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We had beef stroganoff on toast.
I'm making another batch of semolina bread today.
Pineapple juice as a dough relaxer was a new idea I got from that thread, that came from the Modernist Pizza folks. I'm trying to convince myself whether I need any of the Modernist series, unless I win the lottery, probably not. But I would like to know more about the Brazilian thin crust that is one of the various styles of pizza they describe. When you search online for 'Brazilian pizza', all you find is about various toppings.
There's an interesting thread in the BBGA forum about using L-cysteine as a dough relaxer. The poster uses it for croissants, but it'd work for pizzas as well. He mixes some of the L-cysteine powder in with flour then uses a small amount of that flour to get the recommended amount of L-cysteine. (20 ppm, or thereabouts.)
My son gave me a very nice bread knife for Christmas, but it is so sharp and moves through bread so easily that it is very easy to cut myself on it, so I tend to use the older bread knife most of the time.
Boboli and other pre-baked crusts are still on the market, but the only time I've ever used a pre-baked crust was when I bought a gluten-free crust. Wasn't impressed by it, but it was better than nothing, I guess.
I do make lavash pizzas, though, but they aren't in the oven all that long, nor is it set as high as I would set it for pizza.
Tonight we had sirloin steak with sauteed mushrooms and a baked potato.
I haven't paid a lot of attention to that site, and have never bought from them, as it always seems like most of what they have I either buy in larger quantities or can find cheaper, if not both.
I tend to buy mostly from Webstaurant and Bakers Authority these days.
When I was living in Chicago, a lot of the pizzerias would do pizzas on a perforated pan. Do you have one you could try?
We haven't done pizzas at home for a while, but at some point I want to resume my explorations of thin-crust pizza dough recipes. I also want to get a pizza steel, but they're not cheap or light.
It was 'fend for yourself' night here, so I had some salad from the slim pickings in the Aerogarden and a sandwich.
This page says male and female pepper fruits don't exist, though male and female parts of flowers do exist.
I have a book on knife skills (Knife Skills Illustrated by Peter Hertzm), it recommends cutting the top and bottom off bell peppers, then slitting it so you can open it into a somewhat rectangular form. Cut off the innards and the pith that connects the innards to the shell (I have a looped Exacto blade that I use for this, although sometimes I use a bird's beak knife), and then you can cut it into even strips or dice it. You can dice the bottom and cut off the useable parts of the top and dice them as well, just make sure you get the pith out of the top, it is bitter.
I've been told that one of the differences between home cooks and professional kitchens is that in a professional kitchen a bell pepper is almost always roasted over an open flame briefly to char the outside before it is cut up, that allows the somewhat chewy transparent outermost layer to be peeled off.
When I make potato leek soup, it usually takes more like 120 minutes from start to finish. There's some overlap, I can prep and sautee the leeks as the potatoes are cooking, but 3-4 pounds of potatoes in cold stock (or cold water) will take close to an hour to be fully cooked.
And that doesn't factor in the time it took me to make the chicken stock I use. That's another half hour of prep time, 3 or more hours of cooking and another hour waiting for the stock to cool enough for straining, chilling it for storage in the refrigerator and freezer and pulling the meat of the chicken bones. (Sometimes I do that after the chicken has cooked for about 2 hours, by which point it is fully cooked, putting the bones back in the pot for another 60-90 minutes.)
My favorite chicken stock/soup recipe says to boil the chicken for as long as you can stand it or 3 hours. It DOES start to smell good after about 45 minutes.
I usually make croutons ahead of time, too. Not counting the time it took to make the bread, it takes 15 minutes or so to dice it, and 90-120 minutes in a 200 degree oven to dry the cubes out. I usually do that before I start prepping the potatoes.
I saw a note on another site the other day complaining that the time estimates in most recipes are always WAY TOO SHORT, because they tend to assume, among other things, that you have all the mis en place, um, in place. Cooking times are often understated, as are resting times.
Most experienced cooks look at a recipe and add in extra time for most of the steps.
Overnight I've got a forest of sprouts from my tomatoes, I think a few eggplants, and I think one or two of the melons looks like they'll be up soon. And it actually feels like Spring outside today!
We had the leftovers from last night's Chinese, and had some salad. Need to go pick some more lettuce from what's left of the dwindling crop before the next one starts to come in, 4 or 5 weeks from now.
We had takeout Chinese food from a place we haven't ordered from before. Bigger portions, higher prices, really good food. They're a lot further away than the place we usually order from, but my wife has frequent appointments in that shopping center with her physical therapist, so we'll probably order from them again soon.
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