[Italiancook]

Happy Birthday, Joan. So glad your special day was special!

[Italiancook]

BakerAunt, this is indeed a "fascinating article." Really, no pun intended, but it is food for thought.

[Italiancook]

cwcdesign, thanks for your suggestions. I like the idea of a heatproof band. I'll check Lowe's to see if they have them. The outside of my slow cooker becomes hot to the touch. Velcro would work, but may not be safe with the heat. Mike, I've thought of putting books on top, but a little bit of steam comes out along the lip of the cover. I giveaway books I don't want, and I don't have any I'm willing to sacrifice to steam. Both your ideas are better than the one I thought of.

[Italiancook]

cwcdesign, thanks for explaining how you use the ChefAlarm with your crockpot. Unfortunately, my slow cooker doesn't have the carrying clasps. So the Alarm probably won't work with it. Nevertheless, I'll put it to good use in the oven. I'll probably buy the smaller probe so I can use it to measure the temp of homemade sausage. I've always wanted to make sausage patties so I can control the pepper, but I'm so worried about the pork being underdone that I cook them until they're too crispy outside and dry inside.

I understand what you mean about using your slow cooker only when you're home. The newer ones cook so fast that they're no longer a set-it-and-leave product.

[Italiancook]

Mike, the picture you provided is perfect! Thank you! I ordered a ChefAlarm in yellow.

[Italiancook]

Mike, my newer slow cooker has a low and high setting. Even the low setting causes angst. I've learned to cut an hour off the time for any meat. Even then, the Thermapen usually says it's overcooked. Call me old fashioned, but I think meats must cook for a certain amount of time to be safe to eat.

I looked at ChefAlarm. Does the cable become longer? As it appears in the picture, the cord wouldn't be long enough to go inside the crockpot and onto the counter. Is the bulbous thingy on it to release extra cable? Duh! I read reviews and Q&A and still couldn't figure out this.

[Italiancook]

cwcdesign, regarding use in your slow cooker: Does the ChefAlarm probe fit into the meat to let you know when the meat is done?

I have a problem with my new slow cooker in that it cooks meat faster. I don't like removing the lid to check temp with Thermapen, because the cooker takes a while to get back up to temperature.

[Italiancook]

Joan, thanks for posting your discovery of The Best Chewy Peanut Butter cookies. I made them this morning. It's a winner winner chicken dinner recipe, so I'm going to mail it to a niece. My scoops don't have the size inscribed on them; therefore, I don't know how large it is. I ended up with 21 cookies. Mike, these are definitely not crumbly. Mine were melt-in-your-mouth soft and delightful. The recipe says to sprinkle tops with sugar before baking. I used sparkling sugar. Most of it fell off the dough mounds onto the parchment. What stayed on the cookies I didn't like. It seemed to inhibit the peanut butter taste. Next time, I won't top with sugar.

[Italiancook]

Joan, so sorry to hear about your shattered glass mess. I hope you find every last piece of glass without injury.

How is your husband feeling? Has he met with success in his quest to give up smoking? Every state in the Union has a smoking cessation program. You may be able to find information for your state by Googling. I've been praying for him to succeed in quitting. Before the pandemic, I read that stopping the use of tobacco is extremely difficult because tobacco is extremely addictive.

[Italiancook]

Mike's right, Aaron, the recipe I used is for 1 loaf. It makes a beautifully large boule.

If you explain to your friend that this is a batter dough, not a traditional, stiffer bread dough, you friend will be on the right track. Therefore, it's best to mix it in the stand mixer for the first rise.

The best way I found to add flour to the dough is to scrape the battered, risen dough onto a floured board with a plastic bowl scraper. Use the bowl scraper to lift up the dough -- it's too sticky to handle at that point -- and toss flour under the dough. Use the bowl scraper to knead the flour into the dough. Keep doing this until you have a normal bread dough & go forward with the process.

I've never baked a braided bread, so this is the most beautiful loaf of bread I've baked. It's the largest boule I've ever made. My husband goes ape when he sees the final, baked product. He said it reminds him of the ones the baker made at the bakery he started working at when 12-years-old.

Oh, yes, it tastes delicious, too!

[Italiancook]

BakerAunt, my mother-in-law made thousands of flour tortillas in her lifetime. She didn't use a regular-sized rolling pin. The pin she used was wooden, tortilla-sized long -- sorry I don't know the exact length. I believe, but may be wrong that I've seen that sized rolling pin at lehmans.com. She had a 1950's-type kitchen table, metal legs, laminated-looking top. She rolled them directly on the table -- no parchment, no saran. I don't recall her putting flour on the table as she rolled.

When she cooked them, they'd puff-up as they cooked, which is a sign of a really well-made tortilla. All her cooked tortillas were pale in color, except for the brown-to-black spots on one side of them. Those spots are a sign of a well-made tortilla. All the tortilla shops in her area that made tortillas by hand had that color. Perfection! Her tortillas were 6"-7" round.

Below is my mother's-in-law tortilla recipe, written exactly as she did it while I watched. It probably won't be much help to you, but hopefully, the cooking instructions might be useful to you.

BakerAunt, if you're going to buy tortillas, the only store brand we're willing to use is La Banderita. They're 6-1/2" round.

FLOUR TORTILLAS

Mix in a long cake pan. Makes about 5 dozen.

Using a big coffee cup (about the size of hubby's green cup -- remember, cups were smaller last century), measure 5 heaping cups of flour.

Using a regular eating teaspoon, measure 5 level teaspoons of baking powder. Add lard (a chunk the size of a walnut) and gradually add 2-1/2 cups (approximately) (using the cup you used for the flour as the measure) HOT water. Mix the flour quickly with the water.

Work dough well. May have to add a sprinkling or 2 or water -- work until no longer sticky. Do NOT knead dough like bread dough. GENTLY knead by rolling back and forth -- pick up at the top and roll back & forth. Change ends. Then roll dough into a ball & rub Crisco on the top. Cover with a cloth & let set in a warm, draft-free place for about an hour.

Make semi-flat balls -- punch dough under with thumb. The more dough in each ball, the heavier your tortilla will be (don't want heavy tortillas), but have enough dough to make a large tortilla (6"-7" round) When all balls are formed, cover with damp cloth & let rest for about 10 minutes. Then start rolling, but keep those unrolled balls covered all the time.

TO ROLL: Roll in one direction, then turn -- roll in other direction & keep repeating until reach desired size. Pat with hands when turn to keep from sticking.

TO COOK: Put tortilla on a hot griddle -- turn right away. Cook on 2nd side, but move it around on the griddle so it will cook evenly. Then toss it on the gas flame and let it cook there until tortilla gets nice & puffy with air. Cook only one side against the flame that way only one side will be brown & black from the flame. That is the sided you put your meat or beans on.

If you don't have a gas stove, then the entire process must be done on the griddle. The tortillas will still puff up with air.

FOR 2 DOZEN TORTILLAS: 2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, small dab of Crisco & about 1-1/8 cup HOT water (use the same measuring instruments that you do for 5 dozen.

NOTE: Grab flour fast & get it mixed fast.

[Italiancook]

Happy Belated Birthday, Cass! On another device, I had seen that you had a birthday. I couldn't type a greeting until now.

Thanks for the help you've given me, especially with the Portuguese Bread.

[Italiancook]

I praise the Lord with you, Joan. Thanks for letting us know. Please give yourself a big hug for your faithful care of your sister via visits and food you prepared for her. She was blest to have you. May God bless you during your grief.

[Italiancook]

I purchased a Loaded Potato Soup mix from KABC. I made it this afternoon. It involved a little work in that I had to fry bacon and dice a potato, but everything else was in the mix. It used a cup of cream. Recipe claims it can be made in a hour, but it took me 75 minutes. I've never made potato soup from scratch, so I don't know how long that'd take. I'm assuming, however, that the mix saved me some time. My husband thinks it's delicious. I think it's tasty but has too much pepper. It has 3 types of pepper. The only pepper I cook with is white. That didn't stop me from having leftovers for dinner. Because of the pepper, I won't buy it again, but I like it enough that I'm going to try some of the other soup mixes KABC sells.

[Italiancook]

My hot water heater is electric. Before 2017, I also had a long-term Rheem. Foolishly, we decided in 2017 to replace the working Rheem with a new one to make sure we never ran out of hot water. The contractor gave our working Rheem to one of his buddies. It's still working! So in 2017, the replacement was a different brand. Yes, probably the super economy model. But at that time, the contractor said hot water heaters as a group are being made more cheaply and that it wouldn't last more than 5 years. Yesterday, the contractor said the same thing after he made the installation. While I imagine it's also the super economy model, I know that manufacturers of items I buy are building them for obsolescence, not for longevity.

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