[Mike Nolan]

I make my own croutons, especially for potato leek soup.

The Double Crusty bread recipe makes great croutons. (I make it Vienna-style, using butter instead of oil.)

Then I just cube it (we like them fairly large, 3/4 of an inch or so), spread them out on a tray and put them in the oven on the lowest setting for about an hour. We prefer them crisp on the outside but not completely dried out.

I used to coat them with a little butter about half way through, but that takes time and the croutons don't keep as well, so these days I just add butter to the soup when dishing it out.

[Mike Nolan]

I make chicken stock starting with a whole chicken (or two), so there's plenty of boiled chicken for soup. I use this recipe:

Nancy's Homemade Jewish Chicken Soup The parsnips are the key, if I leave them out, the stock is too bland.

I wish I had an inexpensive source for chicken backs for making stock. In older cookbooks they always say 'ask your butcher'. There hasn't been a real butcher shop in Lincoln in the 40+ years we've lived here. I've seen them in the store for around $2.00 a pound, that's ridiculously high! But I still remember when chicken wings were 5 cents a pound, before they became an 'in' food. I've been known to buy a 10 pound bag of legs and thighs on sale and use it for stock.

I will have lots of chicken to use up if I'm making some other kind of soup.

So, what to do with the 'excess' chicken? Sometimes I shred it and add barbecue sauce and let it marinate for a day in the fridge, other times I make the Chicken Salad recipe I have posted here (which came from a friend.)

I don't do chicken cacciatore and lately I haven't done many chicken and pasta or chicken and rice meals at all, because of the carbs and my wife's low-carb diet.

[Mike Nolan]

I find when making a two-layer Celebration Challah that the smaller strands for the top need to be a bit shorter than the ones for the bottom were, because they don't have as far to go to get around the other strands. And if you make the top layer a little short, you can gently stretch it.

[Mike Nolan]

I collect old editions of the Joy of Cooking, the ones from the mid to late 40's had some recipes that got dropped in later versions. (True first editions are expensive, but it has been reprinted.)

[Mike Nolan]

The sheeters are fascinating to watch, throw in a lump of dough and out comes a perfectly round crust.

[Mike Nolan]

We average less than a load a day, since there's just two of us now. I'm probably more inclined to hand-wash pots and pans, so that lowers the average some. When our younger son was still living with us, we probably averaged about a load a day, when our older son and his family are visiting we probably do two loads a day.

Of course when I do serious cooking (or as I call it, committing kitchen), I can create a couple loads of dirty pots. I made Boeuf Bourguignon on Sunday, with braised pearl onions, mushrooms, and spaetzle, so that takes at least 5 pans and several bowls, plus more bowls for the leftovers. The cast iron pot doesn't go in the dishwasher, everything else usually does.

[Mike Nolan]

Well, the ever-shrinking tuna fish can makes up for the super-sized veggies. 🙂

[Mike Nolan]

I'm not an expert on no-knead recipes, but I think the gluten develops, just not in as controlled a fashion. Bread flour tends to be high in glutenin, which contributes to elasticity. Although I didn't know it at the time I started doing it, adding semolina increases gliadin, which contributes to plasticity.

Several of the 'thin crust' recipes in the Great Chicago-Style Pizza Cookbook add semolina.

The 'hand stretch' fanatics would disown you for using a rolling pin. 🙂

[Mike Nolan]

I think they look OK for home-made candies, I suspect Chef Russ would say they might not look so good in a display case. If I want to take Chocolate 2.0 some time next year (Chocolate 3.0 is the course I really want to take, that's where you redesign ganache recipes), I need to hone my skills, those courses are geared for working professionals.

I'm not looking to make show pieces or fancy plated desserts, though the chefs at the Chocolate Academy presented several examples of their wares at lunch, and they were all restaurant-worthy.

[Mike Nolan]

Mine usually start out pretty close to the same length, but don't always stay that way, I guess I stretch some of them while braiding. I use any extra at the end to fold over and pinch together to make the end hold together better, I hate it when the braid unwinds at one or both ends. Whether that would work as well on a >3 strand braid is something I'd have to do a bunch of them to find out.

[Mike Nolan]

The Dutch Crunch topping recipes I've seen have been mostly rice flour, so they don't have much of a flavor to me, just crunchiness.

[Mike Nolan]

I've tried making a four-strand braid and a five-strand braid, but I haven't tried a six-strand yet. (I've seen instructions for eight- and nine-strand braids!) Anything beyond three-strand would take a lot of practice, I suspect.

A suggestion I've made before to practice complex braids is to get some thick macrame yarn.

[Mike Nolan]

If you're having trouble getting a thin crust pizza dough stretched out really thin, it's probably due to your flour. You need less elasticity (glutenin) and more plasticity (gliadin.) Mind you, I know of no flours available in stores that will tell you what the breakdown of gluten proteins is.

McGee says that one of the ways to add gliadin and increase the plasticity of dough is to add durum wheat, ie, semolina.

[Mike Nolan]

I thought they ones we made in class looked better, but I don't have the 'log' mold we used for that. I made these in a mini-muffin pan, I think they'd be better if they were a little smaller, more bite-sized. I may use gloves to shape them more consistently next time.

[Mike Nolan]

I've got a Zojirushi rice maker, I've used it to steam vegetables and cook custards, but mostly I use it for rice. I've wondered about using it to make a Boston Brown Bread, which is basically a steamed pudding.

It is a simple cooker, No settings dial, just push the lever down. For some types of rice adjusting the amount of water up or down is advised.

This past week I made a couple of test batches of almond rocher haystacks, and one small batch (20 haystacks) using a dark milk chocolate, mostly to test my chocolate tempering pot. The next batch will be made using Ghiradelli milk chocolate coating, I like the dark chocolate ones but my wife thinks they're a bit overpowering.

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