[skeptic7]

Saturday I baked a pan of whole wheat carrot scones with dates instead of raisins. Delicious! I took it to martial arts and gave most of it away

[skeptic7]

I bought a pork shoulder and remove the shoulder bone which is much harder than deboning a chicken thigh but similiar in concept. I divided the meat in two parts and was going to make two batches of Char Siu from different recipes, one with most of the fat removed and one with it intact. I've cooked the lean one and it is good but slightly dry -- probably overcooked by about 10 minutes; but I am having second thoughts about having Char Siu with layers of fatty pork and fatty pork skin. It is suppose to be very tasty but I actually remember having digestive problems with very fatty roast pork. I think I'll let discretion rule and remove the excess fat before cooking this.
I used the shoulder bone for pork bone soup/broth flavored with 1/2 onion and a little ginger. I don't know what I am going to do with this. Pork dumplings from the grocery store?
Oh this took 1 1/2 hours to cook so I had a nice warm oven for a long time!

• This reply was modified 5 years, 11 months ago by skeptic7.

[skeptic7]

I bought a pork shoulder and remove the shoulder bone which is much harder than deboning a chicken thigh but similiar in concept. I divided the meat in two parts and was going to make two batches of Char Siu from different recipes, one with most of the fat removed and one with it intact. I've cooked the lean one and it is good but slightly dry -- probably overcooked by about 10 minutes; but I am having second thoughts about having Char Siu with layers of fatty pork and fatty pork skin. It is suppose to be very tasty but I actually remember having digestive problems with very fatty roast pork. I think I'll let discretion rule and remove the excess fat before cooking this.
I used the shoulder bone for pork bone soup/broth flavored with 1/2 onion and a little ginger. I don't know what I am going to do with this. Pork dumplings from the grocery store?

[skeptic7]

BakerAunt;
I love all your crackers. I can see why you have to hide them after baking them.
Do you count the breakfast cookie as a cookie or a cracker? It looks much like a graham cracker.
I like the recipe and it looks like a nice snack or when there is no time for breakfast.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 12 months ago by skeptic7.

[skeptic7]

I was snowed in so I bake a pan of cornbread yesterday and two batches of biscotti which are discussed in last week's thread.
I had the oven on for most of the day as it didn't seem worth while to let it cool between batches of cookies. It was so comforting to have a warm oven on a cold day.

Next snow day I am going to consider cooking a ham as that will fill the oven for a long time. Or a stew recipe that I would normally cook in a slow cooker so I can use the oven for heat. Cook's illustrated has most of its stew recipes in a dutch oven for hours in the oven.
Can anyone recommend a good recipe for pork shoulder that can be braised for hours in the oven? Pork is amazingly cheap right now. I think my father used to do pork shoulder with turnips and ginger and soy sauce.

[skeptic7]

Actually so far the biscotti are holding up with only a few more crumbs when cut. I have done almond-anise, almond-coconut and chocolate almond. I did cut with a very good serrated knife
These are based on KAF cookie companion American Biscotti and I think the eggs are holding everything together.
Here is the basic ingredients with 1 cup of almond flour subsituting for 1 cup whole wheat in the original recipe

1/2 cup or 1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract
3 large eggs
2 cups whole wheat flour -- sift before measuring
1 cup almond flour ( Bob's Red Mill, its slightly coarse like cornmeal )
2 tablespoons anise seed
2 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

The coconut- almond biscotti
1 teaspoon coconut extract instead of the almond
1 cup coconut flakes -- toasted slightly

The chocolate almond biscotti
1 teaspoon vanilla instead of almond extract
6 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 10 tablespoons whole wheat flour instead of 2 cups whole wheat flour
( I put 6 tablespoons of cocoa into a 2 cup measuring cup and filled the rest with ww flour )
This is very good raw. I know its a health hazard but it is ...

[skeptic7]

I did chicken pot pies on Wednesday. I thought it would be a quick hot supper, since I was going to use some already roast chicken but forgot how long it took to cut up onions, carrot and celery.

Today I did anise biscotti with almond flour. This is basically the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion American Biscotti but I used 1 cup almond flour and 2 cups whole wheat flour. I had previously scaled up the recipe to basically use 3 cups whole wheat flour, 3 eggs and 1/2 cup butter so it was as much as I can comfortably bake on on pan.
I finally got around to baking this, I had thinking about it since before Xmas. Its tasty, a little crumbly -- I am going to try variations on this until I use up most of the almond flour. I am a little worried how this is going to turn out when I add coconut flakes, its holding together all right but I wonder if adding any more add ons will be too much.
I do want to get rid of the almond flour so I plan to experiment away especially if I get snow bound tomorrow.

[skeptic7]

Have you thought about LED lights? A friend has those for under the cabinet lighting and likes it. Do you think additional lights are needed? I am liking more light now as my eyes age but don't know if I want to rewire the kitchen to add the lights.
Did you rewire the kitchen to have more power on the circuits for appliances? I hope you find a range that you like? Do you have a range exhaust? Most of the building magazines love them, but a realtor friend says that they accumulate grease and most people don't clean them out annually so are a fire hazard.

[skeptic7]

I did buttermilk whole wheat bread on Thursday. This is the recipe that I have been playing with for awhile. This works perfectly with a cinnamon swirl in it, but not so well with fruit and a cinnamon swirl. I wanted to try this again carefully without any problems like letting it sit too long before baking it, or letting the sponge part ferment too long which had happened in the last two batches. This time everything was mixed perfectly and rose perfectly and baked in a timely fashion. It was very tasty but much denser than I had hoped for. I'm going give up on buttermilk whole wheat raisin bread -- next time I'm going to see if leaving out some liquid and adding an egg will fix this.
On Friday, I did apple challah from the KAF recipe but changing it to leave out the honey and use all whole wheat flour. The dough was stiffer than it was normally but made a perfectly good bread. I mixed it in a stand mixer and only did a little hand mixing. This saved a lot of time. I've looked at my recipe and I first made it nearly 20 years ago. I like it for New Years as that appeals to my sense of humour. Apples and honey are traditional for the Jewish New Year, but I make it for the secular New Year. I bring it to a party where the hostess is avoiding sugar.
I baked this a couple of months ago in a slow cooker.

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by skeptic7.

[skeptic7]

BakerAunt;
Perhaps you can find a manual for the oven on the internet. I found instructions for mine there.

[skeptic7]

Merry Christmas to you too, and a Happy New Year to come!

[skeptic7]

I was going to refute this but A) I don't know many millenials B) Fads are fun. If everyone in your social group are baking the same cookies, you have funny stories to share. Like I would have had the biggest, bestest cookies but my SO came through the kitchen and they disappeared. C) Does Colbert know many millenials? Perhaps its just this one group that took to cookie baking and there are oodles of support millenials who just take pictures, offer support and disapper Beta versions ( millenials don't have mistakes they have beta recipes )

[skeptic7]

Saturday I did a pan of gingerbread in a cast iron skillet with candied orange peel and candied ginger peel and regular and black strap molasses. It was very tasty but I gave much of it away.

[skeptic7]

On Monday I baked two loaves of buttermilk whole wheat bread with cinnamon spirals. One of them had currants kneaded into the dough and the other one had dates kneaded into it. These were shorter and denser than I had hoped. There are a couple of reasons that could have caused this perhaps having fruit in an all whole wheat bread weighed it down, perhaps the sponge had fermented too long, perhaps it was just too cold to rise well.
I also made two more pans of gingerbread. In honor of the season I had 1/2 cup of candied orange peel as well as 1/4 cup candied ginger. I gave 1 1/2 pans away but I kept the rest for myself.
I hope to bake cookies today -- I really shouldn't I've eaten enough cookies this holiday season but it would be good to use up the almond flour. I plan to add substitute 1 cup of almond flour for 1 cup of whole wheat flour in a regular biscotti recipe. Is this likely to cause problems? My normal recipe has 3 cups of whole wheat flour so this is only 1/3 almond flour.

[skeptic7]

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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