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I'm behind in my reading of this thread again, I'll be back to enjoy all these lovely photos soon. We had another Wine Time appetizer dinner in the back yard. My very first baguette ever made from @Tropicalsenior's recipe for Mock Sourdough. More about the journey here. Lot of garlic, fancy olive oil, heated enough for great smells to come forth. Fig & Date Press (Black Mission figs, dates, Turkish figs, almonds, hazelnuts) made in Southern California, purchased from Zingermans. No sugar added, so a good flavour with creamy cheese. The cheeses were Double Gouda and Fontina. My neighbour brought some huge artichokes asparagus from his garden. One artichoke asparagus spear was sliced thinly and added (uncooked) to the salad below, after the photo was taken. The salad had diced heirloom tomato, cilantro, snipped fresh chives, and diced Preserved Lemon (from Paula Wolfert via @Margaret Pilgrim). Sauce was AgroDolce White Balsamic Vinegar with grape must. Also from top clockwise: local cucamelon pickles, cornichons, black Moroccan olives, sweet gherkin pickles, and ground cherries. The ground cherry is in the same family as tomatillos and similarly covered with a papery shell. Raw ground cherries are a bit tart. My neighbour also brought over some grilled tuna with barbecue sauce which was very tasty (sorry no photo).

I've been using a bread machine to make bread and pizza dough for 30 years or so, but have recently developed an interest in oven baked breads. Yesterday was my first attempt at baguettes. I haven't enough experience to have any deductions, so all remarks are welcome. Dough was made in bread machine using @Tropicalsenior's Mock Sourdough bread. I substituted greek yogurt + some water (1/2 cup) for sour cream, proportions not recorded. In the bread machine, the dough looked a bit wet so I added one tablespoon more flour. I inherited some 18" baguette trays made of lightweight metal with no perforations. Somewhere was posted that oiling/buttering baguette trays was recommended. I used what I thought was a small amount of Grapeseed oil spray which was spread around with a pastry brush. (More about this later). The dough was very sticky. I was completely unable to shape it on the counter. It was weighed and approximately divided. Once into the tray I pulled it into a vague shape. A great amount of dough remained stuck to my hands which could only be removed with a scrubbie. The dough had rested in the bread machine bucket for ~20 minutes after dough cycle completed, so some expansion was lost when I moved the dough to the counter. It rose a bit more in the following hour. These trays are too long to fit in my Anova steam oven. Baguettes were baked on a ceramic pizza peel in the regular oven, with no attempt to generate any steam. The loaf was adequately baked internally though did not brown well. Oiling of baguette trays produced a much darker baked product where the dough touched the oiled surface The crust was completely soft where the dough touched the oiled pan. Not much chew. Overall, the bread was acceptable. Flavour and chew could be better. It was suggested that using parchment paper would keep bread dough from sticking to tray without messing up the crust. What temperature should the interior of the baguette be when done? For future bakes, would you recommend using the regular oven or Anova steam oven? These baguettes were 13" long. I'm interested to make a smaller baguette (thinking the bread will taste fresher unbroken/unopened). Can I place 2 baguettes in one tray? Know where to buy a tray with more, smaller trays? Here's the dinner using the baguette (one baguette fed 4 people).

Me too, thank you!

Hoping my query gets some traction in this thread I have some Chorizo Casero by Espuna (dry cured) which I bought two years ago from Spain. It was manufactured in USA. There were originally 5 little sausages; I used 2 and vacuum sealed the rest. They've been sitting on a shelf in the fridge. Wikipedia says "In Europe, chorizo is a fermented, cured, smoked meat, which may be sliced and eaten without cooking, or added as an ingredient to add flavor". Can these sausages be used?

@Maison Rustique, I wasn't thinking of much liquid, more stew like, but hadn't really gotten much further. If the batter has any liquidity it will drip to the bottom regardless, yes? Or, if it's a stiff batter will it stay on top? How stiff is stiff enough?

Query: I've got to make a leftover duck casserole and I'm thinking to put a thick layer of doctored Jiffy on top. Will this work? What consistency should the dough have? TIA.

How much dough please?

Are those saved bits the baked bread or the unbaked dough?

I've just discovered the existence of baking couche(s). Does one ever wash a couche? (which I imagine would remove the sizing). How many times is the material used before being washed or replaced? Where will I find information about how they are used?

@AlaMoi, I have heard of drying the starter which can later be re-started with water. But from where? I'll do some research and report back.

Oh yum, @Elkyfr. Do you have a recipe for that?

It's a wonder that people can think there will be no repercussions for dumping garbage (pseudo-anonymously).

That's it, @Pete Fred. You keep this up and quite a few of us will be moving to Yorkshire!

@Tropicalsenior, how much does your one cup of flour weigh?

Ooh, bread machine. Excellent @Tropicalsenior! Thanks. Edited to add: Will update you on my progress. 😀

@lindag, I wanted to laugh. But thanking you came first. 😀

@C. sapidus, somewhere I have a red cabbage recipe from Switzerland's Betty Bossi which is mildly spicy for some but pretty interesting (to me). Let me know if you'd like me to find it!

It was a very very thin slice (1/8"). Not sweet per se. Zingerman's calls it "A cheese's sweet dream. There may be a lot of dried fruit with nuts out there looking trendy these days but this is no fad. This is something you might have found a hundred years ago in a market in Istanbul, Cairo, Athens or Palermo—albeit rarely done this beautifully. Two different varieties of dried fig (Black Mission and Green Turkish) along with dried dates, almonds and hazelnuts to create a pressed cake that’s as gorgeous to behold as it is mouth-watering to eat. There's no flour or eggs or sugar to make this cake—just fruit and nuts." Pressed Fig, Date, & Nut Cake At the time (last Friday) I was totally impressed with how great that dinner was.

I'm back on page 30 of this thread, but some pictures to post. Finally it's warm enough for a Wine Time outside in the backyard. Starting with my neighbour's big fat purple asparagus, uncooked but lower limb peeled, sliced thinly, with green onion, fresh mint, lime and AgroDolce. Dishes of oiled Moroccan olives. Sliced baguette with Port Salut cheese and a thin slice of a date, fig, hazelnut and almond cake. Also some very creamy blue cheese. Not shown: bowls of chopped garlic generously covered with olive oil and heated in microwave. Accompanied by more sliced baguette. Salad of heirloom tomato, bell pepper, cilantro, lemon, Red Boat fish sauce, balsamic. No pictures of dessert which was a coffee mousse.

Just succumbed to whispers from The eGullet Enablers (including @palo, @weinoo, @JoNorvelleWalker, and many others). Bought a Zojirushi NW-JEC10 Pressure Induction Heating Rice Cooker manufactured in Japan. Although there are many eG threads for discussions of rice cookers, I couldn't find a thread showing what people have cooked. One of my purchase triggers was Beth Hensperger's Ultimate Rice Cooker cookbook which recipes often include pre-cooking onions, garlic, mirepoix, etc. in the rice cooker bowl before the rice goes in. Nothing in the manual or Zojirushi's recipe website include any instructions for pre-cooking (how to warm up the rice bowl, what temperature to set it to, etc.). Does anyone pre-cook vegetables or meat in their rice cooker? Zo's website instructions suggest pre-cooking in a separate pan. So that's what I did yesterday using some old shiitake mushrooms, and dehydrated mushrooms covered with boiling water and 1 tablespoon of each: soy sauce, mirin and cooking sake. Mushrooms drained (soaking water reserved). Into sauté pan (with olive oil) went sliced shiitake and reconsituted mushrooms and 1/2 cup soaking water for 5 minutes or so. This netted about 2 cups mushrooms. 2 go basmati rice into cooker, remaining soaking water + water. No added salt. Tasted okay. I'm incredibly curious about what else can be done!

Looks delicious, Shai. I have a new rice cooker and I'm wondering about a mac and cheese permutation . . .

Gonna have to find out what it all means first. 🙂

Hello @KingDuckford. eGullet is a most interesting place. Welcome.

Just had a marvellous al fresco dinner of bread and cheese. No nearby bakery produces sourdough baguettes which would have tasted even better. Occurs to me that I could learn how to make my own baguettes. I have successfully made focaccia with an overnight biga. Also make pizza with low yeast and a 3-7 day rest in the fridge. The bread tastes much, much better with a bit of fermentation. But I've had zero success keeping a sourdough culture alive, even after several starts. So I'd like help discovering information about short-term fermentations to add to bread, which don't require keeping the culture alive in the fridge; I don't even know what to search for.

@Katie Meadow, I love you.