[Mike Nolan]

I checked the Poochies website, they've cut back on the number of toppings they offer, but still offer 9 of them, including grilled onions.

And speaking of onions, the house smells heavily of them today, as I have 7 pounds of onions in the oven caramelizing for tonight's French onion soup.

[Mike Nolan]

My younger son has developed an allergy to shellfish, and will sometimes react to things made with fish sauce, so he pretty much avoids fish dishes these days.

[Mike Nolan]

We have several 'non-stick' mini-muffin pans; they weren't all that non-stick to begin with and I'm sure some of that coating has worn off over the years. (I've pretty much stopped buying non-stick pans, because when the coating comes off, it probably means we're eating it.)

I need to start experimenting with ways to get mini-muffins to release better, melted butter just isn't working these days. I won't use the sprays, because they leave a residue that builds up on your pans. I tried the pan grease once, it didn't work very well for some reason, maybe I should try it again. A flour/butter paste might be worth trying, too.

With mini-muffins, after they've cooled I just pop them in a zip lock bag and freeze them, my wife likes taking 5 of them in a small sandwich bag, that helps her get through the day without blood sugar spikes or crashes. I've been known to eat them straight out of the freezer, but they defrost in 3-4 minutes or a few seconds in the microwave.

[Mike Nolan]

I haven't tried any of the cauliflower pizza crusts yet, though I hear it is hard to tell the cauliflower is in it.

I think it is possible to get whole grain durum wheat flour, but I don't think I've ever seen it in stores and if it came up in a web search I just did it wasn't obvious.

[Mike Nolan]

I don't eat much shrimp because I had a bad reaction to some creole shrimp years ago. I can usually get away with a little shrimp if is is mixed in with other sea foods, but things like shrimp cocktail or fried shrimp (both of which I used to love) are out.

[Mike Nolan]

About the only muffins I make are banana nut mini-muffins, and they're not low carb.

I don't generally buy muffins from bakeries because they're too sweet and they tend to be HUGE, they'd be a boatload of carbs even if they weren't so sweet.

I may have to experiment with triticale in muffins. Steve, the wheat breeder, told my wife he could get more triticale for us any time. I'm also going to try putting triticale in the KAF whole-grain hot cross buns recipe I like.

[Mike Nolan]

It should be back, it got tagged as spam again. I don't know why this only seems to happen to you, it must be something your computer is doing.

I like Akismet (the anti-spam tool nearly all WordPress sites use), but it isn't very informative about what it calls spam.

[Mike Nolan]

I have more sympathy for those who have medical reasons why they cannot eat wheat bread or other foods than I do those who do so as a lifestyle choice, but don't want to give up their previously favorite foods. If you are eschewing meat, you shouldn't be chewing on plant burgers that have far more 'processed' ingredients in them.

Carbs are necessary as are fats and proteins, the trick is to eat them in reasonable proportions and quantities.

[Mike Nolan]

I've been making Hamelman's semolina bread recipe a lot lately, but semolina is NOT a whole grain product. Triticale might help here, it has the nuttiness you get from durum wheat (not surprising since it is a cross-breed between durum wheat and rye), and so far I didn't notice much bitterness in it, and I'm using whole meal triticale, though the first batch was only 10% triticale. I may try doubling that this week.

[Mike Nolan]

Grilled onions are great on hot dogs. There used to be a hot dog place near us in Evanston that had about 18 different toppings. I talked them into selling me a dog with everything--hold the hot dog, and it wound up going on the menu.

[Mike Nolan]

The honey wheat recipe I have posted is one my mother-in-law used years ago and it was one of my wife's favorite breads growing up. I adapted it to use oil instead of lard. I've done it with butter, liked it better with the oil. Our younger son, who was on his own time schedule the last few years he lived with us, would make sandwiches with it twice a day.

It is about a 50-50 blend (I vary the proportions from batch to batch), and it has honey in it, so it is on the sweet side. I usually make it free-form but it does well in a loaf pan, too, you just have to be REALLY patient because it'll take 90 minutes or longer to rise, and some days it seems like it'll never get going. Sometimes I'll shove it in the oven with the light on to hurry it up a bit, but I can taste a difference when I do that.

[Mike Nolan]

Tonight we're having potato-leek soup using half of the chicken stock I made the other day, the plan is to make French onion soup on Monday with the rest.

I made croutons from one of the baguettes I baked the other day for tonight's soup, the other one I sliced into rounds that will go on top of the onion soup.

[Mike Nolan]

When our younger son moved to California to work for YouTube, one of the first things he bought for his apartment was a stand mixer. I wonder how much he uses it, though, because YouTube provides breakfast, lunch and dinner from Monday morning through Friday noon, so he only has to deal with cooking for himself for at most 7 meals a week, and there's a mall with a large food court a few blocks away.

While he was still living with us he got pretty good at making the KAF stuffed baguettes recipe, and he was experimenting with several cookie recipes.

[Mike Nolan]

Most of the interest in 'Just Bread' is a renewed interest in artisan bakeries, especially in less expensive but still artisan quality breads.

I agree that KAF's recipe is probably not one a new baker could attempt, because producing and maintaining a sourdough starter is a lifestyle choice.

I'm taking a sourdough class in TX next month, one of the teachers is Deb Wink. Long time KAF BC readers may remember her recommending using pineapple juice to get a starter going.

[Mike Nolan]

Not sure if I'll make the recipe, but I did order the moon cake mold! I've had mung bean cakes at Asian restaurants, not sure if I've had one that was a combination of mung bean and red bean paste, though.

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