[luvpyrpom]

Italiancook, I use the Ball brand mason jars - the 8 oz wide mouth jars. I cool the soups in the jars in the frig before putting them in the freezer. I also put the jars in the gallon size Ziploc bags to hold them. I'm always afraid I would accidentally knock one jar out and then have a mess. I just take a jar of soup out in the morning when I'm packing my lunch for work and I have access to a microwave so just reheat it with the lid off.

Mike, I used to use the plastic containers but all my soups/lunch meals are tomato based and every time I reheat tomato based foods in the plastic, it stains them pretty bad. Thus, I switched over to glass. I do use the take out containers for stocks as I don't use them to reheat stocks with.

[luvpyrpom]

On Monday, made chicken chow mein with less vegetables as the kids didn't like too much of. On Friday, tried out a new-old recipe - lasagna rolls. I didn't want to open up a new jar of spaghetti sauce, dug up my old recipe for lasagna and made the sauce from scratch. Instead of ricotta cheese, used vegan ricotta which uses tofu as the base, and layered each pasta with grated spinach, ricotta, black beans, and small amount of cheddar and mozzarella cheese. Baked the dish and then divided them out into individual portions and froze each portion for future lunches. Baked salmon on Saturday.

Italiancook, I freeze a lot of soups in individual mason jars so I can take them to work. I've found that small pasta and potatoes don't freeze well. So if I know I'll be eating that soup for the week, I'll precook a batch of pasta, and keep it separate in the refrigerator. Pack a small portion to add to the soup when I take it to work. The last time I made Manhatten clam chowder and instead of potato, I substituted with white beans. With rice, I use the wild rice or barley as they're harder to break down after freezing and reheating.

[luvpyrpom]

When I made the Welsh cakes, I borrowed the electric skillet from my sister in law. And yes, they are very addictive. I'll have to try to make them again and this time try it with a pan. I have a crepe pan that I use mainly for pancakes - American and Swedish styles.

[luvpyrpom]

My coworker had brought in these huge zucchinis to work. Over 5 pounds each. So I made 3 loaves of zucchini bread. Still eating the other baked goods I had made the previous week so not much else in baking.

Italiancook, I would love to try the recipe - I had made cranberry-orange sauce last year and froze them in the jam jars. Been thinking of how to use them up and unfortunately, I forgot where I got the recipe for the cranberry-orange relish. I do know it's a cooked recipe. I'll hunt around and see if I can find it.

[luvpyrpom]

I agree with Cwc, that there is a lot of flour with so little liquid. KAF has a recipe for Welsh Cakes and it looks similiar to yours. I would either add another egg or add 1/4 cup of milk to your eggs. I tried the KAF recipe a couple of years ago and found them to be delicious. Unfortunalely I don't have a large skillet or electric skillet to fry the large quantities of cakes it makes. Hope this helps.

[luvpyrpom]

I mainly did the baking this week. Didn't focus too much on savory meals. One the tricks I like to do is buy the Korean Bulgogi from Costco, divide the dish into 2 separate meals and freeze. Then I take out one pack, add 1 pound of mushrooms, sliced. Stir fry everything together and serve with rice. Ate that meal for a few days as it's just my mother and I. She doesn't eat much all.

[luvpyrpom]

It finally cooled down enough that I could get back into bread baking. Plus, I didn't want to lose my newfound skills of bread making and I hadn't made any bread for over 2 months. So on Sunday, I made Tuscan Coffeecake, but instead of the 9" round cake pan, I chose to make them in loaf pans. I wasn't too sure about the pan size, so to be safe, I had made the coffeecake in two 9x5 pans. They rose beautifully, baked until internal temp of 205, took them out to cool and promptly the bottom and sides began to shrink. Top stayed the same, nice and pretty. I think next time I may need to bake all into one loaf pan and definitely watch the first rise. I also wanted to work on the KAF chocolate chip oatmeal cookies - I find their original recipe to be a bit too sweet so I had cut the recipe in half as I can't eat all those cookies. Decreased the sugars and chips down drastically and I have to say, I think I finally got it to the right sweetness for me. I also wanted to see how the baked chocolate chip cookies did when frozen and then thawed for future use. On Tuesday, I wanted to use up the frozen pie crust in the freezer so made custard pie w/cinnamon sugar top, chocolate macarons - still experimenting with that recipe. Then on Friday, decided to make snickerdoodle biscotti for work and really wanted to try the Samoa sheet cake I saw on Pinterest. It's a take on the Girl Scouts Samoas cookies. The biscotti I fell in love with I hadn't made it in years so that has been brought back to the forefront. The cake was too sweet for my own personal taste. It's almost like a Texas sheet cake - pour the hot boiling caramel frosting on the warm cake. Top with toasted coconut shreds. drizzle a caramel and then a chocolate in opposite directions. Like eating a Samoa fudge candy. Just too rich for me. See this is what happens when I call in sick from work and definitely have too much time on my hands - baking frenzy!

[luvpyrpom]

There are a lot of stories out there on the internet where people have done baking tests about the chococolate chip cookie in the eternal search for that "perfect" cookie. One blogger, Tessa, from Handle the Heat, did a bunch of tests on the cookie. She made the cookies without the baking soda and the cookie came out cakey and puffy. I don't know the exact science of the baking soda in baked goods. I do know that last year, in preparation for the Christmas holiday baking, I had premade the chocolate chip cookie dough and froze them thinking that it would help me with the baking later. Unfortunately, they all came out flat with little mountains of chips sticking out. But what I've done this time is bake them as soon as I make the batter and then freeze them after they have cooled. Haven't tasted one yet to see how they taste.

[luvpyrpom]

I have a Savory Spice Shop nearby so it will be interesting to see how their vanillas turn out. I do see on their website that they have vanilla paste but it's made with sugar. One of my friends also likes to travel to Mexico and she always gets me a small bottle of clear vanilla. I don't have the heart to tell her that the main ingredient is glucose. Plus, I don't know how they can make clear vanilla when the bean is brown. And it's interesting that they state on the label that there's "No Coumadin" in it. I think I tried it before and it was way too chemical-like flavor for me. So I guess it will just sit in the cabinet for now.

[luvpyrpom]

I don't think I've ever gotten any emails from KAF. I used to get reminders of when my Baker's Bucks will expire but haven't gotten any since the demise of the BC. I do know I have a couple of Baker Bucks expiring soon so will have to place an order soon.

As for the classes in Washington - it's over 70 miles away and so far not many classes are offered on the schedule that I could see. But will keep any eye on it and see what shows up.

[luvpyrpom]

I looked at the Costco Organic Vanilla Extract and they list vanilla extract, water, and 35% alcohol. Cwc, you've peaked my interest in making my own vanilla. I've tried making my own vanilla sugar but I always keep forgetting to use it when I bake. But then I probably will make a bottle and totally forget to use that too.

I do keep my fresh ginger fresh in vodka in the frig. Used to have it dry out and get moldy until I found this technique. And then I add the vodka in my cooking, too. Haven't tried to use the vodka in drinks though. Not much a drinker at all.

[luvpyrpom]

I guess I really haven't cultivated my taste buds in regards to vanilla. I used to use the Nielson & Massey but I went through the small bottles way too fast. Then I switched to Costco Organic Vanilla extract. I can't tell the difference between the two brands. But then I don't make many things where vanilla is the main flavor profile. I have figured out that a large bottle that Costco will last me a good 6-8 months.

[luvpyrpom]

I didn't get much baking this week until Saturday. Found a zucchini bread recipe from my mom's friend. She had written everything down except for the size of the pan. So I made it with two 9x5 loaf pans - came a little short but definitely would've overflowed the single pan. Finally got enough freezer space for a batch of Grandma A Ranch Hand loaves.

[luvpyrpom]

I don't remember much of what I made earlier in the week. I think we were eating leftovers from late last week. I guess this week is trying new recipes - Friday, I made Thai Red Curry Chicken Wings from the Woks of Life blog. Used drumsticks instead of the wings. I think it will definitely taste better with wings. Saturday I wanted to use up the fig jam that I had opened last week so got a small pork top sirloin roast, butterflied it, smeared the jam, place a layer of sliced ham, and rolled it back together again. We'll see how it goes later tonight.

[luvpyrpom]

Cwcdesign, I have only the 9 x 5 loaf pans. When I make the coffee cake in the original pan 9" round pan, it rises quite high so I think I may be able to use 2 of the 9x5 loaf pans. We'll see. A little voice in me is telling me that I may need to increase the recipe to 1.5 times to make it fit into the loaf pans. I'm always willing to experiment or tweaking recipes.

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