[Italiancook]

Thanks, Mike. It never occurred to me to check the Internet. The dough did smell like sourdough.

[Italiancook]

Aaron's experiment leads me to ask a question I had in the kitchen tonight:

Jenny Jones' (jennycancook.com) pizza dough recipe instructions say it can be refrigerated for up to 3 days. It uses bread flour, olive oil, sugar, salt, water and yeast for 1 pizza. I've had a batch of her dough in the refrig for 7-9 days. I pulled it out tonight and questioned whether it was safe to use. The dough had fallen flat. No mold. Oil around the edges of bowl. Needed flour. Smelled good.

IF I had bread flour, I would have re-kneaded it with fresh flour & a little more yeast. Would have refrigerated it for lunch tomorrow. But a large part of my mind thought 7-9 day old dough wasn't safe. I didn't want to give us a food-borne illness. Now, I read about what Aaron is doing, and I wonder if it would have been safe to use tomorrow. Any thoughts?

https://www.jennycancook.com/recipes/20-minute-pizza-dough/

[Italiancook]

I echo BakerAunt, that is horrible! I hope all goes well.

[Italiancook]

I'm so sorry to hear about your cat Jack, Mike. I wish you, Diana, and Jack the best of everything during this difficult time of transition. For all you sakes, I hope Jack heals quickly.

[Italiancook]

BakerAunt, thanks for discovering the new cookie recipe. I'm somewhat sure I have a bag of peanut butter chips somewhere in the house. I'll be making those cookies as soon as I get my new presciption eyeglasses.

Joan, your bread looks fantastic! Thanks for showing us the lovely slice.

Joan, my yard man has put me to shame. I had 2 unexpected cataract surgeries in the last 2 weeks. My yard man and his wife brought us one restaurant meal for the dinner of the first surgery and a homemade dinner for the second surgery. So please keep those pictures coming of your food gifts to your yard man. Maybe I'll reform.

[Italiancook]

Joan, lovely cake!

[Italiancook]

Joan, your pizza looks great, and I'm symied. What type of cheese is that?

[Italiancook]

Happy Birthday, Mike.

[Italiancook]

Thanks for all the info, BakerAunt. I read the article and was surprised it says to temp the meat at the heat source. Most TV chefs pull the pan out of the oven to temp the protein. I've always temped mine in the oven, so I'm glad the experts agree with me.

I printed KAF's recipe for the stuffing bread. Thanks for telling me about it. Looks like a simple bread to bake. I'm certain I'll go that route, although it's helpful to know how you bake Pepperidge Farm stuffing. I usually buy 3/4" pork chops unless I'm slow-cooking them with sauerkraut. Then I ask for the thick pork chops, and I don't know what size they are. My first test run trying to replicate my mom's stuffing & pork chops will be the 3/4". I'll let you know how the bread works out, but it'll be October before I can experiment.

[Italiancook]

I baked Trisha Yearwood's Pork Chops and Rice. The rice goes under the pork chops with broth/water. I baked mine for 55 minutes to make sure the pork didn't have any pinkness. Broiled for a few minutes, not to brown as recipe says, but to give the chops a little color. We enjoyed this. The reviews on Food Network are mixed, with some saying it didn't have much flavor. We didn't find that fault. Maybe because I used meat market chops and a blend of rice (white, brown, wild & red). I'll make this again baking it for only 50 minutes, since I will run it under the broiler.
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/trisha-yearwood/pork-chops-and-rice-recipe-2124315

Making this reminded me of something my mom baked that I liked a lot. She put homemade (from scratch) Thanksgiving dressing in the bottom of a pan, put pork chops on top & baked. Don't know at what temp or how long. I've decided I want to bake this, but couldn't find a recipe online. I need a recipe for the scratch stuffing, since I've always used Pepperidge Farm or Stove Top at Thanksgiving.

Unfortunately, almost everything I found has the stuffing on top of the pork chops in a mound, instead of a layer of stuffing on the bottom. Plus, the recipes use a can of cream soup and milk. I can't use either. I did find 2 recipes with the stuffing on the bottom in a layer, but those were for cornbread stuffing. I don't like cornbread stuffing.

Do any of you have a recipe for baked pork chops with stuffing as a bottom layer. Without sausage.?

I thought maybe the reason so many people were putting the stuffing on top of the pork chops was that the food police had declared stuffing under the pork chops to be unsafe in the way that stuffing inside a turkey is now frowned on. I Googled and the answer I found is that it is safe.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

[Italiancook]

I enjoy and appreciate the photos y'all put on this site. They're lovely to look at and inspirational. Of course, the posts are also inspirational -- so much good cooking and baking going on.

Joan, I'd like to make a request of you. I've found your baked goodies for your yard man both scrumptious-looking and guilt-inducing. I'm gyping my yard man. I never bake for him. So the request is this: Please keep giving your yard man lovely goodies so he never moves to my part of the nation. I don't want him meeting my yard man and telling him about the wonderful woman who baked for him.

[Italiancook]

Impulse Purchase: A week or so ago, I decided I didn't want to continue washing my quarter sheet pans by hand. I gave them away. Fortunately, Williams-Sonoma carries Gold Touch quarter sheet pans. I have Gold Touch mini- and regular bread pans & standard muffin pans. My experience is that they can tolerate dishwasher cleaning. So I bought 2 Gold Touch quarter sheet pans.

While on the site, I thought, "I wonder if Gold Touch makes a 1/8 sheet pan." Didn't have any use for one; curiosity was my motivator. Yes, indeed, they do! They looked so cute I bought two. They have arrived, and they are cute. But I have no use for them. If I stretch my imagination, I can see heating up a slice of homemade pizza in the oven. Or maybe, only maybe, my husband could use one to defrost his slice of bread in the oven instead of placing aluminum foil on the oven rack. Beyond that, I have nothing! But they sure are cute!

[Italiancook]

I also haven't baked cinnamon rolls in a long time. Now that I've seen your beauties, Joan, I'm guessing I'll make them next week. What type of icing did you use? I can't tolerate cream cheese, unfortunately, so I use a powdered sugar icing.

Joan, you recently gave us a beautiful photo of a Lemon Chess Pie you made for your yard man. Today, I saw Kevin Bolton make a Chess Pie on TV. He added cornmeal to it. I've never made one and felt surprised by the cornmeal. Does your recipe call for cornmeal?

[Italiancook]

I realize I'm several weeks late reporting this, but I've been in the throes of packing china for a niece . . . and recovering from it. I had said I'd experiment with baked chocolate chip pancakes. I did that this morning.

I doubled my regular pancake recipe & cooked in a half-sheet pan. I didn't bake them at 425* for 20 minutes as I've done in the past. I baked at 375* for 24 minutes. I think 24 minutes is too long, because the pancakes had cracks at 20 minutes. But they weren't brown on top. I checked them again at 22 minutes & there was some browning at the thinner end. I didn't want them as brown as at 425*, but I wanted some browning. I had that at 24 minutes. Next time I'll use 375* for 23 minutes. I think that'll be perfect.

I also think that 375* is the perfect temp for my recipe. I am pleased with the way today's pancakes interacted with the syrup. I think that's because they weren't solid brown on top. In addition, I baked them on parchment for the first time. I'm probably all washed-up on this, but I think that the parchment played a part in these pancakes being better. I think the parchment served as a buffer from the heat of the metal pan.

My recipe is for a dense pancake, not fluffy. I prefer dense pancakes. I switched to KAF for it today and am pleased with the thickness of the thinner end. Other flours have left the thinner end too thin for pleasurable eating. What I really need to do is try tripling the recipe to completely fill the half-sheet pan.

[Italiancook]

Len, thanks for the information on your pizza cheese. I don't like asiago, but my husband loves unsmoked provolone. I'll try that in the near future.

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