Anna N

Like you I am now a singleton but I am fortunate to be able to piggyback on the memberships of two other people, one relative and one a friend. What I like the most I think is the ability to stock up on paper products only once or twice a year! Their meat is certainly worth a membership but so much of what they sell is in quantities that make no sense for a singleton. I don't know if I would be prepared to pay the annual membership for the amount of use I would make of it.

Just as I was putting this on the plate I remembered that I needed some pomegranate molasses for another purpose. I grabbed the bottle from the cupboard and without giving it sufficient thought, I drizzled some on the endive. Bad move.

Sad.

It was most definitely labelled as naan on the menu. A search on Afghani naan does indeed reveal bread looking very similar to what we had.

Fascinating. Thank you!

Perhaps we are trying to compare apples and oranges. I may be on shaky ground here but this was an Afghani restaurant and I was hoping for Indian naan. I suspect they are not the same. I thought it would be like this.

Then I'm awfully glad I'm poor if not male!

The lamb was delicious but the bread was quite disappointing.

Today Kerry and I headed out to Brampton to take care of some business and on our way back we decided to have lunch at Bamiyan. This is an Afghani kabob cafe and I was sure I had posted about it before. A search however brings up nothing. I had the lamb chop dinner. Kerry went for the tikka kabob dinner Naan bread.

Don't believe I have ever seen them in Canada either. I am lucky that someone brings me some occasionally from Wegmans in Buffalo. It is indeed one of my favourite cuts of beef.

Thanks. Best part of the plant.

Yup, tripped over my tongue! It is protein content and I knew that. The cookies should be thick and chewy. Recipe. But we got both kinds this time -- thick and chewy and thin and crispy. I still don't understand how after 14 minutes that first batch of cookies was more or less raw. And I'm anxious now for my oven to cool down so I can see if it is preheating properly.

Let me document the whole morning of baking for you. First let me tell you that I normally use silpat and have been for some years. My baking soda is as fresh as the day is long because if you remember I used the last of the old stuff on the other cookies that gave me problems. Part of the first batch after they had been in the oven for 14 minutes! The dough had been chilled for more than 30 minutes before I scooped them. Part of the second batch. The only difference between this and the first batch is that the dough was colder and I scooped them and then chilled them for a further 30 minutes. I cooked them for only 10 minutes. I came within an inch of tipping the first batch into the bin. But they contained some expensive ingredients including butter which came out of my pocket and chocolate which was a gift but still expensive for someone else. And furthermore I was going to be short cookies! I was especially concerned because some of these had been promised to my granddaughter to take to an art show where some of her own art was being displayed. With nothing else to lose I took the ones from the first batch that had mostly held together, put them back on the cookie sheet, this time lined with parchment rather than silpat, and put them back in the oven for a further eight minutes. If you look at them carefully you will notice they have developed just a little bit of a loft and are now, as far as I'm concerned, quite edible. I know without any doubt that my oven temperature is stable and steady but what I am not too sure about now is whether or not I can trust its signal that it has truly pre-heated. It will take hours to cool down properly so I will not be able to check on this for sometime. The other question that arises is whether or not, for some strange reason, the baking is being affected by doing two sheets at once. This is the way I have always baked my cookies in the past. At the halfway mark I swap shelves and turn each tray 180°. But today, because I did not know exactly what was happening, after the first two trays I baked only one tray at a time. I think I now have enough cookies to supply my son-in-law his usual treats and to make sure my granddaughter has cookies to take to her art show. I, however, will be dipping into the scotch bottle.

I love caramelized Belgium endive any which way. They become a totally different creature when they are cooked. Two for the price of one.

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.