[Mike Nolan]

I suspect the neighborhood birds would have a field day with blueberries, they get about half of the black raspberries. I planted elderberries, there are never any that even get purple before the birds descend upon the bushes. (Elderberries are one of the favorite foods of cardinals, and we have at least two breeding pair in our yard.)

[Mike Nolan]

This site says that blueberries are self-pollinating but that you get bigger berries if they're pollinated from a second variety. (But both varieties have to be in bloom at the same time, of course.)

I've never grown blueberries, how long is the harvesting season?

[Mike Nolan]

190-205 is a rather wide range. I don't doubt that Hamelman never uses temperature, he's baking in quantities and using equipment and techniques that help ensure consistency from one day to another.

In his book he says that the internal temperature of bread reaches a maximum of about 210 degrees. The surface temperature gets hotter, though.

[Mike Nolan]

I've been using the KAF Whole Grains book recipe for Hot Cross Buns for a number of years, it's the best one I've found. I grind my own whole wheat flour, though, and I think freshly ground flour has a higher moisture content, so I haven't noticed the dough being dry.

I divide the dough into 32 parts (about 1.5 ounces each) and bake them in 6" round pans, 8 rolls per pan, for about 30 minutes.

[Mike Nolan]

There are a number of fruits that need a separate pollinator. Usually the nursery catalogs are pretty good at letting you know what you need.

[Mike Nolan]

Rye starters are definitely possible, Jeffrey Hamelman brought one with him when he went to work for King Arthur Flour that he's had for many years.

But like any starter, it needs regular feeding, probably several times a week. Will you be making rye bread often enough to justify that?

Although most procedures for maintaining a starter at home have you throw half of it away every time you feed it, commercial bakers don't do it that way (they couldn't afford to), so what they do is feed their starter anywhere from 18-24 hours before they plan to bake a batch of bread, doubling the amount they have on hand, then use half of it for their next day's baking.

[Mike Nolan]

I've been making my own marinara with the tomato sauce I made last summer (no salt added) plus I add a can of no-salt-added tomatoes to it, and some herbs (basil, oregano, marjoram and thyme)

[Mike Nolan]

It did seem to bring out a few lurkers, or maybe they just hadn't been authorized to post yet.

I shouldn't have to send an email like that very often.

[Mike Nolan]

Wow, nice research!

[Mike Nolan]

No matter how long you cook tomatoes, they don't turn into a smooth sauce unless you puree them either before or after cooking them. (A stick blender works very well for this.)

Most slow cookers don't get hot enough to melt the fat out of a fatty roast.

[Mike Nolan]

Last year we only put in 5 tomato plants, and they didn't do very well in the hot summer, but rebounded when things cooled off. Then we had a week where it rained every day and I didn't get out to pick and the fruit over-ripened and the vines shut down.

Fortunately, two of the graduate students at UNL had some test gardens (10 rows of tomatoes, each about 160 feet long) and they were picking 500-1000 pounds of fruit three times a week by late August, which was more than even the food pantry could handle, so we got several batches of 50-75 pounds of tomatoes, and I made a lot of tomato sauce, of which I think I've used less than half.

I think another duo of graduate students are doing tomatoes again this summer. We've been getting a few hothouse tomatoes during the winter, too.

I'm trying to decide what I want to try this year other than a few tomatoes. Lettuce and spinach have such a short growing season, because as soon as it starts to get hot, the plants bolt. I seldom have good luck with peppers or eggplants. I don't care much for cucumbers unless they're pickled, and salty pickles are off my diet. Doesn't leave much. (The problem with farm shares is you get lots of stuff we don't eat, like kale and beets.)

[Mike Nolan]

I've got some bone-in chicken breasts that I'll be using up in the next few days, but I've gotten into kind of a rut with what I do with chicken.

I've been reading a book on healthy cooking at home put out by the Culinary Institute of America. My wife thinks the book is kind of ironic, CIA-trained chefs tend to heavily salt their foods, and I'm on a low-salt diet. I just have to either skip over or modify recipes that use too much salt or have garlic, cilantro, curry, red raspberry, saffron and a few other things.

I used the minestrone soup in that book as the starting point for yesterday's soup, though. And somehow I wound up with 8-9 quarts of soup from a recipe that is intended to produce about half that. 🙂

[Mike Nolan]

I think my wife would agree with you on spaghetti squash as a less than perfect substitute for pasta, but it is a lot less carbs.

I think the type of oil you use makes a big difference. I used to use canola oil, but it can have a bitter undertaste, so I've switched back to corn oil. (Olive oil is too assertive for us, and both a close friend and my brother-in-law are allergic to olives, so I seldom cook with it.)

[Mike Nolan]

Great to see you here, Patty. Spring can't get here too soon for me!

The person who takes care of our shrubbery cut down our tall grasses a few days ago, that's one of the first spring yard tasks every year. Now I need to get outside and clean out the tomato beds. I planted alfalfa in the main garden area two years ago, after a couple of disappointing seasons, but I think I'll till that under this year. Maybe I'll put in buckwheat again, it was really pretty and the bees REALLY loved it.

[Mike Nolan]

Leftover night here, too.

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