Anna N

Another week of spreading cookie syndrome. Different recipe (From Fine Cooking that I have used many, many times) similar but different origin chocolate as last time, all ingredients carefully weighed. I am beginning to suspect the culprit is the flour. I normally bake with Robin Hood all purpose which has a gluten content of 13%. But I was gifted some American all purpose flour with a gluten content of only 10%. I don't know how much that kind of science holds up as worthy of consideration. I have never before had an issue with the Fine Cooking recipe.

Exactly.

If something happened to my current version I would certainly want to buy the new one but at the moment I just don't see where I would personally benefit much from the added functionality.

If there is no tradition of home ovens or Sunday roasts then I'm guessing the butchery tradition will follow a very different track.

I don't notice that it makes a great deal of difference to the bread but it makes me feel doubly virtuous if I make my own bread AND use the whey from another project. Surely that must count for something.

Yup. Happens all too often.

If I am on my toes and the moon is in the right quarter I use it to replace the liquid in a bread recipe.

From Ottolenghi.

Fabulous!

One of the difficulties I find with ordering groceries online is that I often fail to take all the necessary steps to make sure something ends up in my basket or, as in this case, manage to put two of something in there when I only needed one. So this time I ended up with 6 pounds of red onions. I could of course make many things including onion marmalade but I haven't quite wrapped my head around that yet. This is my first attempt at using some of them up. I sliced up a few onions, brushed them with oil and roasted them. When they were tender I spooned a mixture of breadcrumbs, thyme, pecorino Romano's and goat cheese on them and broiled them until they had some colour. (The breadcrumb, thyme, cheese topping was left over from dinner last evening.)

I ran out of steam by the time I was ready to take a photograph so I apologize for its really poor quality. This is an adaptation of a recipe from Ottolenghi -- caramelized endive with serrano ham. Belgian endive are cut in half, caramelized in a butter sugar mixture and then topped with a breadcrumb, cheese and ham mixture and briefly roasted. Definitely worth repeating.

Two small loaves of Walter Sands sandwich bread (from King Arthur flour site). Still not convinced of the efficacy of this oven for bread. Final rise on counter as I have had too many "failures" using the proofing function. But still did not get the oven spring I am accustomed to getting with this bread. I used the "bread" funtion for baking it. My next experiment will be just convection bake.

Congratulations. I can't tell you how much I admire you for doing this. I am still dithering about Aromas of Aleppo but suspect by days end I will have succumbed to its allure. I suspect there is an added bonus here which few of us are acknowledging. And that is that your small community is being given a wonderful opportunity to try a cuisine that many will have never tasted before. I envy them.

Omelet adapted from a Diana Henry recipe and the cucumber salad is from Ottolenghi. Omelet was tasty salad was meh. I do think it's time to buy some fresh sumac.

That was my immediate response. There didn't seem anything more I could add to the post other than a link.

Here.

I don't think they have to be cut. It would depend very much on the size and type of cucumber. But yes it would be great if you posted photographs of your process.

I think we call them "quickles".

I was born a peasant and I will surely die a peasant. I might concede that it could appeal as theatre to nourish the soul but never as food to nourish the body. But perhaps that is its intent.

And if my ship ever comes in or my transporter gets fixed I'll make sure you get some.

Some days it's wise to acknowledge and respect your limitations.

It doesn't take much to make a tasty meal. Darn good thing. Groceries should arrive in the a.m.