[Italiancook]

Yes, Kimbob, may your husband heal completely, quickly.

Mike, a few weeks ago, Sam's had the low-fat pre-grated mozzarella cheese in stock that you have mentioned. I wasn't prepared for how much 5 pounds would actually look like. It seemed massive when it was unpacked!

I've had it a few weeks -- long enough that I dreamed all last night about processing it before it wastes. To my surprise, after I pulled it out of the fridge, I couldn't find an expiration date on it. Is that normal? The cheese looked and tasted fine, so I put it in 5 oz. packages for the freezer. It's been so long since I made pizza that I can't remember how much mozzarella I use. So I put 10 oz. in a plastic container for the refrigerator. Before breakfast tomorrow, I'll make pizza dough to rise in the fridge. We'll have pizza on Thursday. At that time, I'll weigh how much cheese I have leftover. I'll mark the weight on the recipe.

Mike, is there a rhyme or reason to when Sam's carries these 5 pound bags of mozzarella. This was the first time they had it in stock at my warehouse when I've looked for it (online). I'm wondering if it's a winter-only product.

Thanks for telling us about this product. I like the appearance of the cheese shreds.

[Italiancook]

Happy Belated Birthday, BakerAunt. Your cake and meal sounded scrumptious.

[Italiancook]

chocomouse, I also put potatoes in my corn chowder. I agree with you about the carbs. That's why I froze most of it. If we eat a bowlful of the chowder occasionally, the carbs don't add up, or so I tell myself. Plus, I add 2 ribs of celery to the chowder. With a healthful veg in the pot, some of the carbs are canceled out, or so I tell myself.

[Italiancook]

chocomouse, I made corn chowder for the freezer Friday. I saw a recipe that added broken chicken ramen noodles to corn chowder. I tried that, and we really liked having the ramen in it. The recipe said to use the full seasoning packet, but that's way too much salt for my taste. I added just a little of it.

[Italiancook]

BakerAunt, I appreciate your expertise on Emile Henry's products. I'll take your advice and use Crisco and farina. I have to wait until the weather breaks to do a store-run to buy the Cream of Wheat. I had planned on using semolina, which I stock. I'm glad you warned me it burns. I've printed Henry's ciabatta recipe, so once I have the farina, I'm headed to the kitchen. I brought a container of homemade tomato sauce from the garage freezer to the kitchen freezer compartment. So I'm anticipating a meal of penne with tomato sauce and ciabatta. I'm so eager for this meal that I hope I don't have a ciabatta-baking flop.

[Italiancook]

Len, the ground meat looks wonderful. Is it time-consuming?

[Italiancook]

RiversideLen, your braided round looks beautiful and perfect. Thanks for the tip about the flour. I've never made a braided loaf. I don't like the way long braided loaves look like they cut with the slices not being all uniform. At least that's the way the finished product looks to me. Your braided boule has inspired me to make my next boule braided.

Yesterday, I ordered an Emile Henry ciabatta baker from their website. It's on sale. I don't know if all their bakers are on sale. It makes 2-1 lb. loaves. I don't plan on putting the risen dough into a 500 degree baker, however. I'm going to do the second rise in the baker and hope I end up with delicious ciabatta . . . somehow. I don't care if I sacrifice a little on the crust. My preferred bread for pasta is ciabatta. It's iffy to find in the store. I've never tried ciabatta-baking because of the steam. I can't work up much enthusiasm for making steam in the oven. Of course, if it's too much of a crust reduction, it won't really be ciabatta.

[Italiancook]

Deleted. The Amazon link didn't work.

[Italiancook]

BakerAunt, thanks: (1) For posting your Pumpkin Puree (accent missing) recipe. I'll never make it; I don't like pumpkin pie or pumpkin bread. In the recipe, you mentioned using a Kuhn-Rikon knife. At the time, I had an acorn squash that I didn't feel like tackling with my chef's knife. I searched Amazon for your knife. The first thing that popped up was a watermelon knife. There was no mention in the blurb or the reviews about using it for squash. I bought it anyhow. Summer will come again, and we like watermelon.

I continued to search for a squash knife. Still none with that label. I found the orange knife with a review mentioning acorn squash. I bought it, too. I'm going to use it on the acorn squash tomorrow.

(2) Thanks for letting us know you buy freezer containers from Lehman's. I buy several items from them but didn't know they sell freezer containers. To my pleasant surprise, they're USA-made. Immediately, I texted a niece about them. I no longer make the multi-course Italian Christmas dinner, but she does. She kept me in the loop about all her many, many preparations, including her Christmas Eve tamales -- all the WORK. After the holiday was over, I texted to her that she really needs to do most of the prep in October and freeze everything. Thanks to you, BakerAunt, she now knows where to buy the freezer containers.

[Italiancook]

I agree with you, chocomouse, I wish I had known about baked pancakes years ago. KABC has a recipe for sheet pan French Toast. Eventually I'm going to try it -- not with their custard mixture which is more work than I want to go to first thing in the morning. I'm going to use my mixture (2 eggs, 1 cup milk, lots of cinnamon & a smidgen nutmeg) and follow their instructions for the baking. I may need to adjust it somewhat, but it certainly has to be easier than standing at the stove babysitting 2 slices French Toast at a time in the skillet. Here's the KABC recipe:
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/sheet-pan-french-toast-recipe

[Italiancook]

My opinion is that your opinion is 100% correct -- at least where my new slow cookers are concerned, navlys. Today, I made slow cooker Florentine Potato Soup. The recipe from old, good slow cooker era calls for it to cook 7 hours on low. In my new slow cooker, the potatoes were cooked in 5 hr. 10 min.! You called it right, navlys.

[Italiancook]

I notice Len's pepperoni is on top of the cheese and wonder why he makes it this way. I put the cheese on top of the ingredients. The reason: When I was a teen, I spent many Friday nights sleeping over at a friend's house. Her parents would go out and spring for us to order pizza and Coca-Cola's. Those pizzas always had a full covering of cheese on top of the ingredients. I never fully cover the ingredients on my pizzas, to save calories. My pizzas look nice with wisps of ingredients peeking through, but Len, your pizza looks scrumptious. And I'm wondering what the greenery is on top.

[Italiancook]

Aaron, I had to Google to find out why challah is round for Rosh Hashana. Thanks for the education!

You probably explained this question last year, but I don't recall the answer: How do you determine who receives each loaf of challah? Do you rotate so that each family eventually receives one?

[Italiancook]

After BakerAunt posted about Banana Oat Muffins, I searched for the recipe on allrecipes.com. In the process, I found a headline for "25 Ways to Bake with Olive Oil Instead of Butter." https://www.allrecipes.com/gallery/baking-with-olive-oil-recipes/

I baked their Olive Oil Bread yesterday afternoon. It took 2 hr. 10 min. Prepping the bread took 28 minutes. The remainder of the time was rising and baking for 40 minutes.

The finished product was slightly larger than a steakhouse boule served at the table. We ate half of it for penne with Rao's red sauce. The bread is delicious. I'm keeping the recipe for an "emergency" when I want bread with minimal effort at the last minute. I don't like foccacia with pasta, so this bread will work for me as a substitute for baking fresh foccacia, which also only takes a couple of hours.

BakerAunt, in this collection of recipes is one for Olive Oil Sugar Cookies.

[Italiancook]

BakerAunt, I appreciate your previous information about KAB's Soft Wrap Bread and how you'd freeze it. I printed the recipe but haven't ordered the potato flour. I'm debating with myself. Theoretically, I'm not supposed to eat potatoes. Because of the phosphorous. I do, but never without trepidation. On the KAB website it says potato flour makes baked goods softer. If I purchased the potato flour, I know I'd also use it in KAB's recipe for onion buns. They're very good, but not as soft as I prefer bread products. So I've been debating whether I should risk have a pantry product with phosphorous AND a sack of potatoes in the larder. If this debate ever ends with a purchase, I'll post here when I make the Soft Wraps.

[Author]

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