[chocomouse]

I'm back from a long weekend in Maine for a girls' getaway! We shopped and took a class at Stonewall Kitchen's cooking school. It was a seafood dinner: three appetizers, shrimp, salmon, and lobster; pan-seared scallops and mushroom risotto and asparagus; and a chocolate tart. The food was excellent, although the guest instructor lacked teaching skills so it was difficult to follow. I'm doing a Bake for Good class at KAF on the 19th, which is a free class. They give you the ingredients, tools and instruction for making a pie; you make the crust, with their supervision and help, and then they fill and bake it and give it to a local non-profit that helps the homeless, runs a food shelf, etc. They have similar classes for cinnamon buns and sugar cookies. And, I'm enrolled in their English muffin class in January - my muffins taste good, but look awful and are not holey enough. I'm eager to be back in my kitchen!

[chocomouse]

I've used salt and a scrubber-type sponge, but I've never had a badly rusted pan to clean. I rarely re-oil my pans, either, and I have one I got new over 50 years ago. I do have a funny looking pan, never seen another one like it, that has some kind of a thick, gooey substance on it that I have not been able to get rid of, although I did manage to clean off a couple small spots of rust. There's a "new cast iron cooking" group on Facebook that you might look at; they have lots of suggestions for cleaning and also for cooking (though not the healthiest food to eat!!). My favorite cast iron pieces are the bread pans and the huge round pizza pan - I use them all the time.

[chocomouse]

Dinner tonight was a fish casserole, made with scallops, "chowder fish", shrimp, and a can of Campbell's cream of shrimp soup. We had it on brown rice, with cole slaw. There's enough leftover for another meal.

[chocomouse]

Tonight we had boneless skinless chicken thighs cooked in a cast iron skillet on the stove, with Greek seasoning. With it we had mashed potatoes, leftover garlicky green beans, and a green salad. Greek chicken thighs is one of my favorite meals!

[chocomouse]

I made more pecan pie tarts today. I had some filling leftover from Thursday, so I added to that a couple squirts (maybe 2 tablespoons, I guess) of store-brand Karo, 2 good spoonfuls of white sugar, 2 tablespoons of butter, and about 3/4 cup of pecans. My husband says the tarts are good, "sweeter that the first batch." I still plan to use Karo brand syrup from now on.

[chocomouse]

Oooh, those stuffed acorn squash halves sound really good. We're still eating leftovers, too. But I'm thinking it's time for a change, so maybe we'll just have good ole cheeseburgers in buns with chips and pickles tomorrow night! It all depends on the sleet and freezing rain forecast...

[chocomouse]

navlys, I always use the basic dough setting on my bread machine. It takes about an hour and a half to mix, knead, and rise the dough, then I take it out for a quick knead and shaping for the final rise. I've never baked in it, and never used any other settings. I use the SAF red instant yeast, which I buy at BJs and store in the freezer. All the breads develop good flavor.

[chocomouse]

Thanks Aaron. That's the recipe I found online and I used it. Good that I make pecan pie only once a year, and it's the only time I use Karo. Baker Aunt, I wonder if the store-brand corn syrup has a different taste? I'm not going to try a taste-test, but will probably toss the rest of the bottle.

[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.

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