[Mike Nolan]

It was in the mid 70's here in Nebraska, too, but supposed to drop back into the 50's for a few days then back up to the 70's again. Kind of a typical fall.

[Mike Nolan]

There will be a quiz this Monday (Oct 14th) and I'm hoping to get ahead by a few days so if I have another setback there's not another interruption in quizzes.

[Mike Nolan]

Sounds like a crookneck squash, yellow skin, sometimes smooth, sometimes bumpy.

I think vanilla is overused in bread recipes, IMHO there aren't many that really need it. Some authors think if you really want the vanilla flavor in a bread, this is one place where it's OK to use artificial vanilla.

[Mike Nolan]

One of the vendors at the sunday farmers market used to teach meat butchery and sausagemaking during the winter, but he had a pacemaker installed and the battery pack was placed where doing repetitive arm motions (like grinding sausage) was bothering him, so he stopped. I think he still butchers some deer for hunters, though.

I'm at the age (70) where taking formal butchery lessons (like at a community college cooking program) is probably beyond my capabilities, especially right now. Even standing up for 2-3 hours to process 30 pounds of tomatoes is getting difficult. We didn't get a hard freeze last night but might get one tonight or tomorrow. My wife was out (in light rain) looking at tomatoes yesterday afternoon, she thinks most of the ripe ones are past the point where they are harvestable. Oh well, I did get about 50 pounds processed last month. Somehow the end of the season always seems to get messed up by weather, last week we had 2 solid weeks of rain in late September and a lot of tomatoes didn't get picked then, either.

[Mike Nolan]

Today was not a great day, looks like the next two weeks are going to be challenging. I need to redefine my daily routine to fit my current limitations.

[Mike Nolan]

Buying primal cuts and doing your own butchering is one way to save money, some high end restaurants go all the way and buy/kill/butcher their own animals.

If your goal is to be a kosher deli, that will impact how you source your meat.

The University of Nebraska (among others) has a number of web pages on meat identification. Texas A&M also has a very good meat program, I'd love to take their one-week course on meat butchering.

Here are a few pages I have bookmarked:

beef loin primal (There are several similar pages for other cuts of meat, but I don't seem to have the overall index bookmarked.)

Meat Cuts Training Information

Meat Cuts book I don't have this book but it is on my wish list.

Some of the best information out there appears to be part of the meat identification contests.

For example: Meat Grading Contests

[Mike Nolan]

I'm home, things went well, I probably won't be online much for another day or two.

[Mike Nolan]

My former next door neighbor who runs the local Sysco office, once told me that they stocked 5-10 types of wheat flour but could get others. Some of them require ordering a full pallet, which is twenty 50 pound bags. For a bakery making 50-100 loaves a day, using 100-200 pounds of flour a day would not be unusual, so a pallet of flour would likely last less than a month.

I've not been to the Restaurant Depot store in Omaha (you have to have a tax permit to buy from them), but I think they only carry a few types of wheat flour. I have been to several GFS stores, they only stock 2-3 types of wheat flour as well.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm re-heating the chicken stock/broth since it's been in the fridge for a few days, then I'll strain it and get started on making chicken soup for tonight, probably with dumplings. I was able to skim the fat off, so aside from reheating it the stock should be ready for making soup once it's been strained.

[Mike Nolan]

Usually if I'm traveling or expect to be offline a lot, I try to get several days ahead on quizzes, but this past week has been really busy.

I've got to pick tomatoes tomorrow because the temperature is expected to drop down into the upper 20's by Thursday, I"m not sure if I'll have time or energy to process them tomorrow, but I may have Diane take a bunch of them to her office or leave them in the garage and hope they don't rot too fast.

I still haven't finished the chicken soup I started last Thursday, that batch may just have to get tossed.

[Mike Nolan]

Update: I've got outpatient kidney stone surgery scheduled for Wednesday morning, I do not expect to resume posting quizzes for several days.

[Mike Nolan]

I've never seen a 25 pound bag of KAF flour in a grocery store, and the only place I've seen a 10 pound bag was at a Whole Foods in Omaha. The local Wal-Marts carry 25 pound bags of their generic flour, bleached and brominated, of course.

[Mike Nolan]

nuts.com has cinnamon chips, about $5 per pound, plus shipping..

[Mike Nolan]

For now we're playing wait and see if they pass normally, they're not in the right place or size for a lithotripsy procedure.

[Mike Nolan]

There are obviously many different ways to break down a chicken in terms of how many pieces you wind up with as well as where you start. I noticed that Jacques Pepin's method includes quite a bit of breast meat with the wing, not a bad idea for a stew. I will say his method makes it easier to cut through the wing joint. I think it would take me a bit of practice to extract the oyster as easily as he does, though. Jacques also has a video posted on how to carve a roasted chicken, he says the oyster is for the chef, and pops one in his mouth to demonstrate that.

I was looking as some other videos yesterday morning, one of them start out by cutting the bird into two parts, wings/breast and legs/thighs. Made it look easy (don't all these videos do that!)

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