djyee100

When I bought my digital scale, a pastry chef cautioned me to buy one where you can easily see the numbers even when a big bowl is being weighed. Some scales are designed so that you have to scrunch down and look around the bowl to read the weight. That was a good piece of advice.

A few more items that are important when I bake bread: - A large bread board or other smooth surface for kneading and shaping bread. Even if you do most of your kneading in a KitchenAid, it's nice to do a little handkneading at the end to ensure your dough is the proper texture. - A peel of some kind to get that bread from board to oven and out again. I get the bread off the peel and into the oven most easily with a floured wooden peel. But it's easier to pick up the baked bread and take it out of the oven with a thin metal peel. I use a rimless cookie sheet for a metal peel. Something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Anolon-Commercial-Ba...5801750&sr=8-41 - Well-insulated oven mitts, especially if you'll be working with a 500 degree oven. - Pyrex loaf pans if you are going to do any pan bread. You can see thru the pyrex how golden your crust is becoming. - Parchment paper. Shape the bread on the parchment, let it rise, and transfer the bread (still on parchment) onto a baking sheet or even a heated stone in the oven. Handy if the dough is too wet and unmanageable to slide off the peel (and believe me, I've been there). ETA: By parchment paper, I mean silicone-treated baking parchment paper. Also, large sturdy cooling racks are important equipment, if you don't have any yet.

Not much delarding for the past week. Too busy. But I'll have more time off for the next 2 weeks, and that's means more time for cooking. Half of the marinara sauce came out of the freezer, for some easy spaghetti and pizza dinners. My freezer is starting to look <gasp> empty. The walnuts went into Maple Walnut Ice Cream from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop. The base is chilling in the fridge now. I made cocoa nib & almond butter cookies with the newly discovered cocoa nibs from last week. The dough is in the fridge, and I will bake the cookies tonight. Yesterday I moved a casserole dish in a high, hard-to-reach cabinet, and I found a forgotten stash of chocolate behind the dish. Is the chocolate "larder," to be used up soon, or is it treasure (to be kept around a little longer)? The Valrhona portion of the stash won't last long anyway, now that I've remembered it.

Anything would taste good on that stollen.

If this turns out as delicious as it sounds, would you please provide the recipe? I made a quart of preserved lemons some time ago and have not gotten 'round to using them. Sure, here's the recipe. Enjoy! Braised Chicken with Preserved Lemons & Olives 2 TB olive oil 3 lbs chicken pieces 1 large onion, thinly sliced 2 cloves garlic, crushed 2 TB freshly chopped parsley salt & pepper pinch of saffron threads, crumbled 1 cup chicken stock 1/2 cup white wine 2 preserved lemons 1 cup olives Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heat the oil in a Dutch oven or stovetop-to-oven casserole dish. Brown the chicken well on all sides. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside. Saute the onion and garlic until soft and translucent, stir in 1 TB of the parsley, salt & pepper, and saffron. Cook a minute or so more. Add in the chicken stock and the wine, and bring to a boil, scraping the bottom of the pan to release the brown bits. Layer the chicken pieces on top. Cover, and cook in the oven for approximately one hour, until the chicken is tender and cooked through. While the chicken is cooking, rinse the preserved lemons well, and scrape out the inside membranes. Cut the lemon peel into 1/4" dice, and set aside. Rinse the olives well to lessen the saltiness, and set aside. When the chicken is done, transfer the chicken and onions to a serving dish and keep warm. Strain the sauce. Reheat the sauce in a saucepan, bring to a boil, and add in the preserved lemon and olives. Spoon the hot sauce over the chicken, garnish with the remaining 1 TB of parsley, and serve immediately.

As I'm cleaning out the cupboards and the freezer, I find more stuff I overlooked when I took inventory. A small bag of frozen cranberries popped into view when I removed a humungous bundle of chicken bones from the freezer last week. (Oh no! Not more! I screamed.) I recovered from the experience and baked a coffeecake with the cranberries and some leftover fresh cornmeal from my CSA. This supereasy quick coffeecake is from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking For Everyone. http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:R1kX_...clnk&cd=1&gl=us A few days later I bumped into a partial can of SB Cocoa Nibs at the back of a cupboard. Eeeek!! Last week I cooked the lentils, and tossed them while they were still warm with a garlicky vinaigrette and chopped preserved lemon, to make a salad. This was yummy and easy to make. I should make lentil salad more often. All those pistachios came out of the freezer, and I finally made pistachio ice cream. I spiked the can of tomato sauce with sauteed chopped garlic and onion, rosemary, and white wine, and served it over pasta with grilled lamb chops. The last of the preserved lemons will go into a braised chicken dish with garlic, onion, white wine, saffron, parsley, and olives. That's for dinner tonight.

dividend, perhaps you should make spam out of those frozen ham slices after all. You can be part of a new food fashion about to sweep the world... (maybe). Alternatively, you can go with some Julia Child recipes for ham slices in her Mastering the Art vol 1. If you don't have the cookbook, some bloggers have adapted the recipes. Tranches De Jambon Morvandelle (Sauteed Ham Slices in Cream and Madeira Sauce) http://iliketocook.blogspot.com/2007/08/ju...ent-day-of.html Ham slices in piperade. http://marriedwithdinner.com/2007/08/15/paying-the-piperade/

This discussion about spam reminded me of an article that appeared in Saveur magazine years ago, about an all-spam dinner that Thomas Keller cooked for a friend who professed to love spam. http://www.chowhound.com/topics/16773 Too bad I couldn't find the article online, though. But while I was rooting around in a Google search, I found a blog feature about Anthony Bourdain and his new favorite ingredient, spam. Check out the spam menu that Bourdain cooked in Hawaii. http://www.inuyaki.com/archives/127

I never ate beets regularly until I subscribed to a CSA and had to do something with the beets that came with my order. Now I love 'em. My workhorse recipe is Vinegared Beets in a Nest of Greens from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. Here's an adapted version of the recipe on a blog: http://eggsonsunday.wordpress.com/2008/01/...n-their-greens/

Some serious de-larding happened this weekend. The Chinese sausages, some peanuts, and the last of the frozen peas went into a stirfry with chicken, shittake mushrooms, and scallions. (yummy) Some braising greens from my CSA this week, and I sauteed them in the last of the duck fat scraps. The pinenuts were toasted and added to a cilantro pesto for a pasta dinner later this week. The sticky rice proved to be musty, and so was half the arborio rice. They were tossed. One bag of the candied citrus peel somehow got moisture in it, and that's gone too. (Moral: food doesn't stay good forever, so use it up!) The cilantro roots and stems were pureed into a paste with black pepper, garlic, serrano chile, and fish sauce. It's a marinade for some Thai-style pork riblets that I will cook tomorrow. I checked my fish sauce supply. Only 4 1/4 bottles more to go. The last of the sorrel puree went into a potato leek soup. The potatoes and leeks came from my CSA this week, so this soup clears out the vegetable bin, too. That sorrel-cream-potato combination always tastes so good. Finally, I pulled over 6 lbs of raw chicken bones out of the freezer, and they are now defrosting on the bottom shelf of my fridge. Fresh chicken stock is on my horizon. I'm beginning to see the walls of my freezer!

Congratulations, Hummingbirdkiss. What a great thread this has been. I've never been so systematic about going thru my supplies and writing down what should be used up. I refer to my list now when I'm planning meals. I'm still a ways off from being "de-larded." Give me another 4 weeks or so. Unlike you, I'm not doing a blitzkrieg, more of a siege, but I know I'll get there. I'm sharing goodies with friends also, so I'm very popular right now. Thanks, Hummingbirdkiss!

After I read your post I checked a couple Indian cookbooks I own. No poppyseed recipes, but I only have a couple tbsp left, so they will do for my next loaf of challah. But the other recipes using nuts were just great. I found a chicken curry called "One Hundred Almond Curry" (which sounds like about how many almonds I have stuffed in my freezer); also a chicken curry with a ground cashew sauce. Perfect! Thanks so much for the good suggestion, heidih.

I'm nibbling away at my nuts supply. The pecans went into Date Rum Pecan Ice Cream from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop. I also made Challah, and sprinkled it very generously with poppyseeds. I still have some poppyseeds left, though. The challah recipe is from Tim Decker, who is profiled in Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. Tim teaches wonderful (excellent!) breadbaking classes at the Ramekins school in Sonoma, Calif. I learned how to make this challah at Tim's class last year. Tim is teaching this bread as Braided Easter Egg Bread in an Easter Breads class on March 21. http://www.ramekinsclasses.com/search.cgi?...ar=2008&month=3

I like that phrase! Those tamales were a great idea. Last night I made Chicken & Ginger Simmered in Caramel Sauce, from Andrea Nyugen's Into The Vietnamese Kitchen. This is an easy weeknight recipe, as long as you have the caramel sauce on hand (as I have had, for months). Not in the recipe, but I tossed in the leftover lemongrass from my fridge, and it was good. Bye to some caramel sauce, some fish sauce, and the lemongrass.

How about hot reuben sandwiches (corned beef, swiss, & sauerkraut on rye). The classic condiment is Thousand Island dressing, but I like mustard on mine, too.

Caponata and pasta puttenesca come to mind. Too bad this isn't the season for eggplant and tomatoes. But you could try to make a puttenesca with canned tomatoes. Maybe an olive tapenade with capers, also? For a winter pasta, I like to make this dish: Saute chopped broccoli and/or cauliflower in a generous amount of olive oil, add in chopped garlic, anchovies, capers, olives, and fresh parsley. Toss with cooked pasta. The shell or penne style pasta handle this topping better than spaghetti.

A progress report: - The bald zested oranges were juiced. - The rutabagas became oven fries. - If they ever defrost, the sorrel puree and duck fat will become omelets cooked in duck fat and stuffed with sorrel puree. - if they don't defrost, supper will be something to do with grilled hot dogs. - Date Rum Pecan Ice Cream from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop is in progress (goodbye, pecans).

In the spirit of this thread, I dug deeper into my cupboards today and took inventory. At various places in my cupboards I found: 1 opened bottle of Thai fish sauce, 2 unopened bottles of Thai fish sauce, 1 opened bottle of Vietnamese fish sauce, 1 unopened bottle of Vietnamese fish sauce. I have 5 bottles of fish sauce in my house. I also found some items I thought I didn't have (rosewater, Hain seasalt, nonfat dry milk). And: 1/2 bottle of pineau de charentes 1 qt homemade preserved lemons (these are so great, but they got pushed back in the cupboard, and I forgot about them) 1 can Muir Glen tomato sauce 1 pkg smoked chile paste (purchased during my vacation in Oaxaca, Mexico, and I haven't figured out what to do with it) 1 cup homemade burnt caramel sauce (for Vietnamese recipes) 1 kg (unopened) arroz bomba for paella 3 different, partly used bags of arborio rice, for a total of 5 cups (I see paella and risotto in my future.) 1 1/2 cups Thai sticky rice (Not sure what to do with this.) 1/2 lb capellini pasta 1+ lb spaghettini pasta 2 cups elbow macaroni 1 pkg of roasted dried seaweed (bought for one of Barbara Tropp's recipes, but it never happened) 1 organic vanilla bean (this one will be easy--ice cream! ) 1 cup French green lentils 1 cup old crystallized wildflower honey 1 cup unsweetened coconut (why did I buy this?)

I've been hoarding nuts like a squirrel. In my freezer: 1 1/2 cups pecans 1 cup sliced almonds 1/2 cup pinenuts 1/2 cup sesame seeds 1/3 cup black poppyseed 1 1/2 cups roasted peanuts 2 cups raw peanuts (why did I buy all those peanuts?) 1 1/2 cups toasted walnuts 2 cups pistachios (for the ice cream I never made) 2 cups raw almonds (I forget why I bought these, too) 1 cup cashews Also in my freezer and fridge: 1 Italian pork sausage 2 Chinese pork sausages 4 Chorizo sausages 3 beef hot dogs, ONE roll 1 qt homemade spaghetti sauce 1 cup sorrel puree (oops, forgot to do something with this) about 1/4 cup duck fat scraps 1 cup chicken stock 2 big bundles of raw chicken bones (I'm supposed to make stock) 2 rutabagas (leftover from my CSA order) 1 lemongrass stalk 3 oranges, 2 without zest And in my cupboard I found a treasure trove of homemade candied citrus peel, over 2 cups worth. I forgot about this!

In the ballpark, but not quite what you describe. Here are a couple recipes anyway. http://www.pepperfool.com/recipes/chili/th...bean_chili.html http://www.cookingwithsean.com/2007/04/thr...oker-chili.html

You bring up a good point. Actually, IMO, wetter is not necessarily better. You have to know about the kind of bread you're making. Lean breads with an airy texture (big holes) that are baked in very hot ovens should be on the wet side, i.e., very moist. Ciabatta, pizza, and other artisanal style breads come to mind as examples of that kind of bread. But other breads, like whole wheat pan loaves, or breads that are embellished with butter, eggs, or dried fruit (challah, kugelhopf, brioche)--those doughs are drier in comparison (at least when I make them). Those doughs may be a little tacky, but I wouldn't call them wet, and that's how those doughs are supposed to be. When I first made lean artisanal breads, my doughs were very sticky, really unhandleable. Over the years I've learned to sacrifice some wetness for a dough that's easier to handle and shape. The breads still turn out well. Anybody else with thoughts about this?

I'm with you. As far as I know, large eggs are the standard measure in cookbooks. I rarely see the extra large egg measure. As a home baker, I find dealing with extra large eggs a nuisance. But don't give up on the cookbook so easily. Flip thru it for a few recipes that might be worth converting the egg measures, and xerox them. Then return the book to the library under cover of darkness.

Congrats on your souffle success! Only your first souffles, but they look really good. I'm glad you bought Julia's The Way To Cook. Many of the best recipes from Mastering the Art are also in The Way To Cook, but the recipes are updated and lightened up (less fat). My favorite meatloaf recipe is in The Way To Cook (p 251). So is my favorite recipe for blender mayonnaise (p 363). Have fun with your new book.

I like this method for many herbs and greens, but not basil or mint. If basil or mint leaves are wet and stored in the fridge, they will turn black. I store basil and mint in a jar with a little water, as described by various people above.