[Mike Nolan]

We did most of the catering work for our son's wedding, which was in our back yard (on a very hot 4th of July), but the cake came from someone who does wedding cakes professionally.

The 'Elegant White Cake' recipe in the KAF cookbook is pretty good, but making a tiered cake (and especially decorating it) is beyond our skills and patience. If you've never read the Susan Reid blog on making buttercream frosting, I highly recommend it. See Buttercream Frosting

I've considered taking the cakes course at SFBI, but what I really want to take is the weekend course on baguettes or the week-long bread course that includes baguettes. But I need to get in better shape, doing the Chocolate Academy course in Chicago a year ago was VERY tiring.

[Mike Nolan]

My eyes are old, weak and tired, I had to read your post at least twice before I saw that there was a link to Rosie's book. I may have to see if I can tweak the default template to make links easier to recognize. (That's one reason why I often write: See this link: XXXXX)

Having spent 20 years in the publishing industry, I'm well aware of intellectual property rights issues and try to respect them as best I can.

[Mike Nolan]

Can you post the recipe or a link to it?

[Mike Nolan]

I also took some of the boiled beef from making stock and it is soaking in barbecue sauce overnight. Since I can't get Heinz Sloppy Joe Sauce any more (Manwich has garlic in it), this may be what we eat instead of Sloppy Joes from this point on.

[Mike Nolan]

Today I'm making a big pot of vegetable beef soup.

[Mike Nolan]

Interesting article. However, the link to the Queen's favorite dessert doesn't seem to bring up the right recipe, here's another link to Chocolate Biscuit Cake.

[Mike Nolan]

I note that he rests his pasta dough anywhere from 2 hours to overnight.

I do agree with him in one respect about pasta machines, they can lead to overworking the dough. Pasta, like any wheat dough, develops gluten, and like a pie crust, overworking the dough leads to tough pasta.

[Mike Nolan]

Made Boeuf Bourguignon with spaetzle and popovers to go with the 2 pies I baked yesterday. Also made Thousand Island dressing from scratch.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm working on making an apple and a cherry pie, both for dinner Sunday, our 45th wedding anniversary. What we and our guests don't eat will go into my wife's office on Monday.

[Mike Nolan]

If you can find fresh (current crop) Golden Delicious, you might try those. (IMHO they don't store well, so I only use them when I'm pretty sure they're fresh.)

[Mike Nolan]

I think the usual ratio is 2 tablespoons per cup for light brown sugar, double that for dark brown.

[Mike Nolan]

Today I'm making beef stock, starting out by roasting several pounds of shank bones that I got from a vendor at the farmer's market, plus assorted scraps and left over pieces from beef cuts that I've bought and cut up over the past several months. I buy relatively large cuts, usually in the 1.5-3 pound range, and try to get 2 or 3 meals plus scraps for stock out of them.

I roasted the meat for an hour, then threw chopped onions, celery and carrots on top for another 2 hours, I like the flavor that roasting the aromatics adds to the stock.

[Mike Nolan]

Either those are really big radishes or he didn't plant very many. 🙂

My mother used to plant a row of radishes that was a good 20 feet long. Since they're a fairly fast crop, we'd be eating them by the bowlful for several weeks.

[Mike Nolan]

My wife defrosted the freezer over the weekend, so I had 10 pounds of chicken thighs and legs to use up, so I made a big pot of chicken stock, most of which I'll freeze for soup later this fall. Not sure what I'll do with the chicken meat, maybe a batch of soup and some chicken salad.

[Mike Nolan]

I made Vienna bread on Monday.

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