Mike Nolan
Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
They'll keep well until opened, but once they're opened you've got maybe 3-4 weeks to use them up. We put them on salads a lot. But they're still a lot better than the ones available at the grocery store.
If it isn't ramps, it could be ramsoms, sometimes called wild garlic or broad leaf garlic. We used to pick this with my grandmother, she'd cook it with stinging nettles and what she called 'mock spinach', which I think was lambs quarters.
IMHO they're a lot milder than garlic cloves, but I'm not sure if my wife would react to them or not, so I'm not eager to find out.
Walmart reported a 20% increase in sales in the last month, but says that panic buying may be slowing down. The week of March 21st they reported a 67% spike over the same week a year ago.
There are some funny stories out on the web about foods that nobody wants even in a panic, like lima beans.
When I was at Sams yesterday they had some almond flour and 25 pound bags of pizza flour (bleached), but no yeast. (They seldom have unbleached flour.)
Fortunately, I still have a 1 pound package of yeast unopened, which at my current rate of baking may last me through the summer. I also have most of a package of SAF Gold in the freezer, which I could use if I run short.
Those wild onions may be ramps. They have a flavor that some have called a cross between onions, leeks and garlic.
Ramps like wet soil and were quite prevalent in the Chicago area before it was urbanized. People still tramp through the Forest Preserves in the spring in search for them.
It is thought that ramps were the plant native Americans called chicagoua, which is where the name of the city Chicago came from.
Another page on salt rising bread:
I did some serious mushroom hunting as a teenager, helped by my grandmother, who was well versed in foraging. Also, NW Illinois and portions of eastern Iowa are an odd geographical area, it was skipped by the last two glaciers so there are a lot of hills and there are things that commonly grow there that are otherwise rare in North America. The botany students from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb would come out on field trips to study those plants.
There are a few types of safe mushrooms that are pretty easy to recognize, morels and inky caps are two of them. Inky caps and shaggy manes (both in the Coprinus genus) are tasty, but about 10% of the population gets a reaction to them, which can become fatal if combined with alcohol. If you've ever seen a fairy ring, it is safe, too. There's a fairy ring in Michigan that is something like a half mile in diameter, it may be one of the oldest living things in North America, they grow outward at a rate of about an inch a year, as I recall.
We get mushrooms in the back yard in the fall, they're probably Amanita phalloides, otherwise know as the Death Cap. They get quite large, sometimes 8 inches tall.
If it is a true salt rising bread recipe (usually starting with potatoes), it doesn't use yeast for leavening, it uses a bacteria, usually clostridium perfringens. You have to be very careful about cross-contamination, because C. perfringens is one of the more common causes of food poisoning.
I remember Anthony Bourdain was serving as a judge on one of the sillier cooking competition shows, where they limited what equipment the chefs had, and someone used the metal storage shelves as a grater. Anthony wasn't thrilled, saying that was a great way to get C. perfringens.
I'm told salt rising bread has a taste reminiscent of cheese. I don't plan to make it to find out.
Looks like King Arthur is out of AP and bread flour again, and they're saying it will ship in 3-4 weeks.
I got a 7 bone roast out of the freezer for tomorrow, tonight we're having tomato soup and fried cheese sandwiches.
I had a bagel with cream cheese and corned beef, my wife had cheese, crackers and braunschweiger.
Powdered egg shell is a good source of calcium. My grandmother always put a little eggshell in the coffee pot, it is supposed to make coffee less bitter. (I don't drink coffee, so I wouldn't know if it works.) Powdered egg shell also makes a good scrubbing compound mixed with baking soda.
I can understand that, actually, I've been known to just go ahead and use 2 eggs when a recipe calls for 1 1/2. You can wind up having to compensate for the extra moisture and proteins to avoid having something that seems 'eggy'.
Egg whites keep better than egg yolks, you can freeze egg yolks but I think they have a weird texture afterwards.
The easiest way to measure partial amounts of egg is to beat it then weigh it. A whole large egg will weigh around 50 grams (or 1 3/4 ounces), so 1 1/2 eggs will weigh around 75 grams.
I declared the first batch of sauerkraut done and packed it into the fridge, then I started another 3 pound batch in my crock.
Tonight we're having BLTs.
-
AuthorPosts
