[Mike Nolan]

I don't recall where I read it, but I've seen references saying that powdered turmeric loses most of its flavor quickly. It will still add color, but not much flavor.

[Mike Nolan]

I've tinkered with the flours in that recipe a lot, I especially like it with some rye flour added.

[Mike Nolan]

I've had 50 pound bags of flour in the past, I just kept them in the basement, well sealed. I lost one to a periodic infestation of indian meal moths, but it was one I wasn't using quickly anyway.

Wheat berries keep much longer than flour does, and are less prone to bug problems. (The bigger problem for wheat mills is rodents.) I've had a bucket of spring soft wheat for several years, it's just fine.

The Wheat Montana cookbook doesn't appear to specifically have the recipe for the super-sized cinnamon rolls, I was curious as to how much dough each one takes.

[Mike Nolan]

Personally, I don't see a problem with the owner of copyrighted material benefiting from their intellectual property.

[Mike Nolan]

Glad to hear your trip went well. We just got back from over 2 weeks on the road, drove to Oregon for the International Master Gardeners Conference and took the northern route back, with lots of detours for sightseeing.

My wife says I need to bake something, the house doesn't smell right since it hasn't had any baking in it in nearly 3 weeks.

[Mike Nolan]

Graham was by no means the only 'expert' on foods in the 19th century who had some rather extreme ideas.

[Mike Nolan]

While I loved Julia Child's show, she was a bit fussy about equipment. Early bread makers had a lot of limitations, but I liked my vertical Zo model 15, I never had one of the horizontal two-paddle machines.

[Mike Nolan]

A quick search didn't find anything about how eggs have changed over the years, but I suspect that commercial egg production, especially the diet they feed the chickens, is more geared towards increasing quantity than nutrition or taste, except perhaps if you buy high Omega 3 eggs.

It seems to me that 'large' eggs aren't as big as they used to be, but maybe that's just bad memory.

A year or two ago my wife left the eggs out of a waffle batter she was making, and they were pretty good even without the eggs. We've made it that way at least once more on purpose.

[Mike Nolan]

I've been on the road, so no cooking or baking for me.

But I did have a few great meal experiences. One of them was in Wyoming, where we stopped for lunch at a small town and found a great restaurant. I'll post more about that later.

The other was a soup I had the last two days, a sunchoke cheddar soup that was just incredible, creamy and smooth, almost like an alfredo sauce. I've asked the chef for the recipe, if I get it I'll post it, otherwise I may have to go searching for a recipe elsewhere.

I've also been promoting My Nebraska Kitchen at the International Master Gardeners Conference, so if some Master Gardeners show up here, please welcome them.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm making Chicago Style hot dog buns today, we can't get poppy-seed buns around here, and I'm just in the mood for a Chicago Dog. Besides, what's more American on the 4th of July than a hot dog? (It won't be 100% authentic, no Vienna Beef dogs and no day-glo green relish, but it'll be close enough with celery salt.)

Clove is another spice you need to use sparingly. I once made a batch of pizza sauce with too much clove in it, we ate the pizzas, but they reeked of clove!

• This reply was modified 8 years, 8 months ago by htfoot.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 8 months ago by htfoot.

[Mike Nolan]

I never developed a taste for Spam either. They love the stuff in Hawaii!

[Mike Nolan]

I did hear from Zen over the weekend, and I sent her information on how to send me the HTML files she captured from the KAFBC. It'll take some tweaking to format them and check for duplications.

[Mike Nolan]

I did another batch of oatmeal crisps (chocolate chip cookies) for our 4th of July parade and block party tomorrow, I made them a little smaller than usual, using a #100 scoop, since they're mostly for little kids.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 8 months ago by Mike Nolan.

[Mike Nolan]

Sorry, the WSJ has apparently changed their policy on posting article links--again.

[Mike Nolan]

I suspect most Italian flour is Type 00, but that really doesn't tell you what it's good for. In general, European wheat strains are lower in protein than wheat grown in the USA and Canada. (But there are 'soft' wheat strains grown in North America and some harder/higher protein wheat strains grown in Europe.)

It may be that the information on the package, like sample recipes, is the best guide to what type of baked goods it is best for.

American nutritional information labeling is not very helpful for things like flour, because of serving size and rounding error. If the nutrition label says it has 4 grams of protein in a 30 gram serving, that really means it has somewhere between 3.50 and 4.49 grams of protein, which means it could be anywhere from 11.6% protein to 14.96% protein. 3 grams of protein means somewhere between 8.33% and 11.6% protein.

Europeans measure protein content differently than they do in the USA, just to make matters even more interesting. In Europe they analyze the flour as if it was completely dry, in the USA flour is analyzed based on a 14% moisture content. So a flour that Europeans would measure as 10.46% protein would measure as 9% in the USA.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 8 months ago by htfoot.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 8 months ago by htfoot.

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