Mike Nolan
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It's supposed to hit the mid 20's here tonight, we may finally get our killer frost.
I've tried making caramel-in-the-middle brownies once or twice, it is tricky. What kind of caramel were you using? I've used the stuff in a jar for a caramel apple pie a few times.
We had leftover autumn chicken plus I made enough apple pie filling for four pies, packaged up to freeze 3 pies worth, stuck the rest in the refrigerator, I'll make an apple pie tomorrow.
I tried canning some of the pie filling, that didn't go as well as I had hoped. First, I forgot that pie filling expands when heated, and it leaked out the top and didn't seal. I've got enough Winesap apples left for at least 2 more batches of pie filling, so I may try it again with more head space. Second, I usually use about 1100 grams of pie filling for a 9 inch pie, and a quart jar only holds about 800 grams. That'd likely be enough for an 8 inch pie or for making turnovers or tarts, but I usually make a 9 inch double crust pie. It would seem odd to make both pints and quarts of pie filling, but that might be my only option other than the freezer.
Most people make cookies on the big side, and that cuts into yield. But of course so does snacking on raw dough, even though it is frowned upon these days. My mother usually had to make a double batch of her oatmeal chocolate chip cookies in order to get 3 dozen baked. (And to be fair, she'd snack on the raw dough, too.)
I've been known to weigh the raw dough then weigh the first few cookies to see if I'm making them the size the recipe anticipates. Most of the time I'm way over.
Soups need time for the flavors to meld together and mellow out. If I make it in the morning, it'll have mellowed out by supper, but most of the time I don't get it started until after lunch.
Even chili is better over time. My wife's stepmother used to make her football chili (recipe available on this site) in the morning, then leave it on a low temperature while everyone went to the game. By the time we got back some 5 hours later it was pretty good.
We had macaroni and cheese, as my wife is on trick or treat door duty this evening, though it is cold here (upper 40's) and activity has been slower than normal.
We're doing safe distancing trick or treating again this year.
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You must be logged in to view attached files.We had creamed tuna on biscuits.
The first few times I make a recipe, it always takes me a lot longer to prep, and I suspect many recipe authors don't factor their familiarity with the recipe into their time estimates, if they even give them.
Cookies are a combination of flour, sugar and fat (including eggs), and the ratio of the three is the major determinant on whether it is flat, crisp, chewy, etc. Alton Brown did an episode on sugar cookies that explained this very well.
Without looking at the recipe (and possibly trying it), I can't say for sure, but flat cookies generally have more sugar. Sugar melts in the oven (that's why it is often grouped in with the liquids in a recipe) and that causes the cookie to flatten out. Fat gets crisp, so cookies with more fat in them get crunchy.
I'm not sure refrigerating the dough would cause them to get flatter, though. That seems counterintuitive.
The challenge with your appliance purchases may be delivery time, when our refrigerator, freezer and dishwasher all stopped working last month I went shopping for possible replacements. The refrigerator and freezer I never did get a clear estimate of availability, they were hoping for a shipment of them some time in December but were already backlogged on those models to other customers, including contractors. One store gave me an estimate of March 2022 for a new Bosch dishwasher, which I think was at least trying to be honest.
We wound up repairing all three, hopefully they'll last long enough for the repair cost to be worthwhile.
My wife generally adds at least a half hour to my estimate of when dinner will be ready. Something big like a turkey she adds an hour.
I started early enough today that I actually hit my target of 5:30 for dinner.
I've seen the judges on a cooking competition refuse to taste a recipe if the chef put the spoon in his mouth and then back in the dish. Something I've never seen them call a competitor on is tasting something like a liquor straight from the bottle before using it.
In a lot of commercial kitchens there are containers of tasting spoons in several places, and you throw them in a bain marie after using them once.
Tonight I made chicken thighs roasted on a bed of sweet potato, apple, onion and Brussels sprouts, with diced uncured bacon. The herbs were fresh rosemary, dried thyme and dried sage.
It was good but I think it can be improved upon. (I left out the garlic the recipe called for, of course.)
Next time I'll cut back on the onion, increase the amount of sweet potato and apple, cut the apples into larger pieces, and leave out the bacon or at least cut way back on it.
Finding the chicken thighs was almost the hardest part, and I wound up with bigger ones than the recipe called for (8 ounces vs 6 ounces). That increased the cooking time a bit.
It was about an hour and a half from start to ready to eat.
I made Hamelman's semolina bread yesterday. The semolina/Altamura bread was a bit of a disappointment, and it went moldy within 5 days.
I'm moving the Aerogarden down to the basement. Now that we've been through two cycles of it, we have a better idea how often it needs to be tended to or harvested from. It doesn't need to be in a south-facing window, or in a window at all.
And this way the rosemary plant that we brought in for the winter can get a south-facing window, so maybe we can actually keep it alive over the winter. I think most of the time we lose the rosemary plant because we forget to water it. But our plant guy passed away earlier this year, so I'm doing the weekly plant watering.
Once I get the Aerogarden set up again, I plan to start some lettuce plants. Based on the last time around, we should be able to start picking lettuce around the end of November.
They're now calling for a low of 28 Friday night and lows in the mid 20's most of next week, so the outside garden should get its killer frost soon. I did manage to get another quart of tomato juice canned from the tomatoes I picked last Thursday.
I need to make some chicken stock soon, I'm down to just a few small containers of it in the freezer, none large enough for a batch of soup.
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