posted a link. I'm making a half recipe because I have a 3 1/2-qt. Montgomery Wards crockpot. I had planned to do it overnight, but I decided that I want to keep an eye on the crockpot, since the recipe may have been written with newer ones in mind.
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