[Mike Nolan]

We had ham steak with pineapple and a salad. An old-fashioned meal for an old-fashioned couple. 🙂

[Mike Nolan]

Back when we used to get semolina bread from McGinnis Sisters in the Pittsburgh area (a local chain now closed), I saved an ingredients label.

The ingredients were: enriched durum flour, enriched semolina flour, unbleached enriched flour with less than 2% of the following: rice flour, salt, sesame seeds, malt syrup and yeast.

I can't be sure, but it is possible that the rice flour was used primarily for dusting underneath the dough before baking. I've seen other recipes do that, rice flour apparently doesn't scorch as easily as wheat flour in a hot oven. I generally use corn meal for that.

No oil, so maybe this week's omission was worth repeating.

I don't currently have any durum flour on hand, which is why I've been using 62.5% semolina in Hamelman's recipe for the past year or so.

I may have to try using malt syrup instead of sugar in the flying sponge in Hamelman's recipe.

[Mike Nolan]

I use the one in Jeffrey Hamelman's book. I just looked at several semolina bread recipes on the King Arthur site, didn't see that one there but I might have missed it. It starts by making a 'flying sponge' with a bit under half of the flours, water, a little sugar and the yeast. You let that sit for about 90 minutes then add the rest of the flour, more water, oil and salt.

This appears to be close to the recipe in the book:http://fortheloveofbread.blogspot.com/2009/06/hamelmans-semolina-bread.html

The only changes I've made are that I use 20 ounces of semolina and 12 ounces of bread flour to make up the 2 pounds of flour. (That's 62.5% semolina, the original recipe is 50-50.) I also use regular oil rather than olive oil. (For the last year or two I've been using a blend of canola and soybean oil.)

I left the oil out of this week's batch. (Just got distracted and forgot it.) It came out a bit more dense than it usually does, how much of that was the missing oil and how much of it was the cooler weather is hard to say.

[Mike Nolan]

Tonight we had some chili from the freezer, a warm dinner on a cold evening,

[Mike Nolan]

Last night's semolina bread. I left the oil out of the dough by mistake, and that affected how much it rose, so it is a bit more dense than usual, but still tastes pretty good.

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[Mike Nolan]

I haven't grown brandywine tomatoes for several years. IMHO, they need HOT weather to be flavorful, so you need to get them started as soon as possible so they can set fruit before the hot weather arrives, because they won't set much fruit during the hot part of the summer. In August they're pretty good, but after early September, they're more bland and other varieties are better for after the cooler weather sets in.

Also, they crack a lot and you wind up cutting the shoulders off. I think they're harder to peel, too.

[Mike Nolan]

Our garden got zapped last night, everything is all limp now.

I've got the Aerogarden cleaned up and just about ready to plant.

I'm waiting to find out what the frizzy lettuce that my wife brought home from the hydroponics lab last week is, I think I might try growing some of that, along with some dwarf snow peas, in one side of the Aerogarden. (It apparently isn't frisee/endive, and it doesn't appear to be bitter like most of the chicory family is.)

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[Mike Nolan]

As my wife points out, if you make the cookies smaller you can eat more individual cookies without eating a greater total amount of cookies.

But that only works if you can stop eating at some point.

I've long thought the serving information on Girl Scout Thin Mints cookies is wrong. A serving is one stack of cookies, isn't it??

[Mike Nolan]

I usually make BLJ's molasses cookies smaller, with a #60 scoop. I'd use a #70 if I had one. (I think I have #40, #60 and #100, but not #70 or #80.)

[Mike Nolan]

Great news on the windows. We had tacos tonight. I put the cover on the new grill and turned the gas off at the shutoff valve, but I may take the cover off on a warm day to clean up the grill some more before winter.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm making the semolina bread today.

[Mike Nolan]

I haven't made Big Lake Judy's molasses cookie recipe (which also has ginger in it) in a long time, but they're really good.

See https://mynebraskakitchen.com/wordpress/forums/topic/biglakejudys-molasses-cookies/

I especially like the fact that they're made with just whole wheat flour.

[Mike Nolan]

Your salmon looks great, I like salmon, Diane does not. (Too much overcooked canned salmon as a kid, we think.)

We had tuna melts with some of the tomatoes from the garden tonight.

[Mike Nolan]

The lows for the next 4 days here are:

Saturday 43
Sunday 29
Monday 19
Tuesday 20

I think we'll get our killer frost soon.

I've been known to pull up the plants in their cages and stick them in the garage, if there was space (which there usually isn't, garages are junk magnets.) I've also pulled all the green fruit and spread it out in boxes in the garage to ripen. We had tomatoes on Christmas once that way. But they're nowhere as flavorful as sun-ripened ones, and possibly not even as good as the ones in the stores these days, so I haven't been doing it lately and don't plan to do it this year.

They work for chili, though, and if enough of them ripened at the same time they'd probably make OK tomato juice, but usually they ripen over several weeks, not enough at any one time to process.

[Mike Nolan]

I made a big batch of piperade (sweet peppers, onions and tomatoes) today, then used a little of it with some mozzarella cheese to make some pizza bread for me for supper. I think Diane is going to have some soup, she was worried it might be too late in the day for the piperade.

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