Mike Nolan

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  • in reply to: What are You Cooking the Week of February 5, 2017? #6569
    Mike Nolan
    Keymaster

      Earlier this week I made chicken breasts with mirepoix and sweet peppers, tonight I'm making pepper steak.

      in reply to: A Question about Restaurant Lettuce #6557
      Mike Nolan
      Keymaster

        As far as I know, most bagged produce does not have a preservative in it. A good restaurant will wash it and spin it dry anyway, though.

        in reply to: A Question about Restaurant Lettuce #6552
        Mike Nolan
        Keymaster

          I've been in the kitchen of some high volume restaurants, the lettuce comes out of the bag and is onto a plate in such a short amount of time that preservatives are not needed.

          in reply to: A Question about Restaurant Lettuce #6545
          Mike Nolan
          Keymaster

            Salad bars are breeding grounds for all sort of food-borne illnesses and allergies. Too many salad bars don't keep warm foods hot enough or cold foods cold enough. Cross-contamination of foods at a salad bar is commonplace, so anyone with a gluten allergy (just to mention one) has to be very careful. I've been to far too many restaurants where the people stocking the salad bar know very little about what each item contains, many of them come straight out of a carton, jar or can. (One of our pet peeves is places that don't know that ranch dressing contains garlic.)

            The reason garlic is considered 'healthy', as I wrote in my first blog post last spring, is that it slows down your digestion. That means you absorb less of the food and what you do absorb is broken down into things your body can handle better.

            That's great unless, like my wife and perhaps another 2-3 % of the population, your body's reaction to garlic is to basically shut your digestive system down completely for several hours.

            The FDA and USDA don't recognize garlic allergy as a food issue yet, but 30-40 years ago they didn't recognize gluten allergy issues, either, so there's still hope.

            In many restaurants, they use jars of pre-minced garlic, which may contain preservatives. These days there are limitations on what preservatives can be used on salad bar items, but I suspect many restaurants make their own 'preservatives' that ignore those limitations.

            in reply to: What are You Baking the Week of February 5, 2017? #6528
            Mike Nolan
            Keymaster

              I made an apple pie on Sunday morning and made popovers to go with supper before the Super Bowl.

              • This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by Mike Nolan.
              in reply to: What are You Cooking the Week of February 5, 2017? #6527
              Mike Nolan
              Keymaster

                I made boeuf bourguignon and Thousand Island salad dressing (starting by making my own mayonnaise).

                in reply to: Antacid in pizza dough? #6499
                Mike Nolan
                Keymaster

                  Maybe it's like Velveeta or the Kraft jar cheeses, no refrigeration needed until it's opened.

                  in reply to: How Many Different Flours Do You Have in Your House? #6489
                  Mike Nolan
                  Keymaster

                    Well, now I need to itemize mine:

                    KAF AP
                    KAF bread
                    GM unbleached
                    pastry flour
                    cake flour
                    White Lily Flour
                    bleached AP flour
                    whole wheat flour (freshly ground in my mill) from both hard red and soft red wheat berries
                    cracked wheat
                    wheat bran
                    vital gluten (seldom used these days)
                    semoina
                    sprouted wheat flour
                    rye flour
                    rye chops
                    corn meal
                    corn flour
                    cornstarch
                    potato flour
                    potato starch
                    sweet rice flour
                    brown rice flour
                    tapioca flour
                    barley flour
                    sorghum flour
                    millet flour
                    teff
                    garbanzo bean flour
                    arrowroot
                    almond flour
                    hazelnut flour
                    pecan meal
                    oat flour
                    oat bran
                    rolled oats
                    steel cut oats
                    buckwheat flour
                    soy
                    flax

                    Listing whole seeds would take some time, too.

                    And I may have missed a few.

                    in reply to: Antacid in pizza dough? #6486
                    Mike Nolan
                    Keymaster

                      I generally use whole-milk mozzarella on pizza and lasagna, but I do like to add a sprinkle of a four-cheese blend I get at Sams Club that has Romano, Parmesan, Asiago and Provolone. My mother used to say that a pizza without some Romano cheese on it is boring.

                      in reply to: How Many Different Flours Do You Have in Your House? #6472
                      Mike Nolan
                      Keymaster

                        If I include non-wheat flours, I'm probably at 20 or more.

                        in reply to: ? 4 Aaron & Others #6465
                        Mike Nolan
                        Keymaster

                          A cupcake-sized pot pie is small enough that I don't bother to cut vents in it.

                          in reply to: Antacid in pizza dough? #6452
                          Mike Nolan
                          Keymaster

                            There are enzymes present that might improve flavor by aging even in an unyeasted pizza dough.

                            in reply to: Antacid in pizza dough? #6446
                            Mike Nolan
                            Keymaster

                              If you didn't age the dough a long time, the baking soda might provide some rise.

                              Has anyone seen a pizza crust recipe with double acting baking powder in it?

                              in reply to: ? 4 Aaron & Others #6442
                              Mike Nolan
                              Keymaster

                                I make individual sized chicken pot pies in a cupcake pan, topped with a little puff pastry, then I freeze them, take them out of the pans and put them in plastic bags. Pop one in the microwave for a few minutes and it's nice and warm.

                                Before my wife's mother died, we'd package up chili in individual servings for her. She always called it 'tomato soup' because it was heavy on tomatoes.

                                in reply to: What are You Baking the Week of January 22, 2017? #6433
                                Mike Nolan
                                Keymaster

                                  KP posted his thoughts on bleached flour and cookies more than once on the old BC, I think/hope one of them got archived and posted here.

                                  Short form: Bleaching flour weakens the gluten bonds, so you wind up with less chewy cookies.

                                  Alton Brown's episode on cookie-making did an excellent job of talking about how to get soft, crisp or chewy cookies by manipulating the amount of sugar and fat.

                                Viewing 15 posts - 7,201 through 7,215 (of 7,709 total)