[Mike Nolan]

When I was 5 or so, we sometimes spent Sunday afternoons on a farm just outside of town. The people running it were from England, and at 4PM things came to a halt for tea, with banana sandwiches (mashed bananas and butter spread on bread.)

They moved back to England after a year or two, just couldn't make farming work for them in the USA. I still drink hot tea but haven't made banana sandwiches in years. (Their disdain for iced tea also rubbed off on me, can't stand the stuff!)

Assuming the weather cooperates for another hour or so, I'm going to do burgers on the grill tonight, to test out the burger buns I made yesterday. My impression of them as hot dog buns is that they're good, but not as soft as Moomies. Haven't made up my mind on the flavor yet, but that's more easily adjustable.

[Mike Nolan]

The expected high for today here is 75, and we've already gotten at least 1.5 inches of rain, and more expected on and off all day.

My father-in-law (trained as a meteorologist by the Army during WWII) used to say that Nebraska had five seasons: Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer and Monsoon. I think we're in Monsoon season!

The variety of zucchini that they sent us as part of the Nebraska Urban Soil Improvement study, dunja, seems to be one that doesn't spread very far, I think it is mostly contained in about a 3x3 area. It's considered a 'bush' zucchini.

[Mike Nolan]

I think we're having hot dogs to test out the buns I made today.

[Mike Nolan]

I made the buns recipe I used for the latest Excel template, the recipe is from the BBGA forum (Solveig Tofte), making 8 hamburger buns (2.5 ounces of dough each, they're about 4" in diameter) and 5 hot dog buns (1.9 ounces of dough each, they're about 5 1/2 inches long.) I did shorten the baking time by about 3 minutes.

I 'm not sure the poppy seeds are going to stay on, might need an egg wash or something else to fix them to the dough. The sesame seeds are a bit loose, too.

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[Mike Nolan]

I picked another 14.5 ounce zucchini today.

One of the first ones to set seems to have stunted for some reason, not sure why. It is wrinkled, soft, and only weights 1.5 ounces.

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[Mike Nolan]

Here's my first crack at a multi-stage formula with costing, using a buns recipe posted on the BBGA forum recently.

You can do things like tinker with the overall hydration level, the percentage of the total flour in the preferment, the hydration level of the preferment, the desired dough quantity and the yield.

If you're interested in trying this recipe (I haven't tried it yet, but will tomorrow), the preferment should sit for 12 hours. Bulk proof for an hour, final proof for 90 minutes and bake for 20 minutes at 380, with steam if possible. I think the baking time might be a bit long, but as I noted, I haven't tried this recipe yet.

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[Mike Nolan]

We had steaks on the grill tonight, plus some of yesterday's potato salad.

[Mike Nolan]

I made a zucchini bread using the first zucchini from the garden. It's out of the oven cooling, it'll be ready to slice in another 30-40 minutes.

I've got two bags of shredded zucchini portioned for the recipe I used. If we like it, I could do more fairly quickly.

[Mike Nolan]

I did pick the first zucchini today, 10 inches long and 21 ounces, or enough for 3 recipes of zucchini bread. 🙂

[Mike Nolan]

And the rains came! We've had well over an inch in the past hour, but it looks like it'll be over in another half hour or so. Somehow the fireworks shooting continues.

[Mike Nolan]

I think I've got at least one zucchini that will be big enough to pick either tomorrow or Thursday.

One of the spaghetti squash plants I started inside did eventually germinate, so I let it grow for a while and transplanted it yesterday. I also planted a small hill of spaghetti squash seeds, it's kind of late in the season for planting squash seeds, but maybe we'll have a late frost and I can get some spaghetti squash in early October. We have a volunteer melon in one of the flower beds, possibly from last year's melons, it'll be interesting to see how those come out, we didn't enjoy the melons we got last year, but the squirrels did. The Athena melon plants I bought are starting to flower, too.

And I saw a hummingbird today!

[Mike Nolan]

There's rain in the forecast for later this evening, might put a damper on some of the official fireworks celebrations.

[Mike Nolan]

The ribs were fall-apart done, juicy and flavorful, and we had potato salad to go with them. Diane even asked for a second serving of the potato salad, so it was a good batch.

I was reading a site yesterday that talked about the difference between competition ribs and ribs for dinner. Competition judges only take one or two bites of each rib, so it has to be a flavor bomb, but when you make ribs for dinner you want each rib to be one that makes you want another.

These were dinner ribs.

My dry rub consisted of brown sugar, mustard powder, ginger, nutmeg, some chipotle pepper, a little salt, some celery seed and celery salt. I used some mustard to dampen the ribs and hold the rub on, then let the ribs sit in the fridge overnight. 4 hours at 275 in the grill, then I brought them in for the wet wrap in the oven for another half hour.

[Mike Nolan]

Tonight we had burgers on the grill, tomorrow I'm doing ribs on the grill though I may bring them inside for the wrap stage, especially if the air is starting to smell like gunpowder again. (It's that way now but it didn't really get noticeable until after the burgers were off the grill.)

[Mike Nolan]

The cinnamon pretzel (sticks) are a little better today, but still not memorable. If they keep improving, I might actually try this recipe again, hoping to get a less crumbly dough that I can actually shape as pretzels. Maybe more egg or other moisture?

I'm doing a double batch of peanut butter cookies tonight, so I can take a tray of them to the block party following our 4th of July block parade.

[Author]

Posts