Mike Nolan
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Many apples and other fruits are picked when they're shippable, not when they're ripe. Their taste just never develops much further.
Storage apples are seldom great.
How thick did you have the bread sliced? If it's too thick, it never seems to get done in the center.
I'm making a variant on veal marsala tonight using some stew meat veal, which needs a longer cooking time than veal cutlets. So I cut it up into fairly small pieces, lightly browned it, threw in some veal stock, onions, mushrooms and marsala and stuck it in the oven. It smells pretty good so far.
Followup: It was delicious, If I can continue to get the stew veal meat at the store I'll definitely make this again.
I baked the first tray of graham crackers today. I think I may have overbaked them by about a minute, the bottoms are a bit dark, but they're interesting, though quite different from graham crackers from the store. I'll probably roll the next tray out a little bit more.
I think they'll make interesting graham cracker crumbs for a pie crust.
My mother used to get buttermilk (the real stuff, not 'cultured') delivered by the milkman. She'd drink it as well as use it in cooking.
I've got a book on buttermilk cooking that starts out with instructions to make your own butter, buttermilk and creme fraiche. I tried it once, but I think I did something wrong, maybe I didn't have the right stuff to culture the cream with first. (I used kefir.) The buttermilk reminded me of the stuff my mother got, but the butter was kind of weird, not at all like a European cultured butter.
Nice to see you posting, GinaG!
I still couldn't find the old BC thread, but here's a link to an article on how to make a
buttermilk plantAs I recall the other thread, you did leave it out for a while after adding more milk to refresh it, but I don't remember how long.
I grew up in a small town in NW Illinois. It had 2 grocery stores back then, today there are none. It's about 15 miles to the nearest grocery store now. There's a gas station/convenience store that appears to have expanded its grocery inventory somewhat, but not much beyond a few staples.
You might look into making your own buttermilk starter, then all you need to do is add milk periodically. I was looking to see if there was a thread on that brought over from the old BC, but didn't find it, maybe Swirth will see this note and can find it.
I made the dough for somewhat lower sodium honey graham crackers today, though it looks more like cookie dough. It needs to chill overnight before I roll it out and bake it.
Then I'm going to try using those graham crackers to make a pie crust so I can make a key lime pie.
I didn't change the temperature when I put the mini-muffins back in for a few minutes.
I made banana nut mini-muffins from my banana bread recipe, baking them a little longer so that the outside edges are a bit crisp.
My son liked them baked to the point where there was a lot of caramelization on the outside, but that's tricky because it's thisclose to being burnt. I did something with the first two batches this time that seemed to help. I baked them about 18 minutes, let them cool, popped them out of the pan and put them on a cookie sheet. After they had cooled a bit further, I put them back in the oven for about another 6 minutes. That made the outside edges a bit crunchy, the way my wife wanted them, but seemed to lower the risk of burning them. I think I will try that again.
She freezes them and takes them to the office, eating them during the day when they're still cold if not a little frozen in the middle.
Today was simple, steak, sauteed mushrooms and a baked potato.
Thanks for the update, I had wondered why we hadn't heard from him for quite a while.
My wife brought home some vine-ripened tomatoes from the UNL experimental greenhouses, so we had a nice mid-winter treat, BLTs.
I don't brine foods, so it hasn't been an issue for me. Many marinades are also a bit on the salty side, but I haven't done much of that lately, either.
Alton was big on brining, too, I wonder if he's changed his mind on that? Graham Kerr wrote a few books after his wife's stroke and heart attack on his 'minimax' approach to cooking, but I don't think they were big sellers, the one I looked at was a bit preachy. (One thing I've found in my own cooking is that my wife doesn't like it if I talk about how I'm not using salt, so instead I've been just talking about the spices and techniques I'm using to add flavor. She hasn't noticed that I cut the salt in my honey wheat bread in half.)
I suspect brining doesn't really add that much salt, because it only penetrates the surface a bit. Injection of salty broths could be a bigger problem with things like turkeys.
The Washington Post has an interesting article by one of their food writers comparing the Instant Pot to a cast iron Dutch oven on several recipes: coq au vin, pernil asado and black bean soup. The writer made versions of each recipe in both devices and had a chef blind taste them. The chef thought the Dutch oven ones were better for all 3 recipes and correctly identified 2 out of 3 of them as to which was made in which.
Not sure if this link will work for everyone, but here it is: instant pot vs Dutch oven
I may try the black bean soup recipe (without garlic, though.)
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