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On January 4th, I baked cranberry scones to take to work and today I baked sugarless apple scones. I'm going to a party tonight and the hostess is diabetic so I wanted to make something she could taste.
The nice thing about it being so cold is that I can preheat the oven for an hour or longer while I am mixing the batter and I don't feel guilty at all.
I had the oven at 400 + degrees for a couple of hours yesterday as I reseasoned a cast iron griddle. I had sanded off by hand almost all the seasoning on the inside of the pan and was now baking on a very thin coat of oil. Removing the seasoning with sandpaper and steel wool is a messy job but the old seasoning was thick and lumpy and annoyed me.That is a most beautiful bread! I hope it tastes good.
I made a cheese pizza with what turned out to be 4 different cheese, mozarella, provolone, chedder and swiss. I normally think that swiss is too strong tasting when cooked but put a slice on anyway.I decided to try something new with a boneless Beef Chuck. The Washington Post gave the same recipe for use in a slow cooker and a pressure cooker. I cut the 3 lb roast in half and tried it in both. The Pressure cooker cooked for 15 minutes at pressure and then sometime as it cooled down naturally. The slow cooker was allowed to cook on slow for 9 hours. I will be eating the results today after removing the fat. Normally I remove all fat before starting but this time I left it in for taste and to have a whole chunk of beef.
Here is the whole article that led me on and the recipes
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/the-instant-pot-is-a-hit-but-what-if-you-have-a-recipe-that-wasnt-designed-for-it/2017/01/09/8a64390e-d377-11e6-9cb0-54ab630851e8_story.html?utm_term=.4a5dc1fd66b1One of the annoying things about this recipe is it calls for Lapsoung Souchong Tea, which is horribly expensive -- not as expensive as some seasonings but the minimum amount was 1/4 pound which ran to $20.00 This is part of my N.Y resolution to try new things and get out of my rut.
Has anyone cooked regularly with pressure cookers? Mine is the stove top variety and not the electric type. What does it do badly? What does it do well?
This is a wonderful article. I love Fruitcake and I am glad that other people are appreciating it.
Yeast breads need salt to toughen the gluten and control the rise. At least that is what McGee says and I believe -- I use 1 teaspoon of salt to 4 cups of flour. More might be tastier but I am trying to reduce salt too.
Baking powder breads don't need salt, and there is salt free baking powder available. Baking soda does contain some salt.
Have you looked into the DASH diet? Its sensible and is trying to reduce salt for heart problems.
I really love Tortilla chips and crackers at parties but I try not to eat them at home.
I found that salt can be left out of most normal cooking. If necessary salt can be added at the table which is less than if it was added during the cooking process. However I find I like dishes with ham and cheese since these add salt to the food.When I make breads with a lot of butter I tend to add it after the first rise and kneading stage. I use the method advocated in Laurel's Kitchen and smear a thick layer of butter on the kneading board, knead the dough until the butter is absorbed and then repeat the process.
My steps for making rich doughs like for Hot Cross Buns is to make a sponge, then mix in all the ingredients except for the butter and fruit, Let the dough sit for at least half an hour, punch down and knead well, and then knead in the butter. Smearing the butter on the kneading board and allowing the butter to incorporate gradually is easier than trying to knead in lumps of butter. I normally don't do this with oil, its more messy. I guess it could be done by kneading in small amounts of oil at a time.Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all?
Any New Year's resolutions? I am going to try to cook more vegetables and try new bread recipes instead of sticking to variations of my old recipes.
December 28, 2017 at 6:44 pm in reply to: What are You Cooking the Week of December 24, 2017? #10396I did carrot soup yesterday from this recipe. https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/carrot-ginger-soup
This is wonderfully tasty. I cut the ginger in slivers instead of grating it since it would end up in a blender. I also brought it to a boil, and then put it in a slow cooker on low while I went to work. This isn't a slow cooker recipe and if I had more time I would have made it on the stovetop but this worked out well.
Today I made a very dark gingerbread which had 1 cup of molasses to 2 cups of flour. I think the ove was toohot as it came out fudgy in the center but taller and drier around the edges. Its very dark and rich.
I did sugarless pumpkin scones with finely chopped apples. This was baked for friends who are trying to avoid excess sugar.
The Hobart and the Electro Lux/Anaksrum would be wonderful for people with the space to keep it. I knead all my bread dough by hand and I wonder if I would bake more if I didn't have to spend the time and effort taken up by hand kneading. As it is I mainly do quick breads. I am now baking mainly all whole wheat breads and the best cookbooks I found for that is Laurel's Kitchen's bread book and Peter Reinhart's Whole grain baking.
Judging by the comments above you are already way past my skill level. I found it makes a difference to scald the milk and not to over proof and to knead thoroughly but thats about all the advice I have to offer.I often have a quart of chicken stock and maybe a cup of drippings from the roast chicken. I don't count it as hoarding as I do use it up.
Yesterday I baked apple crisp, I did 4 individual apple crisps. Probably too much topping but they were delicious, I gave one away but will eat the rest myself.
Today I made two batches of apple scones, one with apples, raisins, walnuts and the second with apples, cranberries and dates. The second one was given to friends who had to avoid raisins.I did two batches of whole wheat gingerbread with three types of ginger, powdered, candied and fresh. I also included two cups of finely diced apples -- this worked so well with the apple scones and I had plenty of apples.. This adds a lot of moisture to the gingerbread which is good, but it takes so much time to finely slice and then chop the slices. I fed it to friends and it was well recieved.
I'm next going to bake pumpkin bread and I think I'll put apples in those recipes too.I try to keep track of recipes I used, I print a lot of them out and put them in several three ring binders, but sometimes I bake from a cook book and don't record it. There are so many recipes that look interesting but I don't have the time to try now, and can't find them later.
On current trends, what do you think about cooking a meal in a pan in the oven "sheet pan meals". I haven't tried it but it looks like it would be difficult to get everything to cook evenly without parts being undercooked, over cooked or dried out.
In the good old days ( imaginary leave it to Beaver days ) people used to try to cook several dishes in the oven at once, but these were in different containers so they could stagger the start times. -
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