[chocomouse]

Anyone else receive an e-mail from KABC this morning, advertising last minute baking suggested purchases? The first featured item is Harvest Grains! I suspect it is still not in stock, and the advertisement was planned well in advance. I'm thinking about asking Santa to stop by there on his way to my house!

[chocomouse]

I made that Maple Apple upside down cake a couple months ago, and it was excellent. I don't remember what pan I used, I'm thinking maybe a tart pan, which would be 12" diameter. But, maybe it was a 9 or 10" cake pan. So Monday I bought more apples to make another one, except they didn't have any Granny Smith, so I bought Juci. I've never eaten those before, but I suspect they lack the tartness of a Granny, and won't be as good in a baked item. We'll see. Got to get rid of the Christmas cookies first!

[chocomouse]

Thanks Aaron. I've read other negative comments about the legibility of the display, on the countertop oven. I have a small oven in my range (it's a JennAir, with a grill and center vent to the outside, but it's 35 years old and not performing reliably any more. There are just two of us, and I use the oven mostly for baking (mostly breads). I'm also looking at buying a new microwave, mine is 35 years old also, and I'd like a smaller one, so both new appliances would fit better in the footprint of my kitchen. I love, love, love, my Sharp microwave! I use the Sensor Cook for fresh vegetables; it cooks them perfectly, "al dente". I finally found one microwave that has a sensor cook for fresh vegetables, a Farberware, which would not be my first choice of manufacturer. Of course, that's no guarantee that sensor cooking asparagus will give it the right "chew". "Sensor Cook" today seems to mean to heat up a prepared meal - and we don't eat that way. I'm in no rush to buy, so will continue to research.

[chocomouse]

That's funny, Mike! We harvested our first lettuces from our Aerogarden for dinner tonight also! I cut just the larger leaves, as I do the lettuce in my summer gardens, so it will continue to produce. The lettuce, spinach, and scallion seeds I planted under Gro-lights a few days after I started the Aerogarden plugs are growing much more slowly. I think maybe I should be fertilizing (diluted)them a lot more.

[chocomouse]

Harvest Grains is my favorite KAF product!! I sent a chat message to them asking if this is temporary or permanent and is it being discontinued and why. I reminded them how many, many bakers love the product and are so disappointed. My husband is going to drop by the store this morning to see if they have any product on the shelves out back - in the past, he has sometimes been able to get things that are "out of stock" from the mail orders or on the store shelves.

I used to make my own grain mix. Anyone remember the old, old Baking Circle? We had a sort of mini-contest, a "He who dies with the most flour and grains, wins?" and many of us counted the bags of stuff in our pantries. I had almost 30, don't remember exactly. So I hauled most everything out to the kitchen and spread them out on the counter. Then I selected and pretty much randomly "measured" (handfuls) varying amounts of each into a large mason jar. I also added lots of seeds. Of course, I would never meet KAF's standards of consistency, but I never mixed up a batch that didn't add a lot of flavor, and nutrition, to a loaf of bread. Not sure I could do that today, since I no longer stock the huge variety of ingredients that I used to have. But you could buy small bags of each of the grains/seeds and sort of replicate the Harvest Grains mix.

[chocomouse]

Glad you got everything sealed! I checked with Rhett, and he doesn't know why your jars wouldn't seal. He always has 100% seal on his jars - we love to listen to the ping, ping, ping! Possibly there is something, a drop of syrup?, on the rim of the jar - but not likely, since you are scrupulously clean. He has 2 suggestions, which are not related to the sealing. One, be sure your clean jars are dry - any water in them might contaminate the syrup, and possibly dilute it. Also, you really only need to heat it up to 195* (that is the temp he uses to reseal) and it will preserve and seal the jar. Yesterday he made a batch of maple cream, and then bottled 16 half gallons of syrup - and all 16 sealed completely. I'll check my sources on canning to see if there is anything there that might apply. I love hearing about the ways you are using the syrup in your cooking and baking!

[chocomouse]

I never use the "pre-heat" function, ever. If I want my oven to be heated up to the correction temperature, I simply turn it on to regular baking. I do usually put bread into a hot oven - unless I'm in a hurry or the bread is over-rising.

[chocomouse]

I made two loaves of rye bread today. I got good oven spring (although nothing like the tremendous spring I get on my whole wheat bread) even though I started with a cold oven.

[chocomouse]

This morning I made Banana Zucchini Muffins from the I Am Baker site; trying to clean out the freezer a little bit. I added about a cup of home-made cinnamon chips, and they are very good.

[chocomouse]

I made the Roll-Up Chicken Lasagna from delish tonight, subbing turkey for the chicken. It was delish! But, of course, making the alfredo sauce from scratch is very time consuming, although it was very good. I'm always tempted to just buy a jar of sauce.

[chocomouse]

Our dinner tonight was beef stroganoff and salad, and my husband had the last of the candied carrots.

[chocomouse]

BakerAunt, I've never had a bitter squash; actually, never heard of any such thing. Some squash are sweeter than others, but never bitter. Queen is a variety of acorn squash, and I think I've never eaten or grown that variety. I haven't grown acorn squash for the last couple of years, simply cutting back on the amount of food I grow with just two of us here. I gave up on those gigantic hubbards years ago! The acorn variety gets very "stringy" after a few months of storage, by the end of December, and it is sometimes quite wet. I prefer the taste and texture of a buttercup, but also grow some butternut. I'm going to check with some of my Master Gardener buddies about the bitter squash.

[chocomouse]

I bet those burgers are better than the one I had last night!! But we ate ours with candied carrots and broccoli.

[chocomouse]

Wait a minute, Joan! That doesn't add up. Where's the other two? We need to know!! I suppose you'll claim taste testing? LOL

[chocomouse]

We took a break from turkey leftovers and I made spaghetti squash pizza. I made the sausage for it from scratch; it was OK, but I'd like it a bit more spicy. Does anyone have a good recipe for what I would call hot Italian sausage?

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