[luvpyrpom]

Merry Christmas! Hope everyone has a wonderful day enjoying family and friends and good food!

[luvpyrpom]

I make the KA Homemade Whole Grain Pancake mix and they never bubble. I just keep an eye out on the dryness of the top before flipping. They do come out quite fluffy and light especially if I remember to use the "lemon sour milk" instead of regular soy milk or lactose free milk.

[luvpyrpom]

Short grain rice is more of the Japanese rice, like sushi rice or the glutenous kind. You can see the difference in sizes when they are side by side. And Mike is right, wild rice is considered a water grass seed, not a grain.

I generally wash my rice irregardless of what the packaging says. I just use the smallest mixing bowl I have. Swish the rice and water and then pour out the water. Repeat. My mother used to say rinse a minimum of three times. I tried a couple of times of using a fine mesh strainer but thr grains would stuck in the mesh which was a hassle to clean. Thus the bowl and tilt water out.

[luvpyrpom]

Not much cooking this week, made a sweet potato casserole - simple sweet potatoes sliced and shingled into a dish, sprinkle with chopped nuts, brown sugar and cinnamon. Didn't cook much protein - had bought some rotisserie chicken leg quarters and had been eating that pretty much the whole week. On Friday, we had a birthday dinner for my mom and I made Mochiko Chicken - teriyaki flavored deep fried chicken bites.

[luvpyrpom]

Still working on my Christmas baking besides the usual bread needs. Made Antelope's Vienna bread with a little substitution - subbed half with white whole wheat flour, added a couple tablespoons of potato flour and vital wheat gluten. It came out really tough althought tasty. I think next time I will decrease the amount of the white whole wheat flour. I also made peanut butter cookies, maple bacon crack, white chocolate cranberry cookies for the upcoming holiday.

[luvpyrpom]

Bakeraunt, I'm glad you were able to fix your Cuisinart hand mixer. I have both the KitchenAid stand mixer and the hand mixer. I use the hand mixer if the recipe needs two things - like my chiffon cake - I use the stand mixer to whip the egg whites and the hand mixer to mix the other ingredients. I agree with Joan, too, the hand mixer is too weak for dough mixing - even thought I have the dough hooks and the balloon whisk, too.

[luvpyrpom]

Besides finishing the Thanksgiving leftovers, I made roast sirloin pork on Sunday, a stirfry of flank steak and pickled mustard green on Tuesday. The mustard green was so salty, that we finished up the beef with the mustard green as leftover. So I added tofu for the leftover pickled greens. Also made soy sauce drumsticks on Friday. Made a huge antipasto salad to take to work for potluck. It was a nice salad because it could sit out without anyone getting worried as the dressing didn't have any dairy in it.

As for the meatloaf, when my mom made it, she only used rolled oats and eggs as the binder. And not much veggies, either. I think it was just beef, oats, eggs, and ketchup.

[luvpyrpom]

Got a little more baking this week - I still need to work on my pie crust skills, I think I finally got a good crust recipe and am thinking about making a crust mix leaving out the butter/margarine until I'm ready to make the crust. I generally use real butter for gift giving or friends and margarine/vegan butter for myself and immediate family members. On Tuesday, I made a coconut macaroon pie and pie fries with the leftover pie edges. The crust was definitely flaky and tender. On Friday, I made ham and cheese scones that had butter and cream in it. I think I over worked it as I had rolled it out and it came out pretty flat. Another thought was that there wasn't enough a baking powder as there was only 2 tsp for 2 cups of flour. Plus, I had used a little bit of pastry flour in it, too. I guess I'll have to try to make them again in the future. Then on Saturday, I made maple bacon crack after work as we had a potluck on Sunday. The first time I hade made it, it was way too sweet. This time I changed it - instead of pouring maple syrup all over and drenching it everywhere, I just took a brush and brushed a light coating of maple syrup over the croissant dough. And then sprinkle with bacon bits and a little bit of brown sugar. Less sweet more able to appreciate the sweet/salty thing.

Bakeraunt, your cornmeal lemon blueberry muffins sounds yummy, can you share the recipe? Or is it already in the recipe section?

[luvpyrpom]

Sorry, I can't remember what I made the past week other than the dishes for Thanksgiving. I just remember there were a lot of nights with leftovers prior to Thanksgiving and then after that day, there were more leftovers. I'm trying to eat out of the freezers so I have room for the holiday cookie baking I have coming up.

[luvpyrpom]

Did a lot of baking this week - mason jar Boston cream cakes, KA Honey Wheat Rolls, Vienna bread, molasses cookies, mint chocolate chip cookies.

Mike - love your pie, looks beautiful. I made the Vienna bread with my Italian loaf pan except instead of 2 loaves, I divided each roll in half and had 4 smaller loaves instead. I find that we (my mother and I) can finish a small loaf in a more reasonable time.

Cwc - I do the same thing when I bake any biscotti - cuts the second baking time in half when I stand them up in the pan. One of my favorites is a snickerdoodle biscotti.

[luvpyrpom]

Are the gingerbread houses going to be eaten? My only thought is maybe something similiar to a royal icing or something without dairy in it. I'd like to know, too, as I'm sure I would bake something that requires icing and will have to sit out.

[luvpyrpom]

Sorry, I've been MIA for a while - work has been busy and trying to get ready for the holidays has kept me busy. I have been able to get on Zen's site and also following DL's page on FB. I think the other Mike also has a FB page called "Mike's Home Bakery" that just started.

[luvpyrpom]

I recently bought a jar of Smoked Sweet Spanish Paprika and was wondering what I could use it with. So I tried roasted potatoes w/kielbasa and the paprika. It was pretty good - something I may make again in the future with different type of protein. Also with the discussion of rice cookers, I made chicken and shiitake mushroom rice all in the rice cooker. Also tried Trader Joe's Seafood Paella - it was in their freezer section - and had to add a little bit extra shrimp to beef up the meal.

[luvpyrpom]

Did a little bit more baking this week. Actually got out the bread machine to make copy cat King's hawaiian rolls my sister had asked me to try. I usually make the KAF's version but she wanted me to try this one recipe. It was so wet, I couldn't even form rolls, I ended up putting the batter in loaf pans and baked them that way. Also took out some beef curry puffs from freezer because I wanted to see how the puff pastry would react after being thawed and then refrozen. I also wanted to make my version of fruit cake - KAF orange cranberry nut cake except no nuts. It's the holiday season so I'm sure I'll be baking more these next couple of months.

[luvpyrpom]

Welcome to the world of rice cookers, Italiancook! My family has always used a rice cooker and we all have different sizes of cookers. My sister just purchased the Aroma multipot cooker from Costco. I guess it's a rice cooker, slow cooker, and saute's too. Anyway, I usually cook my rice with water only as I use it as a side. You can cook it with chicken broth, my family has a dish where you put the rice, liquid, meats and mushrooms into the whole pot and let it cook. The rice does get clumpy when it's cold. You can sprinkle with a little bit of water before microwaving and it's just like new. One thing I advise to make your rice cooker have a longer life span is not to wash the rice in the liner that it cooks in. Too many times I've seen rice cooker's "nonstick" surfaces become scratched and then the rice sticks to the pot. Hope you have fun experimenting with all the different rice dishes out there. 🙂

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