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November 20, 2019 at 8:31 pm in reply to: Notes Toward an Oil-Based Rolled Cookie-Cutter Cookie #19358
Is Crisco on your list of allowable ingredients?
They're not a rolled cookie, but I've always thought my mother's chocolate chip oatmeal cookies Oatmeal Crisps are better when made with Crisco than with butter. You can leave out the chocolate chips, or just cut back on them.
These cookies are fantastic dunked in milk.
I grew up in a small town that had two grocery stores, both with a full-service meat counter plus a butcher shop. All have closed over the years. There are a few grocery items at the gas station/convenience store, but most people have to drive to a neighboring town to get most grocery items.
I've lived in Chicago and in Lincoln since the early 70's, I think it would be a major change to deal with small town issues like groceries and meal planning.
Even Lincoln was a bit of a shock after being able to find ANYTHING in Chicago, and a full-service butcher is practically unheard of out here, most things come in a box, if you're lucky they will cut it for you. We knew people who drove to Kansas City (150 miles) once or twice a month just because of the shopping limitations in Lincoln and Omaha.
And small-town medical care is rapidly disappearing, too.
We have 2 grocery stores close to us, plus a WalMart and a Target superstore a bit further away. I tend to buy our meat at one of the stores and milk at the other (and neither at WalMart or Target.) But WallyWorld has the best price on KAF AP, though they don't always have KAF Bread flour (and Target usually has a better price anyway.)
So I probably hit the two grocery stores once a week each, sometimes twice, WalMart once every few weeks and Target infrequently. There's another grocery store a little further away, the same corporate ownership as one of the two we frequent, but it's their 'full service' store as opposed to more of a warehouse model. I would buy a few things there, including tea, but they apparently no longer carry the type of tea I was buying. (Stewarts, out of Chicago.) I doubt I visit it more than once or twice a year.
There used to be a 'gourmet' grocery store further away that had lots of interesting stuff and was a long-time Lincoln store, dating back to the 1920's. It got acquired by the other 'gourmet' store and IMHO went downhill, but that other store had also declined over the years, it once had the best meat department in the city. Then the acquired store burned down and they chose not to rebuild, due in part to code issues affecting the size of the parking lot. So now someone's building a bicycle shop on that lot.
The best meat market in town is now in the east part of town, a 20 minute drive but the quality is excellent and the prices are usually reasonable. They carry things I can't get anywhere else, like veal shanks, and they can special order a lot of things with a few days notice, like a 40 pound box of chicken backs for making stock.
The only butter I keep on hand is for cooking, so it is unsalted butter, which doesn't taste that great spread on bread.
WalMart evaluates what products it stocks almost continuously. Local store managers used to have more discretion as to what they could choose to carry or not, these days they're generally limited to deciding about items of local interest, and even that can get factored into the corporate model. (A WalMart in Nebraska WILL CARRY Husker merchandise!)
I'm having trouble finding Promise margarine. (Although I only use butter when cooking, we prefer a soft margarine for things like toast.) The Promise Activ (high omega-3) product seems to have vanished completely, and now 2 of the 3 stores we shop at regularly aren't carrying any Promise products at all. (WalMart still has it.)
Recently several of the stores we frequent have gone through a reorganization, so it is hard to find anything. In the process, a number of products seem to have disappeared.
I was at a WalMart on the other side of town the other day, and walked through the area for flour and other baking ingredients. It was depressingly small with very limited variety. (No KAF products at all.) On the other hand, there were plenty of box mixes. I guess folks on that side of town don't do much real baking.
November 17, 2019 at 9:25 pm in reply to: What are you cooking the week of November 17, 2019? #19313Like many members of the Brassica family, Brussels sprouts get extremely bitter if overcooked, I've never thought they froze well at all, which is kind of odd because they're better if not harvested until after a frost.
They're tricky to reheat, too. I roast them rather than boil them, that keeps them from getting quite as bitter, even reheated.
I've tried some frozen Brussels sprouts with cheese sauce, they weren't worth the price.
I've bought butter at Sams, it doesn't seem any better or worse than house brands at the grocery store. I was never all that impressed with LOL butter over other brands, the European ones are different, higher fat and somewhat different taste, probably because the cream is cultured before it is churned. (Higher fat is controlled by how much buttermilk you press out, in the USA I think it has to be a minimum of 80% butterfat and most dairies aren't going to go higher unless they can charge a higher price for it.)
Well, the ones that were plain breadsticks needed more salt, and there wasn't enough cheese in the twisted ones, but enough to tell me that the idea works.
I'm setting several aside for testing in a day or two to see how well they age.
I think I'll try making a full batch of dough and divide it into 3 or 4 parts, with a little extra salt in the recipe. I use less than what it calls for, that's OK for something you're going to put margarine or jam on, or a sandwich bread, but I think for breadsticks it needs more salt, either in the recipe or on the outside of the bread.
I may try mixing in a little rye flour with one part and cheese with another.
We often put a mixture of ricotta cheese and finely shredded (nearly pureed) spinach in the bottom layer. The biggest issue with that is ricotta cheese and spinach both will make the bottom a little watery, so you need to let it sit longer before you try to cut it. We usually let it sit 15 minutes anyway.
I have the first batch of test breadsticks in the oven, using the Clonmel recipe, I rolled them out to about pencil size and brushed them with melted butter. I'm baking them at 400 degrees and will check them at 10 minutes, though I think they'll take about 15.
I also made a bigger one dividing some dough into two parts, one of which I rolled in cheese powder. Then I twisted the two together and divided it into three pieces. I'll bake this with the Vienna bread, but it may need to come out earlier.
You should try a Chicago-style stuffed pizza. I make it in a large and deep cast iron skillet, I think Lodge calls it a chicken pot. Divide the dough into 2/3, 1/3 portions. Use the larger piece of dough to line the skillet all the way to the rim. Fill to half way or so with sauce and toppings, including cheese. Cover with the smaller dough portion, making sure it touches the sides. I usually cut a few vent holes, but that's optional. Add the rest of the sauce, toppings and cheese. Bake until crust is crisp and fairly dark at the top.
One slice is a meal!
If you do the milk/seeds thing, then let them rise upside down, any deflation seems to work itself out in the final rise. Similarly, any deflation from when you flip them over again for baking seems to be taken care of by oven spring. I find putting the seeds on before the final rise helps them stick. (I find a little diluted honey helps stick them even better, I've used a honey-and-milk mixture a few times, too.)
November 16, 2019 at 10:23 pm in reply to: What are you Baking the week of November 10, 2019? #19286Len, did you sprinkle a little flour in the cuts so they didn't glue themselves back together?
Ahead of Halloween, I made two Texas Chocolate Sheet Cakes, one of which went in the freezer. We got it out this afternoon and it seems to have handled being frozen very well.
I'll have to keep that in mind the next time I make it, it's not a lot more work to make a full recipe of batter and both an 8x8 and 10x10 cake, though I did have to make a triple batch of frosting rather than a double batch.
In many ways, what happened to Dean Foods is a result of decades of government interference in and mismanagement of agricultural markets. The current shift to plant-based foods increased the pressure. And interestingly enough, it was probably a more recent market disrupter, WalMart, that provided the final blow. When they set up their own internal dairy production system and dropped Dean Foods as a supplier, Dean Foods was left with too many supplier contracts and not enough markets to absorb the excess product in a heavily regulated marketplace.
There's a bogus Costco coupon offer making the rounds on Facebook, and I just read about one for Bud Light.
The scammers may have polluted the waters to the point that real online coupons have become an endangered species.
I did find this note on the BRM site:
September 10, 2019 at 12:31 pm
Hi Bob - we no longer have the option to print coupons from our website but our Customer Service team would be happy to send you some in the mail. You can request them by phone or email: 1-800-349-2173 or customerservice@bobsredmill.com -
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