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February 23, 2023 at 8:02 am in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of February 19, 2023? #38521
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I have a Mennonite recipe for excellent Butterhorn rolls that would benefit from scaling. I had bought an inexpensive scale for that recipe. When it arrived, I didn't want to dirty a bowl with the dough for weighing, and the scale was too small to hold a blob of dough. I gave the scale to a neighbor for his shop. I spent $72 on the pull-out display from KABC. It's now much less expensive (grumble grumble). The scale would hold a blob of Butterhorn dough for dividing, but I haven't made it around to the recipe yet.
KABC has an excellent blog about how-to use a scale.
Len, I don't bake pies, so I let Pi Day go by. I never thought of making a pizza pi, which is strange. When my dad wanted pizza, he'd say, "I'm going to roll down the hill and get a pizza pie." The hill was the downward sloping street.
I made the allrecipes.com Irresistible Irish Soda Bread. It sits overnight, so it's my nod to St. Patrick's Day. Half will be egg salad lunches tomorrow. I'll freeze the other half. It's a loaf pan bread, not a boule, which is how I'm used to seeing soda bread recipes. No currants in it. Comes together in 15 minutes, if canisters don't need to be refilled. I made it previously but gave it away. Recipients declared it very good.
Later, I baked KABC Banana Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting. I had made them previously, using butter. Today, I subbed all light olive oil. I used 6 tablespoons oil, but didn't add any water. They taste good but are a little dry. BakerAunt, how much water and oil would you have used? Recipe calls for 1/2 cup softened butter.
My favorite is the Concord Grape. It's been a while since we've been able to find it in the half-gallon-sized bottles. Sam's hasn't had it for most of the pandemic -- may have stopped carrying it. Grocery has the family-sized bottles. I don't like them, even though we buy them. They take up too much space in the refrigerator.
It's also hard to find milk in half-gallon bottles. I don't like it in gallons, either, but we buy it when necessary.
I just want Congress or my State to settle on something -- anything -- so the time doesn't change twice a year.
I have a question: I want to make a loaf of Soda Bread for the freezer. The recipe says not to cut until the next day. I've made this before, so I know that enhances the flavor. Since it's going into the freezer, should I freeze the day made or wait until the next day?
Yesterday, I made vegetable beef soup. This morning, I put 4 quarts of it into the freezer. For breakfast this morning, I made blueberry buttermilk pancakes.
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