Let’s just jump in with recipes. I know everyone is all about the sourdough starter these days. I’m not a fan, although I understand the appeal and this video didn’t hurt and it’s a great step-by-step instruction on starter and bread making if you need it.
I have been playing with different bread recipes: homemade tortillas, crusty French bread and hamburger buns.
But the potato bread was a revelation.
Someone suggested to me to use potato bread dough next time I made cinnamon rolls. It sounded like an idea, but it also made me really, really want potato bread. I don’t believe I’ve ever made it before. And since I had no plans to make cinnamon rolls anytime soon, potato bread it had to be.
I have to tell you, it was fairly simple, and made the most amazing bread. Silky, moist, flavorful, and firm enough to cut into very thin slices.
The only drawback of the recipe is you’ll need either a stand mixer or a bread machine. The dough must be kneaded for about 7 minutes on a high speed. It’s a very sticky dough, difficult to knead by hand and it’s really not possible to get the texture without a machine knead.
Otherwise, it’s straightforward.
Potato Bread
This makes one loaf. I would double the recipe, it freezes well. It takes an overnight rise in the refrigerator for best flavor.
- 1 pkg instant yeast
- 1/4 cup (50 g) sugar
- 1/2 to 3/4 cups water, lukewarm*
- 6 tbsp softened butter
- 1-1/2 tsp salt
- 1 egg (room temperature)
- 1/2 cup mashed potato**
- 3-1/4 cups (390 g) unbleached flour
*about 90 degrees F. You can use the potato water if you like
** I never peel potatoes, and I found once these had been mashed and kneaded for 7 minutes, there was no remnant of skin visible in the loaf
Add all ingredients to the bowl of the stand mixer. Using the paddle, mix until everything is incorporated, then beat for about 4 minutes. Scraping as needed. It should become smooth and shiny. You may need to add more flour or water as needed. It will be a sticky dough, you don’t want it dry and flaking as it mixes.
Change to the dough hook and knead for 7 minutes, scraping sides, until it forms a silky, smooth ball. It is a very moist, sticky dough.
Remove to a lightly oiled bowl, cover with oiled plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or up to 24 hours.
Next day, form into a log and place into a lightly oiled loaf pan (I used glass for a great crust). Cover with oiled plastic wrap and a warm, moistened dishtowel. Let rise until double in size.
Because this is cold from the refrigerator, this can take 2 to 4 hours. Near the end of the rise, preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Bake for 25 minutes, turn and cover with tented foil and bake an additional 15 to 20 minutes, until internal temperature is 190 degrees F.
Remove and cool on a rack for about 5 minutes, then remove the bread from the pan and continue to cool.
Enjoy!
Okay, now for your pets. It’s always a struggle to figure out who to feature. Everyone is doing well. It’s Miller moth season here, so everything is at risk in my house as cats and dogs team up to rid us of this scourge. Pray for my belongings. Here are the ducks, bribed with treats, all in a row. They are waiting on the rain, it makes them very happy.
And finally the more:
My third book (and second novel) is now available. I used my stay-at-home time well.
You can order here and read chapters one and two here.
This is a general Sunday afternoon open thread. How’s everyone spending their weekend?
TaMara (HFG)
I’m going to have to take a nap, weeding and dog walking is about all I can manage today. The Covid-19 fatigue is mind-blowing, but if that’s all I have to deal with right now, I’m not going to whine..much. Check back later.
WereBear
Working on my second cat book.
Auntie Anne
So the book sounds excellent! But two questions, please: is it better to read them in order? And what format is most advantageous to the author: kindle or paperback?
Raoul
Pre-covid, I had hand made yeast-based baked goods once (plus a couple bread machine forays, which even with a Zojirushi I was not that impressed. Fuzzy logic? huh.)
My sweetie doesn’t do conventional wheat flour well, so we’ve been buying very expensive spelt bread ($10/loaf, though it is locally baked and one lasts a whole week in quantity and freshness).
I scored a pound of SAF-instant yeast a week ago and have now made spelt cinnamon rolls and a loaf of spelt bread, using an 80/20 white spelt/whole spelt blend. Yum!
Emma
Yes, yes, third book, cool, DUCKSSSS!!! But seriously, congrats on the new novel! The ducks look in fine fettle 😊
If Amir is here, Selamat Hari Raya! Sorry it’s too late for your time zone, I’m constitutionally incapable of remembering holiday and birthday dates…
LivingInExile
Dog bath day. A black lab mix, and.a cairn terrier mix. The terrier needs clipped, which is a real pain in the ass. Took a break to dismantle and clean our window air conditioner. 88 degrees today. Fun times.
TaMara (HFG)
@Auntie Anne: The story is stand-alone, but I think understanding TJ takes knowing her journey.
As far as publishing – I get the same $ amount from both the paperback and the Kindle version. I seem to sell similar quantities in each format. Is that what you wanted to know?
Baud
Great duck pics.
HumboldtBlue
If you have 30 minutes please enjoy luthier Dominique Nicasio as he makes a hand-crafted violin.
Yutsano
QUACKERS!!!
I’m still not quite brave enough to try yeast bread right now, even though my mother has hoarded a ton of it and she probably wouldn’t miss any if I took some. I have noted all the advice y’all gave me last time (and thanks!) but might put it off until later this summer. We’ll see. My mom has made a bunch of really good breads lately.
Auntie Anne
@TaMara (HFG): Yes, indeed! Thank you very much . . . Off to the Kindle store.
pamelabrown53
@Auntie Anne:
I, too, want to know if the books should be read in order.
Congrats, TaMara, on your third book; I look forward to reading it as well as Dorothy’s book “The Wysman”. Damn there are so many talented, creative and caring folks here that I feel so blessed to being part of this community during such unprecedented upheaval.
TaMara (HFG)
@Yutsano: The french bread recipe I linked to above, is almost fool-proof, honest. It’s what brought me back to bread baking.
ETA: Now I must nap…before I drop here on the keybbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
JaySinWA
I generally do potato bread using instant potato flakes or leftover mashed. I did a no-rise version last night with 14 fl oz water, 1/4 t yeast, 1+1/2 t salt, 1 fl oz olive oil, about an ounce of instant potato + enough flour to make a pound, let it rise overnight. punched down and formed in an oiled bread pan, let rise for 40 minutes, baked at 375 convection in a toaster oven for about 40 min. (convection to keep hotspots from burning before fully baked.)
It comes out a bit lopsided with convection, but less preheating and probably less energy than regular oven. In a regular oven bake at 400.
pamelabrown53
@TaMara (HFG):
Enjoy your nap.
BTW, I love, LOVE potato bread. One of the big bread companies used to make potato sliders and I haven’t been able to find them for quite a while. If there are other potato slider lovers out there, please point me in the right direction.
J R in WV
So…
Ducks
&
Books…
And
Food?
WOW. Thanks for everything !!
raven
I’m gonna make Braised Chicken with Mojo Sauce
zhena gogolia
I just ordered the paperback. The teaser is great!
pamelabrown53
@J R in WV:
I know! It’s like Nirvana.
WaterGirl
Big congratulations! On getting the ducks to stand in a row, and on your book!
What does potato bread taste like? Does it taste like regular bread, and just the texture is different? Would it work with jam, or is it more like something you would eat with soup?
Does it matter what kind of potatoes you use? I bought red potatoes yesterday because they didn’t have russet or gold. I boiled them to include in my celery/onion/potato/corn soup, and I don’t really like the texture. I definitely have leftover cooked potatoes in the fridge – would the red potatoes work? Or if I don’t like the texture now, maybe I wouldn’t like it in the bread
So many questions!
pamelabrown53
@raven:
That recipe sounds delicious. (Mouth watering). Do you have a trick for fitting the stock pot in the fridge?
Amir Khalid
@Emma:
That’s okay. Good wishes are always welcome.
JaySinWA
@WaterGirl: Potato bread can take a variety of flavors, usually mildly potatoey in most forms I’ve had. The potato acts as a dough conditioner mostly IMHO, making the bread a little softer. The red potatoes should mash up fine for bread. Russets work well, golds (assuming waxy like Yukons) may take more work to incorporate and I am not sure what the texture would be like. The post recipe would be fairly sweet, mine less so. Both should be good with jam, or as sandwich bread. Mine will work with soup as well
Barbara
I spent the last two weekends testing the King Arthur and Julia Child baguette recipes. There are elements of both that I like, but the end product from Child was better. A few thoughts: use bread flour, don’t skimp on rising time, and the second rise (of three) is important. King Arthur includes an overnight starter but that doesn’t make up for Child’s much longer rising times. Hers is also easier because she doesn’t do all the pulling and reshaping, which I don’t like. I would however skip Child’s direction to spray loaves with water prior to baking. I might try a combination of techniques. . . .
ETA: link (no relation to site) https://www.barbarabakes.com/julia-childs-french-bread/
raven
@pamelabrown53: Yea, I have one that fits.
WaterGirl
@JaySinWA: Thank you!
JaySinWA
@WaterGirl: Red potatoes go from firm to mush fairly quickly. At least one soup recipe has them cooked and then added to the soup as it is finished, kind of like peas.
The mushy potato quality would be good to use in bread, much easier to incorporate into the dough.
raven
@JaySinWA: Or you can use an immersion blender!
JaySinWA
@raven: True, I forgot to add that, but then you are using the potato as a thickener as well as for flavor. It takes the mush texture to the extreme. Works for most potatoes.
Sab
Sort of off topic, but I found potato starch at a grocery a while back, and I use it now instead of corn starch as a thickener in soups and stews. It tastes so much better.
WaterGirl
Warm rain makes me happy, too, most of the time.
Sandia Blanca
@WaterGirl: Try chopping up those leftover boiled potatoes and frying them up in some butter and/or oil for a crispy hash. Include leftover meat, or scramble some eggs, into the mix as desired.
Miss Bianca
@JaySinWA: Little confused – did you mean no-rise or no-knead? Because it seems like you did get the bread to rise…on the chance that you mean the latter, I will pass this recipe along to my pal D, who does the baking round these here parts. He likes no-knead recipes – his wheat/rye mix generally takes 2-3 days to rise before baking. At our altitude, he likes a very hot oven – 500 degrees.
Just ate the last piece of his latest bread, waiting on the batch currently prepping for the oven…
raven
@JaySinWA: It was sort of a joke since my bride mangled her finger in one Thursday.
JAFD
Occasionally one wanders thru the ‘ethnic supermarket’, finds something ‘on sale’ and decides to spend 79 cents and give it a try and gets it home and wonders ‘whatyehel do I do with this now…’ So may I ask the assembled jackals what they’d make of a 300 gram package of _Ole_ Brazilian ‘MarronGlace’ sweet potato paste ? Contains sweet potato, sugar, agar, natural vanilla, etc.
(A ‘Guide to the Sausages of Latin America’ coming real soon now…)
Kent
I’ve got a sourdough starter going strong. My first attempt at baking sourdough produced dismayingly flat and dense loaves. I was using Ken Forkish’s Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast cookbook recipe.
Does anyone have an alternative recipe for white sourdough bread? I have the dutch ovens to bake with. I’m just looking for some sort of online sourdough recipe that will produce more light and fluffy loaves that aren’t so dense.
Miss Bianca
@JAFD: Pudding? Or a sort of sweet potato marzipan?
ETA: Off to read chapter 1 of TaMara’s new book that she thoughtfully provided for us.
Betty Cracker
I clicked through to your tortilla recipe and saw that a “Nadiya’s Time To Eat” episode was the inspiration! I made her tortilla dish too, only I used store bought tortillas. I’ve not had much luck making my own.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I already read TaMara’s new book! It was excellent. Smooth writing and hot romance, plus a trip to Havana. I knew that last thing was coming because TaMara talked about her trip there as research.
WaterGirl
@JAFD: I’m about to eat my first radishes since I left home for college a very long time ago. It was one of the 6 options for the small Farm Stand purchase I made this week, and I am not a member of the kale fan club, so it was either radishes or some tiny little Japanese turnip things that looked more like the bulb at the top (bottom?) of a bunch of scallions. I went with the radishes.
Sometimes you just have to live on the wild side.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Do you mean you read it AFTER TaMara put up this post?
JAFD
Have no special desire to _make_ bread, but like _eating_ fresh bread. I’ve had a couple of bread machines, a few years back, was thinking (in good old days ;-( ) that I’d check out the thrift shops of Montclair, try and find another. ‘Twas time, tho, when I set timer to have fresh bread for breakfast, yeast got real active and rose and overflowed onto heating element and set off smokealarm at 4 AM…
JaySinWA
@Miss Bianca: Sorry. Yes I meant no-knead, long rise. You can do it as a quick rise by increasing the yeast to 1+1/4 t and a 1+1/2 hour first rise. I also failed to mention adding some dry milk, 1 T, optional. I’ve done variants with water only or half milk half water. The oil is optional or can be reduced to 1 T, any vegetable oil or butter should be fine. Milk and oil make a slightly softer texture, milk makes it brown faster when toasting, as would adding sugar.
NotMax
Heavy-handed with the salt as she is I’d drop everything and come at a run to eat anything she whips up.
JAFD
@Miss Bianca: Good question. Don’t think my kitchen skills are equal to homemade marzipan.
@WaterGirl: I probably would have taken the kale, Celt that I am…
Raoul
I discovered that potato flakes make excellent baked fish coating. I found Bob’s Red Mill flakes, which have nothing in them but potato. I’d shy away from the conventional brands with all the polysyllabic additives.
I just very lightly coat the top side of some nice fresh cod with an olive oil spray, season it, and then sprinkle some Bob’s potato flakes on it. Bang it in a hot convection oven and ‘fry’ till the flesh is flaky and the top is golden crisp. Wheat free and very easy.
The Bob’s bag also recommends their flakes as a soup thickener (probably best in creamy type soups). But it isn’t soup season now IMO.
Yutsano
@JAFD: Use it as a jelly doughnut filling? Or maybe interesting thumbprint cookies. Definitely sounds sweetish.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@WaterGirl: No. LOL. I’m deep into Hilary Mantel at the moment. But a week or so ago, I found that the ebook of TaMara’s book was available, so I bought it then.
ETA: The other nice aspect of TaMara’s book is that the MC is living in a cool neighborhood full of artists and coffee shops. I want to live there.
debbie
Japanese Milk Bread seems to be a thing on the FB cooking groups I follow.
With all the rain around here, in some neighborhoods, almost every yard has a newly created pond. It’s amazing how ducks and geese have sniffed them out and made them their temporary homes.
JaySinWA
@raven: Blood and potatoes, sounds like a start of a Krub recipe.
wmd
Huge typo in recipe – 390 g of unbleached flour, not 390 kg.
Although most people would use measuring cups and not make the mistake of thinking they need almost 16 industrial bakery size bags of flour.
JaySinWA
@wmd: You don’t use hyper-dense flour?
JAFD
@JAFD: Saw on fine print on package the company’s URL,
http://conservasole.com.br/
Fired up Chrome to check it out, got message
“Your server is running PHP version 5.5.38 but WordPress 5.4.1 requires at least 5.6.20”
Downer
Kay (not the front-pager)
My mom always made her raised donuts with a potato dough – yes, she made both raised and cake donuts, and often enough that I say how she “always” made them! :-) Potatoes can help make a sweet dough tender and light as a feather. I try to avoid the sweet breads – I ate too many of them at my mother’s table as a child, and my body is paying for it now – but I remember how good they are.
Has anyone (with a bread machine) tried Beth Hensperger’s The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook? I’ve found a number of her recipes useful, at least as a jumping off point. I don’t really like baking bread in the bread machine – the loaf is not in a useful shape or size – but it’s handy for processing toe dough right up to the point where I shape the dough and put it into the pan to rise the final time for baking in the oven. The bread I’ve been making most often lately is whole-grain daily bread. It includes cooked whole grain, as well as whole wheat flour and rolled oats in the basic bread mix. I’ve been using ancient grains like einkorn, and spelt, along with a tablespoon or 2 of cooked brown rice. For some reason the brown rice makes the bread toast better (one of those things I discovered by accident when I was a little short of cooked grain but had some leftover rice in the fridge). I reversed the proportions of whole wheat to white flour in the recipe, subbed in a 1/3 cup of rye flour for part of the whole wheat flour (I like the subtle flavor, and it improves the keeping qualities), and increased the amount of gluten to account for the increased whole wheat flour. It makes a killer grilled cheese sandwich, and it’s pretty good on its own for breakfast toast with just butter.
I can also vouch for the C.R.O.W.W. (cinnamon raisin oatmeal whole wheat)Bread, Chuck Williams’s Country French Bread (but bake it in your oven), Overnight Sourdough Pancakes (even better if you use 1/2 cup oatmeal and 1/2 cup whole wheat flour for 1 of the cups of all-purpose flour), and Rosemary-Lemon Bread.I think the C.R.O.W.W. bread and the Rosemary-Lemon bread are the only 2 I bake in the machine, but I do love the convenience of just dumping the ingredients in there and letting it do most of the work.
geg6
I am not a baker…just too much precision involved and it never works out well for me. Except pies, I can make a mean pie.
My plan is to grill some fat pork chops, just simply with olive oil, salt, pepper and some herbs. Making some rotini in pesto on the side. The star of the meal will undoubtedly be the salad: roasted pecans, nectarines, plums, apricots, tarragon leaves and blue cheese with a vinaigrette of the juice of one lemon, a couple tablespoons of honey, a couple teaspoons of olive oil, salt and pepper. I can’t wait to eat it.
mrmoshpotato
Instant! or you will anger the bread gods!
LuciaMia
My favorite recipe right now is the French-style Country Bread from the King Arthur Flour site.
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/french-style-country-bread-recipe
Kay (not the front-pager)
@Kent: I used this from King Arthur flour twice now. The first time came out pretty good. I think I worked in a little too much flour. The second time was better. but I think I overcompensated and it was a little sticky. I’m going to try it again tomorrow and I’m hoping for FANTASTIC!!! level. We’ll see. The flavor was good, and it had a good, fluffy texture though. You just have to be patient and really let it rise long enough. I turned on my oven for a minute, turned it off, and put the dough in there to rise. https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/extra-tangy-sourdough-bread-recipe
Another Scott
Here’s a bread machine bread recipe I’ve been tweaking over time. It’s based on a Panasonic bread maker recipe (~ 2-2.5 pound loaf version). I’ve been pretty happy with it. You need a kitchen scale to weigh the ingredients.
1 cup bread flour
1/2 cup steel-cut oats
Balance whole wheat flour until 21.0 oz
2 T dried milk
3 heaping T wheat gluten (Bob’s Red Mill from Amazon – bought years ago, we keep open packages in the freezer)
2 t salt
2.5 T olive oil (or butter or your favorite soft/liquid fat)
2 T molasses (darkens the loaf and gives it an interesting aroma and taste)
1 T honey
Add ingredients in order listed above to the pan.
Add 15.0 oz tap water.
Put pan in the bread maker. Close lid. Add 1.5 t dry yeast (I’ve been using SAF Instant from Amazon, kept in the freezer) to the dispenser in the lid.
Select XL loaf, light crust, basic recipe. 4 hour total time, including 30 min to warm ingredients before automatically dropping in the yeast (after the mixing has started).
What I really like about this bread maker is that it’s foolproof when it comes to the yeast – you don’t have to get the water temperature exactly right, etc.
(I’ve been adding the steel-cut oats because we’ve got a lot of it and we don’t eat it for cereal (takes too long to cook). It gives the bread some extra texture.)
After it has cooled a bit, slice off the rounded top with a bread knife, slice the loaf in half parallel to the bottom, then slice it up however you want. Makes great toast!
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay Noble
@geg6: Pie crusts are usually a weakness in baking. Good for you
mrmoshpotato
Soooo 110 pounds of sugar – 22 bags it is!
Do the ducks live in the 1/4 cup measuring cup during winter?
Louise B.
My SO is a good baker, but he’s into cookies and ice cream right now – he made some oatmeal raisin cookies this morning that we just loaded into the cookie jar. Also made some polenta in the Instant Pot – it is now chilling in the fridge and will be cut up into squares and grilled this evening. Put some cherry tomatoes into a pan with olive oil, a smashed clove of garlic, salt and pepper, and roasted for an hour. Just tossed the chopped basil in – that will be served over the polenta squares with some ricotta cheese. So far successfully avoiding cleaning the rest of the house.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@Another Scott: I haven’t used the steel-cut oats in bread because I thought they would be too crunchy. They soften up OK in the dough? That’s good to know!
BTW, you can cook up 6-8 (or more) servings of steel-cut oats at once, and store the excess in the fridge. Just reheat in the microwave in the morning and add fresh or dried fruit, maple syrup, whatever you like. I like to cook mine with chai seasonings and add a little maple syrup when I reheat.
rikyrah
The ducks 😍😍😍😍
mrmoshpotato
@TaMara (HFG): Hope you’re recovering well from this damned virus.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Or 50,285 packets of Sweet ‘n’ Low.
:)
TaMara (HFG)
@wmd:
@mrmoshpotato:
Y’all are thisclose to not getting any more recipes.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: So, not a major speed-reader then, Whew. I would like to live in that neighborhood, too.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m guessing that MC is author-speak for major character.
TaMara (HFG)
@mrmoshpotato: I am doing well, except for the fatigue. But I hear that eases up. Soon I hope.
WaterGirl
@wmd: You know, I wondered about that, and wondered if somehow on my kitchen scale I had been measuring kilograms all along and not grams.
Thanks for pointing that out.
Changed in my copy of the recipe, for both the flour and the sugar.
Yutsano
@NotMax: Can we not? The world is on enough fire right now.
Another Scott
@Kay (not the front-pager): I was worried about the oats the first time, but they are fine – not hard at all. :-)
Thanks for the cooking tip.
Cheers,
Scott.
geg6
@Jay Noble:
My mom was a great baker and the only thing I ever learned well from her was pie crust. She (and I) use a mixture of butter (very, very cold and diced) and shortening. And don’t work the dough too much. Also, too, don’t let the butter get too soft and mixed in. You want sort of chunks that will, once it’s rolled out and baked, create a flaky crust. I find it pretty easy. Bread and cakes, not so much.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
For the record, the cook pointed to at #44 is the one I earlier mentioned in the same breath as central casting.
JoyceH
I need to brag because I just did some writing. Not a lot, and not on the next book in my series. I added some to a long-stalled project of mine, a novelization of my favorite screenplay. Went to all the trouble to come up with that plot, might as well try to get it out there. So far this year, doing ANY writing is a cause for celebration. Not a lot, but words, in sequence, forming sentences.
randy khan
@TaMara (HFG):
Quick possibly dumb question, but when you say mashed potatoes, do you mean just potatoes that have been mashed up, or the kind that have cream/milk, butter, whatever in them and that you’d serve at Thanksgiving?
(And I assume that leftovers would work fine.)
WaterGirl
@NotMax: She is most definitely not Fabio of Meatball fame!
WaterGirl
@randy khan: I wondered the same thing, but I wasn’t brave enough to ask.
TaMara (HFG)
@randy khan: Leftovers would work fine – I was actually making mashed potatoes that day, pulled out 1/2 cup before I added the milk and butter – but it sure wouldn’t hurt that recipe if there were extra milk and butter.
WaterGirl
@JoyceH: Good for you!
wmd
@TaMara (HFG): Lulz.
I’m interested in why I missed the same 3 orders of magnitude error for sugar. Maybe because 3 digits for flour and only 2 digits for sugar?
I suspect you use a imperial to metric conversion tool that’s got a problem.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@WaterGirl:
Main Character. So close!
WaterGirl
I’m so sorry, everybody! If you saw a post that disappeared, that was a draft of a post that I updated and then accidentally hit publish! You will see it again in the furry friends post the week after next.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Close enough for government work! You guys and your acronyms. :-)
TaMara (HFG)
@wmd: No, it’s just a typo – my electronic scale only uses kg and when I’m quickly typing things up, I forget to default back g. My brain has been trained by the readout on my scale, LOL
ETA: And now I don’t know if I should go and change it…then all these comments won’t make sense, 😜
planetjanet
I was sorting out a pile of books and came across several copies of a cookbook my local Democratic party put together for a fundraiser many years ago. We gathered recipes from a lot of politicians, local and not local and bloggers of the day. It was fun looking through them again, though most are not the most healthy foods. Senator Jim Webb’s microwave meatloaf is reminiscent of Senator Mark Warner’s more recent tuna meltdown. Nancy Pelosi’s chocolate mousse looks divine.
I was quite amused to find one from the brilliant blogger Steve Gilliard for warm fruit. He liked to warm peaches and plums with a little oil, sugar and vanilla extract. After taking it off the heat, he would add a little Jack Daniels and serve over cake or ice cream or waffles.
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2003/12/im-fighting-liberal-you-know-ive.html
TaMara (HFG)
Did I miss anyone’s questions? Direct me to them if I did….
Mary G
Geologists bake bread:
WaterGirl
@TaMara (HFG): When I have to go back and change something like that, I use strikethrough so all the comments still make sense, but I add the right info in addition to the strikeout.
laura
Spouse has been making King Arthur Flour’s pillowy white bread. It is going to make an awesome tomato sandwich bread. I’ll ask him to try the potato bread next. I stepped a vat of hibiscus chamomile mint tea with lemon juice and some quince simple syrup (big spritzy with a half can of lemon elderflower soda from Trader Joes). I made a pint of lemon quince jelly with the quince syrup I made from last week’s trip to the farmer’s market.
Spending the day puttering about the house. Tomorrow is our 24th anniversary.
TaMara (HFG)
Hey, Lucy Lawless fans, Acorn TV has a series called My Life Is Murder about a cop in Austrailia who retired and became a bread maker. Only, of course, to be lured back into detective work…
It’s a little trifle of a series, but I found her, as always, fun to watch. And if you have a library card, it may give you free access to Acorn TV (check with your library)
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: I hope the packaging is recyclable!
Barbara
@laura: Tomato sandwich. Yum.
mrmoshpotato
@TaMara (HFG): 😁😘
WaterGirl
TaMara, do you know if your book will be available in iBooks for mac readers?
mrmoshpotato
@TaMara (HFG): Glad to hear that!
Kent
@Kay (not the front-pager): Thanks. I’ll try the King Arthur recipe. Their other sourdough recipe calls for fortifying with a little bit of normal yeast to be doubly sure of a good rise. Maybe I’ll toss in a bit of regular yeast too.
Miss Bianca
@TaMara (HFG): I just saw something about that Lucy Lawless series recently – maybe it was a trailer? But yeah – Lucy!!
mrmoshpotato
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: Wow.
JAFD
@TaMara (HFG): You may want to take a look at
https://crookedtimber.org/2020/05/18/indefinitely-ill-post-covid-fatigue/
by a fellow covid survivor.
Do take it real real easy, take care of yourself.
BTW, Word Bookstores (of Brooklyn and Jersey City) has tshirt
“Shelf Care
is Self Care”
Kay (not the front-pager)
@planetjanet: I miss Steve.
JAFD
@WaterGirl: Peg Bracken, in – IIRC – her _I Hate to Cook Almanack_ (vintage 1976 or so) went thru metric equivs, said “A gram is a raisin”. OTOH, A kilogram – 2.2 pounds – there ain’t many things common in US kitchens that way a kilo – a big squash, maybe.
If you ever find copy thereof, worth reading.
TaMara (HFG)
@JAFD: Thank you for that. I about bit a friend’s head off this week when she asked, “you’re still sick?” I know she didn’t mean anything by it, but that’s not the way I heard it.
I had wicked fatigue after West Nile, and this is gonna be like that, I can tell. It was a good 3 months before I was back up to speed and I was younger then (LOL).
Right now, I just have to sleep when I have to sleep. There’s no argument.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@Kent: Belt & suspenders is always a good idea. :-)
Catherine D.
I realized it’s going to get hot this week, so I decided to bake a loaf of bread tonight. Weighed the water in the bread machine bucket, added the oil and salt, and tared the scale. Oops, no, it wasn’t tared, so I had to finagle the flour. It’s going to be a very loose dough, but since it’s going into a ceramic bread baker, a long rise and a hot oven should work.
planetjanet
@Kay (not the front-pager): He was a treasure.
randy khan
@TaMara (HFG): Thanks.
Miss Bianca
@TaMara (HFG): I’m just amazed you managed to still work on your book while you were sick!
And you had West Nile too? Day-um, girl, that is one wicked one-two sucker punch from the universe! : (
read your excerpts, fun! I’ll have to look for the first one! I have this thing about reading series out of order…not that I won’t do it, I just, as Bartleby said, prefer not to.
satby
@JAFD: did you get my last email? masks are ready!
Pete Mack
A few days ago: Medieval parsley bread. Very rich sourdough (~6C flour (incl sponge) ,3 egg 6T honey, 6T melted butter or olive oil) with plenty of herbs de Provence ground in along with 1/3C chopped parsley)
Today:
Had memorial day grill early as tomorrow will be cool and cloudy:
Bone-in chicken thighs (with piri-piri, adobo, brn sugar, herb rub.)
Mixed marinated vegetables (zucch, tomato, onion, pepper), with chive scapes added for fun. Turns out they are delicious–they take 3-5 minutes to cook on the grill so do them separately. You will need a lot of scapes…
Quinoa
And piece de resisitance: (whole wheat sourdough) savory rolls stuffed with mushroom sauce, garlic oil, and grated parmesan. (Made cinnamon roll style.) Never did anything like this before so it was a ton and a half of work… With experience, it’d be only a half-ton
BruceFromOhio
@JAFD: wow that is some story! Thanks for sharing.
JAFD
@satby: Apologies ! Discombubulated and distracted wAs I past few days. Project, one stage finishing up, another starting. But should get cash zapped to you tomorrow (Monday) and you can send masks off when PO opens Tuesday.