Mike Nolan
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According to Carol Field in The Italian Baker, focaccia may have been made before the founding of the Roman Empire, when the Etruscans settled northern Italy. And pizza dates back nearly 2000 years, but of course it wasn't made with tomato sauce until much later.
Tomatoes appear to have originated in the Americas and were apparently brought to Europe in the 16th century as ornamental plants. As they're a member of the nightshade family they were once thought to be poisonous. Potatoes are also a member of the nightshade family, as are peppers and eggplants.
Raw elderberries contain compounds called lectins that can make you sick. A few years ago there was a family that was poisoned by drinking raw elderberry juice and wound up in the hospital, though as I recall nobody died.
Cooking elderberries breaks them down, as does fermenting them, so elderberry jelly and elderberry wine are both safe. Apparently birds aren't affected by lectins.
Many beans are also dangerous to eat raw, including kidney beans and lima beans. I'm not sure about white/navy beans, but you almost never see them in a soft raw state, they're usually sold dried.
A lot of people don't know that elderberries can't be eaten raw, though my grandmother drilled that one into us when we were kids. We've got several elderberry shrubs in the back yard but never get any, the birds gobble them down before they're purple, they're one of a cardinal's favorite foods and we usually have at least two nesting pairs in the yard.
The USDA and Farm Journal both recommend blanching, and that's what my grandmother and mother always did. But as you noted, a lot of sites now say it isn't necessary.
But if you've got a bumper crop, why not conduct your own experiment and do some both ways and see which you prefer?
I'm making a batch of bagels today.
When I make stuffed peppers, I slice them in half top to bottom before scooping out the seeds, that way I can overfill them with the stuffing mix. You get more stuffing per pepper that way. 🙂
When I've made it, the dough was usually about an inch thick and I poked about half an inch down.
Portillo's makes a chocolate mayonnaise cake that is utterly delicious, I've never made one, but we always buy a slice or two whenever we're near a Portillo's location.
Is your recipe one you could post here?
I made the marbled rye bread from BBA today.
Both of us are type 2 diabetics, so carbs is the primary thing we focus on here, since that's what the experts are emphasizing these days. And this came up because my son made a batch of peach/blueberry jam and a batch of peach/blackberry jam using the same recipe and the peach/blueberry one is noticeably sweeter.
BTW, in case you didn't know it, the KAF store, bakery and education center are about a mile away from their warehouse. The KAF test kitchens are located at the warehouse.
One of the challenges with deboning a turkey is that there are lots of small bones in it that in a smaller bird like a chicken are basically just strands of fiber that you can just barely find and don't really need to remove.
We're having a pot roast with some morels my son brought from PA and some local sweet corn.
I'm taking advantage of the somewhat cooler weather and making Vienna bread today.
I generally prefer to cut chicken up than to spatchcock it, mainly because I can fit a cut up chicken in my small oven but a spatchcocked bird is too rectangular and has to go in the big oven. Roasting a chicken whole has the advantage that you can stuff the cavity--not with stuffing, but with fruit, usually some apples, lemon slices, brandied prunes and a few slivered almonds. This makes for the most flavorful juices, which makes your gravy just incredible. (This idea came from James Beard, who used that for a goose, but it works with other poultry as well.)
My older son likes to spatchcock turkey, my preferred method would be to do it on the outdoor rotisserie.
I will agree with the author that spatchcocking a bird can be a bit messy, but that's why they make 18 x 24 plastic cutting boards.
Something that's kind of fun to do with company (though a bit of work to prepare) is to completely debone a chicken and stuff it. You present it whole at the table and just slice it to serve it. Kind of a fun presentation.
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