[Mike Nolan]

We're having tomato soup and fried cheese sandwiches for supper tonight.

I picked about another 10 pounds of tomatoes today, likely the last picking of the season if we get the 29 degrees currently forecasted for Tuesday night. So I'll be putting a final batch of tomato sauce together this evening.

[Mike Nolan]

It got down to about 33 last night here. Freeze warnings are posted for Tuesday night with a forecasted low of 29. That should finish off tomato season.

[Mike Nolan]

We're having the rest of the pizza from Friday. (I cut it in 6 pieces rather than 8, so we had 1 piece each Friday evening, again for lunch on Saturday and now for supper tonight.)

[Mike Nolan]

I made them today, too, as mini-muffins. Using a #60 scoop, the yield was 35 muffins, so they come out at about 10.9 carbs (10.4 net) and 59 calories each.

Changes made: I left out the coffee, cut the clove to 1/8 teaspoon, and increased the cinnamon to 3/4 teaspoon.

I can tell it has clove, but it isn't overpowering, might even be possible to increase it to 1/4 teaspoon.

As mini-muffins they took about 25 minutes to bake in a silicone pan.

Diane's reaction was typical for her: needs more cinnamon. She also agrees that I could have used 1/4 teaspoon of clove instead of 1/8 and maybe cut back on the raisins a little, and possibly the oatmeal, both changes that would help the carb count a little. If I had used a #70 scoop, I would probably have gotten more like 45-48 muffins..

I left the second set in about 5 minutes longer (oven turned off) they're a bit darker on the outside as a result, and the surface has a little crunch to it. (I put the first set back in a cooling oven to crisp up a bit later on, too, something I often do with banana nut mini-muffins.)

I wonder how they'd be if I subbed in some brown sugar?

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[Mike Nolan]

I made the spicy sour cream raisin muffins recipe today, will post about it in the Monthly Recipe Challenge thread.

[Mike Nolan]

navlys wrote:

I thought we would try a recipe we never made before from a cookbook we own and then report on it and share it if it is good.

Nothing says we have to limit ourselves (as a group) to one recipe per month. Pick one and go with it!

[Mike Nolan]

We had some of the leftover pizza for lunch, so we had hot dogs for supper.

[Mike Nolan]

They look great.

This kringle recipe is pretty good (if you like kringle), and the butterscotch filling recipe that is included is even better, but it makes a LOT of filling, I usually only make a half-recipe of it. I use a butterscotch and pecan filling, it is as good as the ones I've ordered from Racine WI.

When I've made it the whole kitchen smells of lemon extract, but in the baked kringle it is very subtle.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/kringle-recipe0-1941189

[Mike Nolan]

Friday is pizza night again.

[Mike Nolan]

Looks like a good crumb, though.

The crust doesn't have the small blisters you often see on sourdough bread.

[Mike Nolan]

I think even commercial kitchens have different design criteria now.

I remember reading about a chef who, when designing a new kitchen, first figured out where the dirty dishes would go (both from the back of the house and the front), then planned around that. Kitchen sanitation inspectors have told me that the biggest failures they see in kitchens deal with separating dirty from clean and wet from dry. Not keeping things at the right temperature is next on the list.

[Mike Nolan]

More of a quesadilla, I think.

We had salads again, needed a quick dinner because we had theatre tickets tonight to see Back To the Future - The Musical. Fun show.

[Mike Nolan]

It depends on what kind of bread you're making, for a yeasted loaf with a typical bread dough texture I don't think I'd bother, for a quickbread coating them with flour or cornstarch should do what it does for raisins, keep them from sinking to the bottom of the batter.

[Mike Nolan]

Coffee goes well with quite a few spices, but only if you like coffee. 🙂

Personally, I think coffee ruins the taste of chocolate, but a lot of people say it enhances the flavor of chocolate. (My guess is they also like coffee.) However, I also think chocolate and prune puree go well together in something like a ganache, so people probably think I'm just weird.

I think the clove might be a bit on the heavy side, I'm inclined to cut it in half. I usually use a ratio of 1 part clove to 4 parts cinnamon in things like Hot Cross Buns.

Clove, cinnamon and allspice are often paired together, nutmeg is a 4th spice that is often included, ginger sometimes is added as well, although I think it takes the whole spice blend in a different direction, as does cardamom.

[Mike Nolan]

I've had some breads with apple in them, I think the pieces have to be both small and fairly uniform in size to keep the results consistent.

I haven't made a full-sized pumpkin loaf, but I've made pumpkin shaped rolls. using string or dental floss during the bulk rising to get the grooves in it. The challenge is to get the strings off before baking without deflating the dough. (As I recall, the instructions I was using, which I found online, said to bake them with the strings on, but that made them even harder to remove without damaging the baked bread, the batch I made where I cut the strings off then added dough for a stem before baking them looked better.)

Putting a 'stem' on top is fairly easy, I'd be tempted to throw a little cocoa in the stem dough to give it some color. It would be small enough that it wouldn't have the characteristics of an auvergne or bonete, two cap-shaped breads.

You can use turmeric or annatto in the dough or in an egg wash to give it an orange hue without affecting the flavor much.

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