Mike Nolan
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I would love a real Chicago dog, but several of the ingredients are not available locally: the dogs themselves, the buns and the dayglow-green relish.
Painting the top of the bun with egg wash, sprinkling poppy seeds on and putting them in the oven at 200 for a few minutes is a pretty close approximation, especially if you steam them just before serving them. The bread itself still isn't quite right, though. Ballpark brand buns are closer than the generic ones, but a lot more expensive.
I'm told adding blue food coloring to ordinary sweet pickle relish will turn it dayglow green, but I haven't tried that.
It's the Vienna natural casing dogs that I can't get. Of the various brands of dogs available locally, Fairbury all-beef dogs are probably the best. We do them under the broiler until they're well-charred.
I picked the first really large zucchini, 36.5 ounces. I missed seeing it the other day and in this damp warm weather the zucchini are growing like mad.
The first head of broccoli has started forming, but it has black spots on it, probably mold from the extremely wet weather the last few weeks. I'm not sure I'll be able to salvage any of it. I'm probably going to cut that head off tomorrow.
The other plants (I planted 6) aren't forming heads yet.
Russia has reneged on a deal to allow Ukrainian wheat through the Black Sea, that will probably affect wheat prices worldwide.
We had some cantaloupe with salami for supper, the melon was the best I've had so far this year.
Tonight I had a large salad with some left over rotisserie chicken and Diane made nachos.
The rolls used for Italian Beef sandwiches in Chicago are interesting, they're designed to hold up structurally when soaked with the gravy. I like my Italian Beef sandwiches double-dipped so they're literally dripping gravy when you pick them up, but they don't fall apart. I'm not sure what they do to the recipe or procedure to achieve that, and the two companies that make them are VERY secretive about it.
Like Chicago-style hot dog buns, they're not available here, Rotella makes one that is close, but when you buy an Italian Beef kit online, it includes the right kind of rolls.
I've had Philly Cheese Steaks from both Geno's and Pat's, and to be honest, I found them disappointing and I prefer two of the local versions over either of them, though there are others that are poor imitations of a Philly. In a recent survey ranking cheese steaks in Philadelphia, neither Geno's nor Pat's appeared at the top of the list.
There are third parties that make a spiral dough hook, but when I tried one on my 50 year old 4.5 quart mixer, it was too big (it touched the bowl in several places.) One might work on a newer 4.5 quart or on a model with a bigger bowl.
I use the pasta roller/cutters all the time, for spaghetti and linguine. That's one reason why if I ever have to repair/replace my mixer or move up to a size capable of doing 15 pounds of dough at a time, I'm likely to make sure I've still got one that handles KA appliances, even if it is only a new small KA mixer that is only used for things like meringue and pasta.
My son has a 6 quart bowl-lift model, I really don't like it because the bowl pops off too easily. Having worked with a 24 quart commercial mixer, the bowls lock on so they can't pop off.
We picked up a rotisserie chicken at Sams for supper tonight, and probably another meal tomorrow, plus I'll make stock with the bones.
We got the soil report today from the sample taken this spring before starting the Nebraska Urban Soil Health Initiative program, several pages of numbers. There's also 11 pages of explanation for the tests and what various results might mean.
Lots to digest.
They'll do another test next spring and, I think, a third one in 2025.
We had steak on the grill plus some sweet corn.
I tried a third-party spiral from Amazon on my 4.5 quart KA, it didn't fit. Ones for larger models might be better, and KA may sell official ones.
I think a #10 can is still pretty much the same size, the 'consumer' sizes still seem to be shrinking.
I remember when most cans were 16 ounces, now they're often 13.5 to 15.5, and tuna used to be a 7 or 8 ounce can, now it's maybe 5.
Our Sams has stopped selling mandarin oranges in cans, they only have cases of the small cups, which taste different.
They did bring back artichoke hearts in a big jar, and the Black Diamond cheese spread, but a few other things we often bought at Sams are apparently gone for good.
I haven't boiled corn in years, I do it in the microwave, but I shuck it by hand. (I've been shucking corn since I was 10, I finished 3rd at the Galena 4th of July Corn Boil shucking contest one year.)
Yeah, she tried the boiling/ice water method, it worked on some of them.
I made pizza on the grill last night, they were good but I still need a lot of practice on technique, sliding the dough onto the VERY HOT grill without having it fold over or bunch up isn't easy. One article suggests rolling the dough out on parchment then flipping the dough over to get it on the grill, quickly removing the parchment. I didn't try that but might next time.
I tried a different dough recipe, we liked it but I think it needs a little more salt in the dough and I probably didn't get it baked enough on the bottom before flipping it over to add the toppings. The recipe is very high hydration (78%) and I added more flour to get a workeable dough.
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