[Mike Nolan]

I've made my honey wheat bread hundreds of times, but each time it is a bit of a mystery as to whether it is going to have a tight crumb with not a lot of oven spring or blow up like a balloon in the oven. Not sure if it is moisture or something else, but it usually feels about the same during shaping.

[Mike Nolan]

We had leftovers.

[Mike Nolan]

I still need to make semolina bread, but I'm waiting until tomorrow. High today is supposed to be 93, high tomorrow is supposed to be 78. And I'm seeing some forecasted lows in the mid 40's as we head into fall, so it looks like the heat wave is over. Now, will we get any fall rains?

[Mike Nolan]

I keep my instant dry yeasts (regular and osmotolerant) in the freezer as well, and lately a package of IDY lasts me close to a year with no noticeable degradation in how well it works. The osmotolerant (SAF Gold) yeast I have is a good 3 years old and still seems to work fine, I don't make a lot of sweet doughs, so it lasts a lot longer

[Mike Nolan]

The parts for the dishwasher, refrigerator and freezer should all be installed on Thursday.

[Mike Nolan]

I don't see any reason it wouldn't work with whole wheat flour, I've made Susan Purdy's hot water crust a number of times, it makes a good crust for a large pot pie. The challenge for me is always figuring out how much crust to make, it seems to be heavier than a butter crust and a bit thicker, too.

You might have to use more water, whole wheat flour tends to absorb more water than AP flour. If you can't work it enough to roll it out, you may need to add more water. It always reminds me a bit of softened modeling clay, quite a bit stiffer than a regular pie crust. You need to work it while it is still warm.

[Mike Nolan]

We had takeout pizza and salad, plus Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake, nothing fancy but something we like and easy.

[Mike Nolan]

Congratulations, Joan!

We will have been married 49 years tomorrow (the 17th). I need to remember to get the 2nd Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake I made ahead of my birthday out of the freezer tonight so we can eat it tomorrow.

We're starting to think about what, if anything, we want to do to celebrate our 50th anniversary next year. Most of our friends who were there live in other states, it may be a virtual celebration.

[Mike Nolan]

Well, neither is fixed yet, parts are on order for both plus for the dishwasher, and I still need to go buy a new garbage disposal and have someone install it, but the freezer never stopped working completely, it just isn't getting as cold as it should because the defrost timer isn't working properly. (It is supposed to run for about 20 minutes every 8 hours, I believe.)

I'll have to offload the freezer again when the replacement comes in, not because of where that part goes but because he'll need to run the defrost cycle several times to get rid of the built-up ice in the back. So I'm using this as a time to review what was in the freezer and use or throw out a bunch of things.

[Mike Nolan]

I had to empty out the freezer for the service tech, and found some challah that I had sliced for French toast, so we had French toast for supper tonight.

The good news is that the freezer appears to need a defrost timer (it was replaced just 14 months ago, but replacement parts are only under warranty for 12) and the refrigerator needs a new thermostat. Total repair cost, including service calls, is around $750, better than I had feared.

I've got some of the stuff back in the freezer, but it isn't cooling down as fast as I had hoped, so most of what I'd planned to put back is still in a big styrofoam chest with some dry ice. Hopefully I can get more of it back in before tomorrow morning.

[Mike Nolan]

It looks like the u-pick orchard we go to will have winesap apples starting around the 1st of October, hopefully this year I'll be able to pick some. The last few years have had assorted complications that kept me from going out to pick apples.

[Mike Nolan]

I ordered more Black Seeded Simpson and Rouge D'Hiver lettuce pods from Aerogarden, my plan is to start them around the first of October, so that they're producing lots of lettuce by late November. (I'm kind of hoping we do family Christmas in Lincoln this year, as I don't think my wife's shoulder is going to be up for either flying anywhere or for 2 days in the car to drive to Pittsburgh.)

[Mike Nolan]

We had takeout chicken.

This afternoon I processed the tomatoes that I picked several days ago, after throwing out quite a few of them, then picked enough that I was able to make 5 full quarts of tomato juice, which are in their water bath now. At the rate my wife is going through tomato juice right now, these will be gone before Thanksgiving.

If the weather holds up, I may be able to process another batch of tomato juice by the weekend or early next week, but that might be the last big picking. (Weekends are kind of busy right now with football season and the usual fall house tasks, I may just wait until next Monday to do anything.) The tomatoes are definitely winding down, and I keep hearing calls for an early frost.

[Mike Nolan]

My wife remembers her grandmother's Christmas coffee cake fondly, she even has the recipe for it (it was published in the Nebraska Centennial Cookbook, which her mother edited.)

However, we've made it several times and she says we never came close to the original. How much of that is just nostalgia from 60 years ago is unknown.

Personally, I think one of the factors was that her grandmother had dairy cows and when she used sour cream, it was probably fresh cream that had been allowed to go sour, not the cultured stuff you buy at the store these days. (BTW, how can they make a low fat sour cream??)

One of these days I'm going to try making that recipe either with some cream that I have let go sour or with creme fraiche. (I suspect the way milk and cream are heat-treated before they're packaged might be a factor as well, and while it is possible to buy raw milk in Nebraska direct from the farm, I'm not sure what I'd do with a 5 gallon can of it, which is how it is usually sold.)

[Mike Nolan]

Sous vide cooking has changed a lot of perceptions, because you can cook something to a 130 degree temperature safely even though it might take 6 hours or longer, but for beef, pork and chicken I think it is still the case that as long as the temperature is higher than 140 you're not in the danger zone regardless of the cooking method. Most crock pots will get the liquid to a boil, which means it is well over 212.

I have a little crock pot that doesn't have a temperature control, I use a Lutron light dimmer cord (like you'd use with a table lamp) to adjust it to a temperature that works for hot fudge (no more than 110.)

[Author]

Posts