[luvpyrpom]

I've baked a lot of KAF recipes and I've always found them a bit on the salty side. I always cut their salt down to half or 3/4 of what they say. I go on the heavier side if I use unsalted butter.

[luvpyrpom]

I did all my big cooking at the end of last week. Froze some of the dishes so will be eating out of the freezer for the rest of week. Other than cooking fresh veggies for sides, I think that will be the most of my cooking this week. Tonight I did a quick stir-fry with lotus root and sugar snap peas to go with the leftover braised taro root.

[luvpyrpom]

I've gotten used to braiding with 6 strands when I make challah. I've done a 4 strand round challah. I'll have to try that 6 strand round and see how it turns out.

[luvpyrpom]

Didn't cook much - worked over the New Years and have been eating leftovers and stuff from the freezer. I did go to the Asian grocery store yesterday and totally stocked up on the veggies so I can make various stuff the next couple of days. Right now I have some beef shanks in the slow cooker, will braise it with daikon radish chunks for dinner tonight. Last night I bought some soy sprouts and sauteed that with just chicken broth. Had that with a roasted duck and rice. I also bought a chunk of taro root and will cook that with some ground pork. Also bought some lotus root to try to stir fry. I remember my mother cooking lotus root with pork in a clear soup base so this will be something new.

[luvpyrpom]

I totally understand, Mike, at how much sodium is out there. You are lucky not to have to cut out dairy, like I do. I've taken up cooking everything from scratch and even dabbled into vegan cooking. I've also given eating out as there's so much sodium in everyone's cooking.

One thing I've recently learned is to roasted cauliflower - seasoned with smoked sweet paprika, olive oil and just a 1/4th teaspoon for a whole head of cauliflower. I've actually done the roasted cauliflower with curry powder instead of the paprika. Of the spices, those two are my favorites.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by luvpyrpom.

[luvpyrpom]

I have used both the Rival and Elite small rice cookers - both I got from Target. The Rival was badly scratched before I switched over to the Elite. I do like to use the Rival to steam small stuff as it's a nice little thing.

As for the steel cut oats - what I've done is cook 4 portions of it. I bring 4 cups of water to boil, add the 1 cup of steel cut oats, bring back to boil, cover and let it sit overnight. What I do in the morning, is divide the oatmeal into 1 cup servings and refrigerate. I also make my own little mix of chopped dried fruits/nuts (pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, raisins, praline nuts, dried pineapple, dried banana chips, dried blueberries, dried apples, whatever I seem to have in the pantry). I add a couple of tablespoons of the mix into the oatmeal and microwave for 1 to 1.5 minutes. I like to sweeten it a little with honey. I grew up eating oatmeal with no dairy in it so I don't miss it. If you want, you can cook the oatmeal with less water, (I personally like to cook it with 3.5 cups of water) and then add the milk in the morning during the reheat.

I guess there's an electric pressure cooker but they all look pretty big.

Hope this helps.

[luvpyrpom]

No baking for me this week - taking a break from the massive marathon of holiday baking.

CWCdesign - your star bread looks beautiful! I did a Christmas tree one year and everyone teased me because it looked more like an alligator than a tree.

I'm sure I'll be back to baking again next week as I've decided to get back into baking breads again.

[luvpyrpom]

I've been cooking with low sodium stuff for years. And being Asian, there's a ton of soy sauce in everything! Even with bread baking, I tend to go lower on the salt. I do watch the rise by watching the bucket instead of time. Like Bakeraunt, I do miss the chips and when I do have something like that, I'm shocked at how salty everything tastes. The other day, I bought a bag of sweet potato chips. Mentally I was thinking this would be sweet and crunchy. First bite, my thought was - "way too salty!!!" I love to roast vegetables with a simple toss of oil, pepper, and granulated garlic. Just a little bit salt. Even with the low sodium soy sauce, I tend to half the amount asked for in the recipe. Sometimes I just want to taste the actual food and not the salt. Or I'll cook the dish and add the salt as a finisher.

[luvpyrpom]

On Friday, I made the Copycat Olive Garden Minestrone soup. Used vegetable stock so the entire pot was vegan. I love to freeze my soups into individual portion sizes and then I can use them for lunch. When I freeze my soups, if there's pasta in it, I leave it out. I'll precook some pasta ahead of time and keep it separate until I reheat it. That way, the pasta doesn't get all mushy from the freezing and sitting in liquid too long.

[luvpyrpom]

I love fruitcake! And we used to get the Collins Fruitcake too! But now that I've found KAF Orange-Cranberry-Nut fruitcake recipe, I've been using that without the nuts as my niece is allergic to nuts. The only issue is that I don't put any glaze on it and it becomes so dry. This year I even added a tablespoon of oil to the batter to see if it would help retain it's moistness. I don't want to use any of the glaze because I think it would become way too sweet that way.

Bakeraunt, I've seen fruitcake cookie recipes before, just haven't tried any yet. Let us know what you find!

[luvpyrpom]

To finish off the week, I tried to make ham/egg/cheese croissant roll ups for work. I cheated and used the croissants that came in a can. Fried the scrambled eggs like a crepe so I could just layer everything and roll them up. Well, the cheese leaked out of the sides so they all had "cheese wings" I think if I make these again, I may just use ham and cheese, and form them into balls.

[luvpyrpom]

I really almost overdid it this past weekend - baked tons of cookies (honey bars, mint chocolate chip, fudge cookies, thin & lacy oatmeal, molasses, white chocolate w/cranberry, snickerdoodles, lemon coconut snowball, peanut butter), orange-cranberry-dried fruit mini bundt cakes, chex puppy chow, and cranberry bliss bark (candy). I also made Bernard Clayton's Chopped Apple Bread - two loaves of that. The liquid leaked underneath the parchment peper and just stuck to the pans horribly. I literally had to soak the pans for 2 days and then gently scrape off the burnt stuff. Almost ruined my 9x5 pans, don't know what to use next time as I'm afraid of what other pans to use. Alao made a pan of KAF Honey Wheat rolls for the Christmas dinner. I think I am done baking sweet stuff for the next few months. Had to freeze some of the leftover cookies to eat for later in the year.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by luvpyrpom.

[luvpyrpom]

Sunday was leftover Korean Chicken wings with roasted broccoli. Christmas dinner was potluck style as I had both my siblings' families - 14 people in total. So I roasted the prime rib, made honey wheat rolls, and roasted the broccoli and green beans. My sister roasted garlic potatoes. Sis-in-law brought appetizers - bacon wrapped w/brown sugar crackers, white bean hummus with basil and crackers, shrimp w/cocktail sauce, and she made an green apple-cranberry salad. Dessert was mainly the cookies which I will share on the baking thread. Been eating leftovers the last 2 nights. I did throw a pork roast into the slow cooker yesterday which we will probably eat on Friday.

[luvpyrpom]

I'm a terrible hoarder of stocks, too. I have chicken, beef, pork, and mushroom stocks. I also have different pestos and lemon juices and lemon oil frozen in small containers. I just have to remember to use them when I cook.

[luvpyrpom]

Chocomouse, sorry about your baking troubles. I've run across that many times too.

RiversideLen, your stollen looks good.

Bakersaunt, sorry that the cookie recipe didn't turn out right for the cookie cutters. Same problem with me this year, I thought I could use my peanut butter cookie recipe for the cookie presses I had bought. The cookies puffed up and totally lost the design.

This week I did a majority of the baking of cookies. I think I might've posted that last week. I also made Cranberry Bliss Bark - not baking but still a dessert. Also made Chex Puppy Chow using sunflower butter instead of peanut butter. Probably will be baking some more on Saturday or Sunday.

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