[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.

[Mike Nolan]

The first few times I tried spaghetti squash, I didn't really care for it, but I've grown to like it. I think I undercooked it a few times, it should NOT be crunchy!

(My wife tolerates it, but likes the meatballs and sauce I usually make to go with it.)

I simply cut the squash in half, dig out the seeds in the center, spray the inside with oil and season it, place it face down on parchment paper, oil the outside, and cook it at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or until the inside separates from the outer shell. Let it cool for a little while (unless you have asbestos fingers), then scrape out the insides with a fork so that you get long strands.

[Mike Nolan]

I thought the minestrone came out pretty good, though I think my wife would have preferred I left the summer squash and zucchini out and a finer dice on the other veggies. (Personally, I like veggies big enough that you can see them and bite into them.)

I think if I make it again I may start by making my own vegetable stock, the stock I bought had something in it that I can still taste in the soup, and home-made vegetable stock would have less salt in it.

[Mike Nolan]

The lemon juice may not be necessary depending on how tart the cherries are.

My wife's grandmother always rolled some granulated sugar into the top crust before cutting it, I tend to use an egg wash and sparkling sugar on top, both accomplish pretty much the same thing, I suspect.

[Mike Nolan]

You start by thawing the cherries, of course. Then I strain out the juice, which gets cooked with sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, cinnamon and a little salt. Pour that over the cherries, chill the mixture and put it in the pie crust. I usually do a lattice crust top, because I think it looks prettier.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm making minestrone today (but with no garlic or olive oil.)

[Mike Nolan]

Today I made my cherry pie and I'm currently working on making bagel (Got to have something to go with corned beef on St. Patrick's Day.)

[Mike Nolan]

I ended up doing a souffle today, which is sort of like a pie, it's baked, has kind of a crusty exterior and a soft center. 🙂

I tried two sauces, one was a canned low-sodium mushroom soup, which was really bland, but better if I added some potassium salt and pepper to it. The other was a bell pepper sauce, which I usually do starting with a Bechamel sauce, but today I tried it in a brown roux veloute made with chicken stock, to which I added some dried mustard and a dash of sherry. I thought it was quite good, lighter than when made with the bechamel.

I think if I combined the two, it'd make a decent soup, so that's what I may do with the leftover sauces. Souffle actually reheats in a microwave very well, so my wife will take some of that for lunch tomorrow.

My cherries weren't thawed enough to use yet, so I'll make that pie in a day or two.

[Mike Nolan]

I've sent an inquiry into Guittard to see if they still make their cappuccino chips.

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