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Very little of the Japanese Knotweed in the Pittsburgh area will be suitable for eating, the article even says the people harvesting it for restaurants go way outside of town to get it.
Tree of Heaven is a nasty smelling invasive plant, that and mulberry are things we fight constantly. Mint is another, the first year we were in this house we put in several types of mint, 19 years later we're still trying to get rid of it. Musk thistle is a big problem locally, especially in ditches along county roads, and one the weed control board will cite you for in a hurry.
I've heard it referred to as the gardener's dilemma: Anything prolific enough to make a good ground cover has the potential of taking over your entire yard.
Pork tenderloin has almost no fat in it these days, if there's any meat that has been bred to meet consumer preferences, it's pork!
A pork sirloin roast should have more fat on it. Boston Butt has a lot more fat, but has to be tied (or cooked in a net) or it falls apart, IMHO it's best for slow cooking and turning into pulled pork.
Yes, I make the dough in the KA mixer. I put in the dry ingredients, egg and oil, then dribble in water until it forms a dough.
I divide the dough into balls no more then about 4-5 ounces each. That way I'm not trying to handle a sheet of pasta that is 10 feet long. Use the slowest setting on the mixer. Start on the widest setting (1), put the dough through the rollers a couple of times, folding it in between passes, then move on to the next ball, but without the folds. (I drape the rolled out dough on cookie sheets on the counter, hanging off the edge.)
Then move up to setting 2, and start over. The book says to go to setting 4 or 5, I find 4 is plenty thin and I've been known to stop at 3.
I've got really thick countertops (butcher block) and most clamps won't go that wide, but I've been known to use a bar clamp from the shop, the kind that you can squeeze tighter work nearly anywhere.
I haven't used no-boil lasagna sheets in over 10 years. As I recall, they needed to soak for a few minutes to soften.
These days I make most of my own pasta.
When I make lasagna, I freeze it after baking.
If you've got the KitchenAid pasta set, the recipe for semolina egg pasta in it makes an excellent lasagna. It won't have the crinkles in it, of course. I do boil them for 30 seconds or so, to 'set' the pasta and make it easier to handle when assembling the lasagna. I let them dry a bit on cloth towels, that keeps the pasta from getting too watery.
I usually wind up adding more water than the recipe calls for. If you get it too wet, it doesn't roll out well, but if it is too dry all it does is crumble.
We made a batch of gluten-free cornbread.
I've bookmarked the Anna's Swedish Butter Cake recipe in Susan Purdy's book.
We went to a wedding today and the cake (from a local supermarket's bakery department) was definitely not a WASC or even something like the 'elegant white cake' in the KAF Baker's Companion. I was thinking of trying another 'blondie' version of the Texas Sheet Cake, but maybe I'll try the Swedish Butter Cake instead.
I think you can also expect changes in this site, both in terms of how things work and what tools are available. (I'm not really happy with the current layout, so I might not stay with BBPress, the forums package I'm using, but if that changes all existing content should be migrated over.)
And don't forget there are other sites out there, Zen's, RandyD's, etc.
Hmm, I was hoping the link would work, did you try it?
No, the WSJ article focused on professional artisan bakers, not home bakers. It did note that some bakers, like Chad Robertson of Tartine, have started milling their own wheat or cutting deals with local millers. It'll be interesting to see if he writes another volume of the Tartine cookbook series that talks about it.
Those of us with home grain mills have long faced the difficulty of obtaining affordable whole grain for milling. I used to be able to get a 25 pound bag of Wheat Montana hard red wheat for about $14, but both local sources no longer carry it. Most recently I paid about $17 plus shipping to order a 26 pound bucket of it from walmart.com. (Walmart has just started offering free shipping on a lot of items, I guess they're trying to compete with Amazon Prime.)
You could look for a grocery store that has a Wheat Montana in-store grinding station, but a nearby store recently discontinued theirs. Not enough people buying it, I suspect.
The article does say that freshly milled flour should be used in 1-2 weeks, and I'm sure any flour you can buy in bags in a store will be a lot older than that. Peter Reinhart noted in one of his books that freshly milled flour should be used right away, within 24 hours, or allowed to age for 2 weeks.
The article touches on but doesn't really explain how sourdough has a lower glycemic index.
I can deal with the cost of veal, but it's so hard to find any! Our local grocery stores tend to carry at most ground veal. The one store that reliably had (frozen) veal cutlets burned down earlier this week--a fire that started in the compressor room.
I recommend Carol Fields' book, "The Italian Baker". Her method for making grissini (thin bread sticks) is both fast and fun to do, and they're every bit as good as the ones I had in Turin.
