Mike Nolan

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  • in reply to: What are You Baking the Week of March 12, 2017? #6879
    Mike Nolan
    Keymaster

      I used to buy a pumpernickel (coarse rye) flour from the Mennonite store in TN when I was down there on business, but now that I've retired and probably won't be going there again, I have no source.

      A local 'gourmet' grocery store used to carry a medium rye flour, but it burned down and I'm not sure they're going to rebuild it. The owners have a second store with some of the items but I don't know if they have the medium rye flour.

      I may have to buy a five pound bag of rye berries and make my own.

      I have some rye chops (think cracked wheat), I've used them in rye bread. I think they're better if soaked for about half hour first.

      Do you have charnushka seeds for the top?

      in reply to: What are You Baking the Week of March 12, 2017? #6873
      Mike Nolan
      Keymaster

        To be honest, I don't understand why an altus works, it's not like baked bread has any live cultures in it, but I can tell you from direct experience that it DOES have an impact on the flavor.

        in reply to: What are You Baking the Week of March 12, 2017? #6869
        Mike Nolan
        Keymaster

          Peter Reinhart's Marbled Rye Bread in BBA is the one I make the most these days, though my own buttermilk rye bread is still the one I make specifically for Reubens. (Which may, or may not, have been invented in Omaha Nebraska)

          When I remember it, I take some old rye bread out of the freezer, soak it in water for 5-10 minutes and use it as an altus. I think it produces a similar result to a sourdough, with a lot less effort (and my wife doesn't react to it.)

          in reply to: Rye breads #6868
          Mike Nolan
          Keymaster

            We have gotten an invasion of mice from outside the last two falls, and our two cats don't seem to have much interest in catching mice. Well, the grey one caught some baby mice, but not any full-grown ones.

            So I use old-fashioned traps, some baited with peanut butter and some baited with chocolate. This year it was about 50-50 as to which caught more.

            Before the food truck craze got to Lincoln, we had two chefs set up huge barbecue tanks (no other word describes them properly) at local gas stations. You could smell them 2-3 blocks away!

            If you haven't read the Tartine Bakery books, I suggest doing so, while the recipes and methods have been strucured for home use, the text talks a lot about how he does sourdough for the bakery. There used to be a couple of websites online that discuss how to maintain a sourdough culture for bakery production, I think I found one of them through the Bread Baker's Guild site, http://www.bbga.org/

            in reply to: What are You Cooking the Week of March 12, 2017 #6863
            Mike Nolan
            Keymaster

              Joan, I was reading too fast, for a moment I thought you put the chocolate cake in your soup!

              in reply to: What are You Cooking the Week of March 12, 2017 #6862
              Mike Nolan
              Keymaster

                I made snapper last night, but I may need to find a better recipe, it was kind of bland and possibly overcooked. (I normally cook salmon for me and orange roughy for my wife, because she doesn't like salmon and I think orange roughy is boring.)

                in reply to: Rye breads #6861
                Mike Nolan
                Keymaster

                  I'm not sure what the Nebraska laws are, booths at the Lincoln farmers markets can apparently opt out of the commercial kitchen requirements, but does that allow a cat in the kitchen? I doubt it. (What's ironic about that is that historically bakers usually had a cat or two to control the rodent population.)

                  The food truck regulations here in Lincoln are basically stacked in favor of the brick-and-mortar restaurants, food trucks are not permitted to park on public streets for more than 15 minutes at a time, carts are not permitted on the sidewalks and none of the shopping centers that have restaurants in them will allow food trucks to park there except for rare special events. So they tend to use things like church parking lots. Two of the best food trucks have given up completely, and I think a third one (associated with a good Mexican restaurant) may have given up last fall.

                  Building and using a mother culture is much easier if you're baking nearly every day, you don't have to throw away half of the starter each time you feed it, you just use that for today's baking.

                  in reply to: Rye breads #6852
                  Mike Nolan
                  Keymaster

                    I see two challenges here.

                    The first is volume. A reasonably busy deli could easily go through 20 loaves of bread a day.

                    The second problem is meeting sanitary standards as a supplier to a restaurant, if that's your intent. Those vary so much around the country that it's hard to say much here, so you'll need to do your research.

                    The good news is that sourdough techniques scale up very well, in fact I think it's less work to maintain a large starter (eg, in a 4-10 gallon container) than a small one.

                    in reply to: Malted Milk Powder #6833
                    Mike Nolan
                    Keymaster

                      I always thought the secret ingredient in diner pancakes was a bit of orange juice.

                      in reply to: help finding recipes #6819
                      Mike Nolan
                      Keymaster

                        Here's a link to it: Blintz Loaf

                        in reply to: What are You Baking the Week of March 5, 2017? #6806
                        Mike Nolan
                        Keymaster

                          Well, substituting 50% semolina for the flour in the Austrian Malt recipe was not very successful. The bread didn't rise as much as I would have liked and it is way too sweet. It is OK as a savory sandwich bread. like with roast beef, but I won't make it again.

                          in reply to: Cookie ideas, please #6795
                          Mike Nolan
                          Keymaster

                            I have made my mother's oatmeal crisp cookies without the chocolate chips, they're still very dunkable. And you can substitute raisins for the chocolate chips.

                            My mother often made them with nuts, usually hickory nuts, but those are so hard to find these days. (I actually have two small bags of them, but I haven't put them in cookies yet.)

                            For molasses cookies, Big Lake Judy's recipe is still the best I've found, and it's available here. And if you don't like molasses, substitute Lyle's Golden Syrup, you'll get a cookie unlike any you've ever had before! Lyle's is my secret ingredient for when I want something that will have a unique taste.

                            in reply to: How to Make Saffron Rice ? #6794
                            Mike Nolan
                            Keymaster

                              My wife is allergic to saffron, so I've never made it, but most recipes seem to use chicken stock instead of water, and maybe a little onion.

                              in reply to: What are You Baking the Week of March 5, 2017? #6782
                              Mike Nolan
                              Keymaster

                                I'm making a loaf of bread today, the Austrian Malt recipe but with 50% semolina flour. I haven't decided yet if I'm baking it free-form or in a loaf pan, probably the latter.

                                in reply to: What are You Cooking the Week of March 5, 2017? #6779
                                Mike Nolan
                                Keymaster

                                  They had lovely (and BIG) red peppers at the store the other day at 3/$1.00, so I made some stuffed peppers tonight. I blanched the peppers after hollowing them out and filled them with a mixture of browned ground beef, some oatmeal and a bit of barbecue sauce and sprinkled cheese on top. 35 minutes at 350 covered, then another 15 minutes uncovered.

                                Viewing 15 posts - 6,706 through 6,720 (of 7,252 total)