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Post in Your Daily Sweets: What Are You Making and Baking? (2017 – )
It's been a while since I've done any baking, so I took some time out to make a an old favourite.
 

 
Paris-Brest
Choux pastry
Praliné feuillantine
Praliné mousseline
Nuts
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Post in Food Funnies
From the New Yorker's archive of food cartoons
 
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Post in Food in the time of a pandemic
So I ended up making a salad with the radicchio, mixing it with arugula, figs, and shallot-chive boursin in a lemon-maple dressing.  It was delicious.
 
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Post in Trader Joe's Products (2017–)
Last week, I made the mistake of going to TJ's when I was hungry.   Across the front of the store, where you wait in line, they had posted photos and descriptions of all the pumpkin stuff.  Once I got into the store, these pumpkin rolls jumped into my cart. 
I had one for breakfast today. 

They come in a refrigerated tube.  Five rolls and a packet of icing.  Baked up nicely in the CSO, no gummy middle.  
330 calories/roll with the icing, 270 without.  690 mg sodium, which is excessive. Both the rolls and the icing contain pumpkin and the expected spices.  They taste a little bland without at least a little icing but might be good with butter. 
I enjoyed it but my curiosity and limited sweet tooth have been sated.  
 
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Post in The Bread Topic (2016–)
Fed my starters on Monday. One with rye and one with white and used 40gs of discard in each of  three 500g flour batches of dough with one gram of yeast. 
Dough went into the fridge.  Took one out on Tuesday and baked five small baguettes and Matt used one on Wednesday to make a pizza
and the third batch got baked Wednesday as well for four more baguettes. 

 
Half of Tuesday's batch.  Sliced warm because Moe wanted bread and butter. 
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Post in Dinner 2020
Duck breast and roasted parsnips. 
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Post in Food in the time of a pandemic
We finally moved and discovered we can buy directly from the boats on the island. 
This what we got for $21. I am going to love it! 
 
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Post in Breakfast 2020!
I had planned to make burgers with ground sirloin last night and didn't. So...............this morning I made Shepherd's Pie. One for Moe and one for me .   Moe had his for breakfast and I'm taking mine to work for lunch.
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Post in Charcuterie: Dry-Cured Salami / Salumi
A previous attempt at the saucissons sec from Charcuterie ended in tears, or at least in things gooey and furry and generally felt to be unhealthy. That was done using an old fridge with temperature control, fan assisted air circulation, a salt tray; everything I could think of.
Encouraged by the discussions of green fur being washed off, this time round I started at the right time of year. The sausages were simply hung in the [cool but otherwise near ideal] conditions out in the unheated workshop about a month ago. They could, I think, have been called ready a week ago, had I been home to deal with them. In any case, here's the result. I'm happy.
Stuffed into regular hog casings, the only deviation from the Ruhlman recipe was a rather heavy hand with the garlic. Not a disaster in these parts
With vague notions of innoculation, after stuffing the casings were wiped down with a piece of white-molded rind from some brie we had to hand, but at no point was any sign found of the mold on the sausages. The dark flecks visible in the cut product are coarse black pepper.
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Post in Lunch 2020
Fresh figs again

 
Pureed fig drinks in the background

 
Whilst listening to the radio...

 
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Baked Buttermilk cheddar cheese biscuits this morning.

Moe had one topped with back bacon.  Didn't want an egg.
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Post in Seasonal Varietals: Dog Summer Rosés
these are the roses I am drinking in rotation. I don't include rose champagne because I don't drink it too often and love it.
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Post in Croissant crisis
The Gold Medal is only a titch stronger than the Stone Buhr- probably about .3% more.  Every little bit helps, but, if you want to match the author's crumb (which I think is a fairly worthy goal)


 
then you need to match the strength of his flour.  And if you want this open of a crumb with an extra day, then you'll need even stronger flour than that.

The first photo in this thread is quite impressive.  The crumb is not quit as open as the recipe, but, for the flour you're using, it's an amazing achievement.  Do you have to refrigerate the dough one more night?  If you can't get your hands on stronger flour, sticking to the recipe could be the ideal approach.  There's no free lunch here.  If the flour is weak, your crumb will suffer (evidenced even further by your AP results).

It's kind of hard to describe the effect that DM has.  Flaky, crunchy, perhaps brittle.  While I'm sure it's not a traditional ingredient, I agree with the recipe author that it elevates the end product.  So I wouldn't omit it entirely, just play around with a little less.

I would reach out to local pizzerias and see if they'll sell you some pizza flour.  For instance, I'm reasonably certain that this is considerably stronger flour than what you're using:

https://www.facebook.com/CPKGuam/videos/1788620021155405/?v=1788620021155405

Generally speaking, if you try to toss bread flour or AP flour dough like this, it will tear. If you can get your hands on flour that's too strong, you can always dilute it with some weak flour.

The tricky part about this is that if a pizzeria is using high gluten/strong flour, then it means that they're importing it by the container/half container, which means that they're doing very high volume. When you get into high volume, that means a corporate structure/red tape, so it's not like befriending a small pizza shop owner and getting them to sell you flour.  But, if you want a more open crumb and/or a longer ferment, you'll want to turn over every stone.

I also see that Guam has a Neapolitan pizzeria or two.  They won't be using a w370 or higher flour, but, they might be able to order you a bag.
 
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Post in Dinner 2020
Fattah. Warm yogurt, lightly flavored with garlic, cumin, silan, lemon, sumac, olive oil. Some tahini. Hot tender chickpeas, fresh pita and crisp pita chips, tomatoes, chili, nuts, mint.
 
 
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Post in Dinner 2020
Marrow bones.  Steam baked in CSO 325 degrees for 20 minutes.  Topped with parsley, lemon zest, garlic, Maldon alt.
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Post in Crazy Good e-Book Bargains
Rick Rodgers' Thanksgiving 101 and Christmas 101 for $1.99 each.
 
I don't have either of these, but Rodgers is a reliable author and teacher.
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Post in Dinner 2020
Tomato tart with basil-garlic crust from Jack Bishop's Complete Italian Vegetarian, one of my favorite cookbooks
 
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Post in Popsicles
White Nectarine & Raspberry

Pock-marked pops!
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Post in Dinner 2020
Lately, I enjoy experimenting with creative use of the muffin tin (or muffin silicon, in my case  ).
I grilled cabbage, onion, chilies, scallions and frozen firm tofu. A quick few pulses in the food processor to get them finely chopped.
Added eggs, a little vital gluten, sesame paste, some flavorings - garlic, ginger soy sauce, oyster sauce, five spice, smoked paprika, cumin, nutritional yeast, some MSG. Baked until set.
Then brushed them with a mixture of chili oil and hoisin sauce, and grilled until nicely browned.
I didn't really know what I was expecting the result to be, other than the flavor profile. Ended up with a very nice vegetarian burger-like patties. Great flavor. Not a lot of bite, but pleasantly tender, not mushy. The scents reminded me of the night markets in Taiwan.
Also steamed silken tofu, with douchi, home made chili oil, soy sauce, scallions. I scored it in order for the sauce to penetrate, but it was so tender it broke along the cut.
Served with rice.
 
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Post in Seasonal Varietals: August - Random Summer Whites
Sometimes I make strange choices for wine with what I'm going to make for dinner, because wine often gets  opened before dinner is even prepared.
Like this Chenin Blanc...
 

 
But it went pretty nicely with the chirashi I made last night. It's both organic and biodynamic, from a small area of the northern Loire.  Nice and  minerally, with citrus and that certain something we get from natural wines.  
 
Actually wasn't too bad a choice with the food.
 
If you can find this wine, I don't think you'll be disappointed - certainly works as an apéritif as well.
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Post in Dinner 2020
Korean BBQ

 

 
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Post in Cook-Off 63: Summer Squash
These zucchini fritters were breakfast yesterday and they were crisp:
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Post in Enchiladas--Cook-Off 46
I’m a stickler for serving hot food hot, so I was going to have to move quickly to assemble my plate of enchiladas and still get everything to the table hot-a task that I would find very difficult given the nature of the steps involved. I wouldn’t be baking or broiling the enchiladas, so I had to work quick.
I started by setting out all the ingredients, from left to right:
The corn tortilla basket, the beans, the beef, a squeeze bottle filled with Mexican crema (sour cream), queso fresco cheese, feta cheese, green onions, cilantro, (both in ice water to stay crisp), pickled red onions and pickled cactus-
The pickled red onion and cactus salad-
Tortilla basket-
And filled with refried and pinto beans-
I strained the sauce into a saucepan over low heat-
The next steps would be the most crucial of this whole enchilada endeavor-to try and create that soft tortilla texture that I knew from restaurant enchiladas.
I hadn’t been successful with the tortillas in the past-I used cold tortillas and they broke when I rolled them. I thought it was due to the small size of the corn tortillas, yet I couldn’t find bigger corn tortillas. I tried large flour tortillas, but they tasted pasty. I tried steaming the corn tortillas first, but they still broke when I filled and rolled them.
I turned to the internet for advice, and settled upon a method that some of you have mentioned above-first dipping the tortillas in hot oil, then dipping them in the sauce. I added an additional step of saucing the tortillas again after they were filled.
I also tried a new type of corn tortilla-extra thick. I figured that the regular corn tortillas were breaking, in part, due to being too thin. I didn’t even know if there was such a thing as a thick corn tortilla-but a little more research on the internet showed that they were widely available in local markets.
A thin film of canola oil in the electric skillet-
I knew I didn’t want to deep-fry the tortilla, I just wanted to soften it enough to be pliable for rolling, so I only let it fry in the oil, (about 200 on the electric skillet), for about 20 seconds-
Then the tortillas got a quick dip in the sauce-
Filling the softened, sauced, tortillas with the beef-
The plate beginning to take shape-
I ladled some additional sauce over the enchiladas on the plate-
Garnished with Mexican crema, cheese, green onion and cilantro-
Enchiladas with beer-braised beef, pickled red onion and cactus salad, refried and pinto beans-
At last, enchilada success. The tortillas were soft blankets of corn bathed in spicy, sweet sauce. Just like the restaurant enchiladas I remembered.
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Post in Food in the time of a pandemic
Finally, after 3 months wait, I got the delivery from Fly by Jing. Hopefully they will be in stock for a while. So far I only tried the mala spice and can see getting addicted to this stuff. 
 
 
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Post in Your Daily Sweets: What Are You Making and Baking? (2017 – )
Birthday cake for a friend’s kid. Vanilla cake with strawberry (Swiss meringue) buttercream. Super pink for a girly girl! 
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