[Mike Nolan]

A number of the true leaves on my tomato plants are turning yellow.

I tried looking up what causes yellow leaves on new plants and these are the possible causes:

Too much light
Too little light
Too much water
Too little water
Too much fertilizer
Too little fertilizer

Gee, that was really a lot of help, wasn't it?

[Mike Nolan]

Lodge makes a 12" cast iron pan with short handles, it might fit.

Most of the handle-less deep dish pizza pans I see online are 14 inch pans, thought here are some 12 inch ones.

[Mike Nolan]

Pita is fascinating to watch bake, but I'm not sure how possible it is to control evenness, because it's going to pull apart as it puffs up, and that might be challenging to control.

Would the thickness of the dough impact that? Might be interesting to test.

[Mike Nolan]

When I eat a ham on rye sandwich, I want the ham to be the dominant flavor, but the rye should still complement the ham, that's what I mean by a 'supporting cast'.

The sweetness of the Provençal rye bread may make it a bit challenging to pair it with foods, especially if you're expecting a typical sour/bitter rye flavor from it.

Pairing bread with food isn't an art practiced as much as pairing wines with food, though perhaps it should be.

I believe this is the 14th recipe I've reported on from the Ginsberg book, so I"m not even 20% through it.

[Mike Nolan]

Report on Provençal Rye (Ginsberg pps 119-121):

This is a rye with a surprisingly sweet flavor to it, considering it has no added sugars.

I chose to make two smaller loaves rather than one 2.5 pound loaf. The recipe makes about 1200 grams of dough, but it was not coming together well, so I added about another 50 grams of AP flour to it. The finished loaves are about 10 inches x 4 inches x 2 1/4 inches and weighed 568 grams, I should probably have made them shorter so they had a bigger cross-section, as it is they're probably too big for a cocktail rye and too small for a sandwich bread. This is one of those times when I wish I had one of those 'deli rye' pans that Chicago Metallic used to make and King Arthur used to sell, it'd be a good shape and size.

If I make it again, I may make it as one or two boules rather than as oblong loaves.

It was cold in the kitchen today, the bulk proof and the final proof both took longer than the recipe calls for. I baked it for a total of about 30 minutes, the internal temperature was 208 at that point.

It doesn't have a really dominant rye flavor, though I think adding some caraway might change that. I used medium rye flour and the absence of any rye meal, rye chops or caraway means it is a fairly soft chew.

The flavor changes somewhat when it is toasted and has butter spread on it. I actually liked it better with some sharp cheddar cheese spread on it.

We decided not to use it for Reubens, it might make a good sandwich bread but it is going to be the supporting cast to whatever you serve it with.

Update: We did try making Reubens from this bread a few days later, its sweetness was more of a distraction than a complement to the sauerkraut. The Jewish Bakery Pumpernickel bread is better suited for Reubens.

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[Mike Nolan]

Glad we got all the kinks worked out!

If you are still in contact with others from the old KAF crowd, we'd love to have them come join us.

[Mike Nolan]

It's been a few years but we've made pitas, I don't remember what recipe we were using. They were good, but I've eaten better.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm starting the Provençal rye from Ginsberg tonight, I'll bake it tomorrow.

I made the Grape Nuts bread once, I liked it but my wife thought it tasted too much like Grape Nuts, which she's not fond of.

[Mike Nolan]

Here's the recipe, I found it using the 'advanced search' function with "grape nuts" in double quotes and searching the recipes forum only.

grape nuts bread

[Mike Nolan]

My wife says they're TOO good!

[Mike Nolan]

I pretty much gave up on Top Chef a good five years ago, their challenges got sillier and sillier.

[Mike Nolan]

We had spaghetti with home-made marinara with mushrooms and ground beef, and cheese toast. (I can't get the 4 cheese blend I've been getting from Sams, as they appear to have switched suppliers, so I tried a different blend, it was OK but not as good.)

[Mike Nolan]

I used the left over egg whites from Sunday's Challah to make some chocolate pecan meringue cookies.

[Mike Nolan]

I've made bagels with a variety of flours, including some with whole wheat and some with a bit of rye flour. You can add raisins and cinnamon, though that makes the bagel too sweet for me.

The important part seems to be keeping the hydration low enough so that the dough feels right.

I'm baking off a couple of the cinnamon/maple fan tan rolls for lunch today.

[Mike Nolan]

The Challah made very good croutons, for a change I didn't even add any butter or salt to the soup, it was great with just the croutons in it.

I may have to make this Challah recipe again if only to have it for croutons.

The French Toast we had with it the other day was pretty good, too.

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