[Mike Nolan]

I'm probably making a batch of beef stock this week with the shanks I got in Omaha.

[Mike Nolan]

I have a pie shield that I put on about half way through baking, it keeps the edge from getting so dark.

[Mike Nolan]

I thought the soup was a pleasant break from ham and bean soups. (I'm not a big navy bean fan, I did a ham and black bean soup that was an improvement over the usual mix of beans in ham and bean soup.)

[Mike Nolan]

I made a ham and potato soup using a recipe I found online, leaving out the garlic. I added some parsley, but it seems like it still needs something, maybe a little mustard powder?

It's good enough that we both had a second bowl. I'd call it a chowder rather than a soup since it is made with milk and has chunks of potatoes in it. I thought crackers improved it, Diane had hers with some oyster crackers.

The link to the recipe is at the bottom of this post. I would make it again. We don't make a ham very often because even a small spiral sliced ham is a lot of ham for two people.

The timings in the recipe are unrealistic, 2 minutes to soften the mirepoix, 10-12 minutes to cool the potatoes to fork tender, both took at least twice as long.

Recipe is at:

Creamy Ham Potato Soup

[Mike Nolan]

Her dough recipe is available in the sample on Amazon, it's an all-butter crust with some egg and vinegar, she also suggests using either carbonated water or water with a pinch of cream of tartar in it.

I think she uses an egg white 'glue' to get the pieces to lay flat while baking.

There are a few other books on pie art, but this one looks like it has great pictures, too bad they don't give a sample of any of the pages covering the designs so you can tell how doable they are.

[Mike Nolan]

I like the 'eye' one with the blueberries in the middle. An interesting take on a lattice crust. I also like the black-and-white crust that I think is a lattice.

There's an all-butter dough recipe in the sample available on Amazon, it uses an egg and some vinegar

[Mike Nolan]

I've got a lot of leftover ham still, so I'm looking at ham and potato soup recipes.

[Mike Nolan]

When I went to Chocolate School, several chefs were working on fancy desserts, their work would be on the table at lunch time, and there were a couple of them that nobody wanted to cut into because they were so artistic, but they wanted comments about their taste as well as their appearance.

[Mike Nolan]

I'll make some Veal Zurich over the weekend, but other than that it's leftovers week.

[Mike Nolan]

With the demise of Bed Bath & Beyond, Marshalls/Homegoods/TJ Maxx (all the same company) are where I go for kitchen products the most. Can't count on them having the latest of anything, though. (Even the kitchen places at the outlet mall near Omaha have closed.)

[Mike Nolan]

Ahead of Diane's birthday two weeks ago I was looking for a source for some veal to make Veal Zurich. Couldn't find any in Lincoln other than ground veal and some shanks (for Osse Bucco), but I did find a place in Omaha called 'Just Good Meat'. It's just off the Interstate, so we went right past it on the way home from dropping David and Kelita off at the airport this morning.

I got several packages of veal cutlets, thinly sliced, and 2 packages of beef shanks for beef stock.

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[Mike Nolan]

Tonight I made forgotten chocolate meringue cookies and Diane is making a double batch of oatmeal-raisin-date spice cookies, which will hopefully fit in our 4 1/2 quart mixer.

It might seem odd to be doing holiday baking after Christmas, but these are mostly to go back to Pittsburgh when our son and granddaughter leave in the morning.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm an In-N-Out fan myself.

[Mike Nolan]

My son like to order frequently from either DaVinci's or Taco Inn when he's in town, because those aren't available in Pittsburgh. I ate at Taco Inn nearly every weekday for the first two years I was in grad school, I'm fast food faux taco'd out. DaVinci's take on a cheese steak is pretty good (though not true Philly style), but one every two or three weeks is my limit. Now, good Italian Beef I could handle a lot more often, but there isn't any in Lincoln.

[Mike Nolan]

I've always read that overmixing results in brownies that sink in the middle, though some sites say having too much leavening can also cause that. Some sites say doming is caused by having the oven too warm, or using the wrong kind of pan.

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