[Italiancook]

I baked several chicken thighs using my mom's method -- sprinkle skins with seasoned salt & bake at 350 degrees for one hour. When they were slightly cool, I removed the skins & picked the meat, put it in serving size portions. Then I put those portions in sandwich bags & into a plastic container. A slight heating in the microwave on a plate (without the bag) will be the protein for some meals this week.

I also made Paula Deen's Garden Pea Salad, but I'm going to toss it out. There was a foreign object in the peas, but for reasons I cannot imagine, I went ahead with the recipe. I'll make carrot salad today to replace it.

Last night, I made banana pancakes using one banana that was ready to go south.That was dinner & dinner tonight with the leftover batter. I'm going to make braised, breaded pork chops for lunch today.

[Italiancook]

I'm surprised, but I knew this. Maybe it was something you've posted about working with chocolate, Mike.

[Italiancook]

I knew this only because a Food Network chef mentioned the event when either making ice cream or waffle cones.

[Italiancook]

I just baked KAF Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars. I used 2 cups of brown sugar (Splenda) and deleted the additional 2 tablespoons. I used 1 cup Ghiradelli Caramel chips with nuts and chocolate chips. I made this once before and forgot to put any notes on the recipe. I don't really recall whether I like these, but since I've been craving chocolate lately, I thought I'd retry it and make sure I put on notes this time. It'll be awhile before we can cut into them. Recipe says to cool "overnight."

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by Italiancook.

[Italiancook]

I hope you and your sister have a wonderful time together, Joan. We'll look forward to hearing from you when you can post.

[Italiancook]

As I was making notes on the recipe just now, I occurred to me that maybe I dimpled the dough too much. The recipe says to poke it "all over," and I did that. There were small areas of dough around the poke holes, but I did pretty much poke it all over. My baked bread had more indentations that it looks like in the KAF picture. How much do you poke it, BakerAunt & skeptic7?

[Italiancook]

BakerAunt, thanks so much for all your focaccia experience. By the light of day, I feel less discouraged and frustrated than I did posting yesterday. Plus, I ate focaccia with an Italian soup last night, and really enjoyed the bread. It's a good broth-dunking bread. I think your tip about using wet hands on the dough would prevent the problem I had with oiled hands, adding to the olive oil pools.

I appreciate the information on what speed you use for the dough. I can't recall what I used, but I've made a note on the recipe what you used. I did it only for the 60 seconds the recipe called for.

skeptic7, thanks for the link to the roller. I have it on my list for the next time I use Amazon. I think the roller would have helped me yesterday. When I cut the focaccia, I noticed that some of it was thicker and some thinner. The roller would help me attain evenness.

I have decided to give the recipe another try. BTW, I used 3/4 tsp. marjoram as the topping herb. Gave the bread a good taste. I think this would be an interesting bread to give to others with soup or Ina Garten's Five Cheese Penne.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by Italiancook.

[Italiancook]

Follow-up 2 Blitz Bread: No Fuss Focaccia. It's baked. It is much thinner than it looks in the recipe picture. I throw in the towel on foccacia. I'll stick with Parkerhouse & Butterhorn Rolls.

[Italiancook]

I don't think I have the skill to make focaccia. A couple of decades ago, I tried it with a recipe from a PBS show. It was a disaster. Every time I tried to stretch the dough on the cookie sheet, the dough sprung back. I couldn't get it into the desired rectangle. Finally, I baked it misshapen. It turned out very thin, and we didn't know what to do with it. The finished product didn't seem right for sandwiches, and it didn't occur to us to just eat it like bread with soup.

Fast forward to now. I made the dough for KAF Blitz Bread Focaccia. Easy as pie. Because the dough was so sticky, I put olive oil on my fingers to get it all into the 9"x13" baking dish. It didn't fit the rectangle, so I tried to stretch it to fit, and it kept pulling back on one end and at places on the sides. I had a hole in the middle I couldn't patch. Each time I tried to stretch the dough, olive oil swam to the top of the dough. In some places, the olive oil is pooled. I have no idea if this dough is going to rise to the occasion and fill in, but I imagine the baked product is going to have places that are oily from too much olive oil.

After two attempts, years apart, with different recipes, I have to believe I have no talent for focaccia. I find it amusing that someone who calls herself Italiancook can't make focaccia!

[Italiancook]

BakerAunt, I grew up on an orchard in the north. Our peaches seldom survived the late frosts. During the few, glorious summers we had peaches, my sister and I would eat most of them straight from the trees, taking home only enough for Mom to slice and serve for dinner. We only had a few trees, because parents knew it was an iffy crop because of the weather. Some of our trees were freestone and some were clingstone.

As far as I know, the only way to tell the difference is to cut the peach open along the "crease." If the pit pulls easily out of the half, it's a freestone. Also, if it's a freestone, it's easy to pull the fruit into halves after cut. Clingstones make it difficult to cut the peach into halves, or to do so neatly. The pit clings to the peach.

I have no idea why the adults purchased clingstone trees. Even Mom had a hard time slicing them. The planting of peach trees was an experiment. Maybe including clingstones was part of the research.

[Italiancook]

chocomouse, I've added lemon powder to my KAF wish list. I checked out the ingredient list on their website & will buy it with a future order. Thanks for sharing your experience with it. I've used lemon oil but don't have any in stock now.

[Italiancook]

I had no idea what osmotolerant means, so I used the process of eliminating what I thought was incorrect to arrive at the correct answer. Thanks for keeping us on our toes, Mike.

[Italiancook]

chocomouse, thanks for pointing me to the 2 KAF recipes. I use KAF recipes a lot, always with good success, but I never thought to search there for coffeecake recipes! I just printed the two you suggested, and one of them will be on our table next Sunday. I'll let you know how it turned out. I have a question:

The Blueberry Coffeecake with Lemon Streusel calls for candied lemon peel. I don't have any and am certain none of the stores around here sell it. Do you use this product or do you sub it out for something else?

I also don't have the lemon juice powder, but I see on the recipe I can sub the zest of 2 lemons.

[Italiancook]

I've started a tradition of having coffee cake for breakfast on Sundays. Tonight, I baked tomorrow's cake. Quick Coffee Cake from Allrecipes. I sampled it and don't like the topping. Too sandy. The cake is good, so I'll make this again sometime using one of Jenny Jones' (jennycancook.com) toppings.

[Italiancook]

Thanks, BakerAunt, for the info.

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