[skeptic7]

Chocomouse; Good luck with your English Muffins! I bake mine, I don't have the patience to stand over several patches watching them cook on the frying pan. I've done white flour and whole wheat and the white flour ones are easier.

[skeptic7]

I baked a double batch of raspberry quick bread -- tasty but not spectacular. I took it to a Martial arts event Sunday and brought a lot of it back -- will be eating it for breakfast and snacks for awhile.

[skeptic7]

The days are starting to blend together in my mind but I did the KAF breakfast cookies on Sunday or Monday.
King Arthur Flour Breakfast cookies
I had oatmeal, coconut flakes and dried cranberries in it. This is so different from Baker Aunt's Italian cookies.
I don't like these as much as I did the last time I made them. My tastes are changing, they are too sweet and too rich. They are filling enough for a breakfast as designed but I'd prefer a couple of muffins. I see recipes for baked oatmeal all the time. How does this work as a breakfast food -- can you eat it with your fingers?

• This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by skeptic7.

[skeptic7]

I wouldn't like to leave the oven on overnight unattended but this seems like recipes for low temperature turkey.
I have deboned chickens and cooked the resulting chicken flat on rack without any stuffing. It is much easier to carve and cooks faster than a chicken with bones. Most of the time I cook it at 350 degrees until cooked and the skin is nice and crisp, and the fat drains off the chicken and under the rack.

My last deboned chicken was cooked for 2 hours at 250 degrees. The chicken meat was tasty and juicy but the skin was soft and fatty. For 1/4 of the breast I removed the skin entirely and then refried the skin, skin side down on a cast iron frying pan. The skin was very tasty and crisp this way and most of the fat melted off.

[skeptic7]

Sunday I made my chocolate cherry scones and took it to a neighborhood party to celebrate our mailman's retirement after 20 years. There were so much cake and cookies and other nibblies that I had to beg friends to try it and took half of it home. I ate a slice for breakfast this morning and it was as good as I ever made it.
I made chocolote- coconut -almond flour biscotti also on Sunday. These came out very well and I cut them with my best bread knife with very little crumbling. This is just like the chocolate-almond biscotti I made last week but with 1 cup of toasted coconut flakes added in.

[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?

[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 6 years, 2 months ago by skeptic7.

[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 6 years, 2 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, 2 months ago by skeptic7.

[skeptic7]

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

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