[chocomouse]

I made pecan pie, but in tart form using the hamburger bun pan. The crust was fine - I think I may have mastered Pie Crust 101, finally. The problem was I had bought the store brand of corn syrup instead of Karo. I've always used the recipe on the jar, and there was no recipe on the store brand jar! I googled and came up with the "classic" Karo recipe. But later my husband said "Something is off, it just isn't right. Maybe it needs more butter?" I did use the 2 tablespoons of butter it called for. And "more butter" seems like an odd ingredient to fuss over in pecan pie. But, he is eating the tarts, no problem! Next year I'll buy Karo!

[chocomouse]

I looked for a small (10-12 lb) turkey at the store today, and there were none. Lots of 26-28 pounders, which were hard to find back in the days when we had 30 or so dinner guests.

Dinner tonight was ham steak on the grill, Creamy Cheesy Mashed Potatoes ( a new recipe, which was good, just too much fat, probably won't make it again), garlicky green beans, and cole slaw. Enough leftovers for another meal. So, now we have leftovers for Tuesday and Wednesday dinners, and after Thursdays turkey dinner, we go into turkey sandwich mode 'til we run out of turkey!

[chocomouse]

We're just the two of us for dinner, so I have a turkey breast in the freezer and will move it to the refrigerator on Tuesday. Tomorrow I'll be grocery shopping in between snow storms, for all the other dinner necessities. For dinner tonight, my husband had clam chowder and I had mushroom soup - still cleaning out the freezer! And I made garlic knots this morning to go with the meal.

[chocomouse]

Delicious dinner tonight! Penne with marinara and sausage, big chunks of onion and brll pepper, and a green salad. Leftovers will make a meal one night next week.

[chocomouse]

That sounds really good, Joan. I've been wanting a ham steak, but am also thinking about mashed potatoes with it.

[chocomouse]

Baker Aunt, a half a cup of butter seems excessive in a turkey soup! I assume it's to make a roux with the flour, so I wonder if the amount can just be decreased? Can you make a thickener with a little oil? What about KAF's Culinary/Signature Secrets or Clear Gel? I know some people have thickened soup with potato. I've put wild rice in turkey soups, but never thickened it; and, I prefer orzo.

[chocomouse]

I just located my notes from a bread that a group of us on the old Baking Circle made, back in February of 2010. Each week or so we all made the same bread, and wrote about it. We made the Wild Rice, Oat, and Polenta Bread on p. 338 in The Bread and Bread Machine Bible by Christine Ingram and Jennie Shapter. My notes say it had good flavor, a little dense, not much rise; the wild rice in the crust is very hard, crunchy. I remember the hard rice! It was not pleasant. The directions do say to cook the wild rice first, according to the directions on the packages. The good flavor was not good enough for me to want endure the crunchiness of another batch. I'm sure I have a photo of mine somewhere in my Old Photo File.

[chocomouse]

I thought all rice came from a grass, although "wild rice" is a different species than the "white" rice that is more common. I guess that would make all rice a grain? I remember reading quite a while ago that most wild rice on the market is cultivated, not really "wild". And that farmers/growers in the Great Lakes areas of Michigan and Wisconsin were trying to expand their production. I've not seen anything about that recently.

[chocomouse]

OMG They took a picture of the inside of my cabinet, the one next to the stove!! LOL Stained old pan and all. I too have a precarious stacked assortment of pie plates. I seem to have a different type of pie plate to use for each particular type of pie. Baker Aunt, I also have one of those large round pans with a hole in the center, and I ALWAYS bake every pie on it. It has saved me the chore of cleaning my oven several times. Actually, I have two of them, one came from my mother, the other from my mother-in-law.

[chocomouse]

That's interesting. I've used brown rice flour in my whole-grain mix, but that ends up being a very small percentage of the flour used.

[chocomouse]

Cleaning out the freezer dinner. Husband had beef stew and I had cauliflower soup. And we each a Bacon Cheddar Bun from the batch I made yesterday.

[chocomouse]

I tried a new recipe from KAF today, the Bacon-Cheddar Buns. I followed the recipe exactly, and they are quite good. They'll be great with a bowl of tomato soup. My brother is passing through the area tomorrow morning, so we are meeting at KAF. The only thing on my shopping list is the triple blend cocoa, but I love to look in the windows of the bakery to watch the bakers at work. And I can stand for hours in front of the bakery case - all those beautifully shaped goodies!

[chocomouse]

A favorite cookie of mine is lime-basil. It does have quite a bit of butter, 3/4 cup per 2 cups of flour. I don't remember how many it makes, and it doesn't say. The original recipe is for lemon-basil, and it is from BigLakeJudy on the old old Baking Circle. Somewhere I have a recipe for a citrus-rosemary cookie, but can't seem to find it right now. I'll post the lime-basil if you'd like it.

[chocomouse]

I can't imagine serving a turkey neck, or necks!! Although there is quite bit of meat on a neck. I usually simmer the neck with the giblets, and either strip off the meat and chop it up and add to the gravy, or put it in the soup made from the carcass. I'm eager to learn how a neck might be plated, or used.

[chocomouse]

My husband cooked chicken thighs and roasted potatoes on the smoker, and I heated up butternut squash from the freezer. It's down to 24* now, and still going down. Accumulating snow on Tuesday. Winter has arrived.

Mike, I miss the good food we had when we lived in Germany. Lots of spaetzle and veal.

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