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Christmas is almost over, and I hope everyone enjoyed their day.
Cass, when Christmas Eve morning dawned, I decided to take a laid-back approach to the day. The Portuguese Bread didn't make it to the oven. I'll post when I make it.
December 25, 2021 at 7:51 pm in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of December 19, 2021? #32529Your wife's trifle is stunning! Mike. With your pastry cream in it, I imagine it is scrumptious!
I've been in a restaurant supply store only once. It was an expedition finding it but so worth the effort. All of a sudden, I had a Need for items I never knew I needed. I wanted things I had never thought about wanting. My husband was with me, and even he was enamored. I use everything we purchased, so I guess we needed it all. Because it was an expedition away, we never went back. Oh, but it's a fun memory being there.
I don't know anything about citron, BakerAunt, since I don't use it. But Frank & Sal Italian Market on Staten Island has citron. It's listed as candied. Below is the link. I buy cannoli shells and parm-reggiano and romano cheese from them. Delivery was great until the pandemic. Now, shipping takes an extra day. So I order on Monday instead of the end of the week. If you have questions about the citron, you can call them. I've always found that to be helpful.
https://frankandsal.com/search?type=product&q=citron*Why do you want the water gone so soon in the bake, Mike. The wording of my bread recipes make it sound like the water should stay in for the entire bake . . . the Portuguese Bread recipe being the exception. But then, none of the bread I make is complex or difficult.
I made a loaf of Italian/French Bread. The recipe calls it French bread, and the crumb I attained is French bread quality. The shorter length and plumpness of the loaf make it Italian bread. Before posting this, I checked online to find out the difference between French and Italian Bread. Italian bread has a denser crumb.
I tried something different in the oven. The recipe says to put a pan of boiling water on the bottom rack. The recipe for the Portuguese Bread says to start with ice water during the preheat. Then, remove the water 10 minutes before bread finished. It says this will make it crustier. So I started with boiling water, but removed it after I gave the bread it's last egg white wash at 30 minutes, fifteen minutes before the bread was done. This did, indeed, make the crust crispier, even though the bread had 3 layers of egg white wash. My husband commented happily on the crispy crust when I sliced it. He's more into that than I am.
The bread looked so beautiful that I served it with the Portuguese olive oil tonight. I've learned to trust the descriptions of the oil. This olive oil was exactly like the description, and I dislike it. Too spicy for me. Hubby likes it, so he's inheriting it for his morning eggs.
I'm still going to make the Portuguese Bread Christmas Eve morning. I want to see if that bread makes the olive oil taste better to me -- I don't think so, but I may be surprised.
Yes, BakerAunt, we read the same article. I have a friend who lives in the farming region of Oregon. During the growing season this year, she kept me posted on the drought there. The water shortage was so severe that there was a danger drinking water might become compromised. During fire season, farmers couldn't irrigate, because the water was needed for firefighting. So it was easy for me to extrapolate Australia's problem to the U.S., especially since there were droughts in other farming areas of our nation this year.
Don't recall where, but I read today that there's a shortage of wheat. Do you know anything about that, Mike? I guess this means we'll have a shortage of flour, but I have no idea how many months away that may be.
I baked KABC Blitz Bread Focaccia today to go with homemade soup. Most of it went into the freezer.
Cass, I haven't forgotten the Portuguese Bread. I looked over your suggestions just yesterday. I think we're going to have this with the Portuguese olive oil as a Christmas Eve treat. Just in case I flub this new recipe, I hope to make Italian bread on Saturday to freeze. If the Portuguese Bread flubs, I'll pull the Italian bread out of the freezer, and we'll have the olive oil on Christmas Day with Italian bread.
It is shocking and concerning to see how some prices have increased. I'm also concerned about the jump in delivery costs. I signed up for KA Baker's Reward+ today in hopes of reducing shipping costs. I'm unsure I buy from KA often enough to breakeven on this, but I'm going to give it a try.
December 16, 2021 at 6:02 pm in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of December 12, 2021? #32390I made a pot of Cauliflower-Pasta Soup to keep from needing to cook for a few days.
I like Sam's Jarlsberg cheese in place of Swiss. I don't know whether Jarlsberg is a form of Swiss cheese, but they taste similar to me.
December 14, 2021 at 6:12 pm in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of December 12, 2021? #32353Mike, given that the media reports that people are rushing through the grocery store because of the pandemic, maybe you didn't have a senior moment. It's likely that in haste, a customer had looked at the spinach, then put the package in the wrong place. Expecting it to be broccoli, because you were in the right place, you may have picked it up without looking at the package closely.
cwc, thanks for sharing this hilarious article with us. Great timing!
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