[Mike Nolan]

We're having tacos/nachos, trying to avoid a lot of cooking, since it hit 100 today and is still 98 outside.

[Mike Nolan]

We froze most of the zucchini cake, Diane says it is great right out of the freezer, the chocolate chips are a little crunchy but the cake is not. This recipe is a definite keeper.

[Mike Nolan]

We had tuna salad sandwiches tonight, a good summertime dish on a hot July evening. The temperature topped out at 87 on the lower patio here, though it felt warmer, probably low 90's officially.

[Mike Nolan]

The strawberry-blueberry zucchini bread is not quite what I was expecting.

I think I'd cut the cinnamon in half, and that's unusual for me because I often wind up doubling cinnamon from what recipes call for. The berries are pretty much drowned out by the cinnamon. However, this was the first one that I couldn't taste the zucchini at all. I think the cinnamon masks the cucurbitacin.

Adding the blueberries probably contributed to having too much moisture, the blueberries seems to burst in the oven and the area right around any of the fruit looks a bit like raw dough. (I don't think it is really raw, the internal temperature was 205 when I took it out, the total baking time was 20 minutes more than what the recipe called for.) The pictures on the site I got the recipe from has a bit of that, too.

It just calls for a loaf pan, it doesn't say what size. I used a 9x5, I don't think it would have fit in a smaller one. It sort of collapsed a bit as it cooled and more after being removed from the pan.

https://www.thefoodhussy.com/strawberry-zucchini-bread/

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[Mike Nolan]

Probably an issue with too much or too little water, both can affect the ability of the vines to hold on to the fruit.

Have you had much wind lately?

[Mike Nolan]

For any bread I've made several times, I go by eye and ear as much as by the windowpane test. I can look at the dough then listen to how it is slapping around in the mixer and have a pretty good idea when it is sufficiently developed.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm making a strawberry-blueberry zucchini bread today.

Maybe I'll try some peanut butter zucchini cookies later on, though it is supposed to get pretty hot here. The high is supposed to be in the high 90's through Friday. But it has been cloudy all morning and the temperatures haven't skyrocketed yet, so I figured I could get away with doing a zucchini bread in the small oven.

[Mike Nolan]

I mix most breads longer in the mixer than I used to, I concluded most of them weren't getting sufficiently developed.

In an online class last year, the instructor used a piece of parchment wrapped around the top of the bowl to keep the flour from spilling out.

When I make semolina bread it is a two-stage bread, so I make the flying starter in the mixing bowl. After it has matured, I add the rest of the flour and other ingredients, including more water, then wrap the parchment around the bowl for the first minute or so of kneading to keep the counter clean.

Then I fold the parchment to fit my 3/4 sheet pan. The parchment is 16x24, the pan is 14x21. I don't have a good use for 2 or 3 inch wide parchment strips or I'd tear them off. Maybe I'll try to use several of them them to line the loaf pans for zucchini bread to keep it from sticking.

[Mike Nolan]

I made a batch of peanut butter cookies today.

We got to wondering if there were recipes for peanut butter zucchini cookies. I couldn't find any online so I'm going to experiment with a 2nd batch of the chewy peanut butter cookie recipe and add some shredded zucchini.

[Mike Nolan]

Our previous house had a workshop in the back part of the garage, with an exterior door that was the only entrance to the workshop.

Though we didn't use the workshop much, it did have some tools in it and we sometimes kept bird seed in it.

I think we must have left the door open at some point on a fall day and a family of possums got in, probably drawn by the seed. We think the door then blew shut, trapping them. We didn't discover this until some time later, I think the following spring. To say the workshop was jumbled around would be an understatement, and the remains of the possum family were decomposed. I probably spent more time in the workshop cleaning up the mess than I did in most years.

[Mike Nolan]

We went with some take out, though we may have salads later on.

[Mike Nolan]

While I've been one who has complained about the Great Fashion Conspiracy regarding pockets in women's clothing, men and women do have somewhat different nutritional requirements, based on size differences, differences in the amount of physical work they do, and hormonal differences. Body and muscle types also factor into it, but those are largely determined by one's genes.

Most of us have too much sugar and too much salt in our diets, and usually not enough fiber or protein. Many of us also have too much fat in our diets, but I know people who have been on ultra low-fat diets and that created problems for them. Everything in moderation!

I've been reading an interesting book, "Delicious" by Rob Dunn and Monica Sanchez, which talks about the effects taste buds have had on human diets and evolution. Among other things, it suggests that mammoths and mastodons were so delicious that our ancestors ate them to extinction. Cats do not have taste buds for sweetness, so they don't have a 'sweet tooth', unlike humans.

[Mike Nolan]

That recipe makes close to 2 pounds of dough, making two 3-strand challas would mean each strand would be in the 5-6 ounce range, which I think is a good size for rolling out and braiding. I personally think anything smaller than about 3 ounces doesn't roll out and braid as well, and anything over 8 ounces is either gonna be really thick or really long.

When I make a celebration two-layer challah, I make about 35 ounces of dough then divide the total dough by 9, then make 3 strands that each use 1/9th of the dough for the upper layer and 3 strands that each use 2/9ths of the dough for the lower layer. But this makes a loaf that is nearly 20 inches long!

[Mike Nolan]

He's had it pop off when he's used it at well, I think that's been reported with some of the 6 quart models, it may mean the bowl isn't getting fully locked down.

[Mike Nolan]

When I've made some of the Japanese milk bread recipes, they doubled or nearly tripled during final proof, so reducing the size of each roll sounds like the right way to go.

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