JoNorvelleWalker

O my.

Would you adopt me?

My once frozen dough: It's alive! I thawed it overnight in the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature for a couple hours. Easier than I thought to get the dough out of the PolyScience bag. But the proof remains in the pudding.

I should clarify I work for the county. My information on Shoprite food recalls and hepatitis situation -- other than this morning's Six Hepatitis Deaths headline and the reporter's Cajun chicken breast and muenster cheese -- comes from work email. Forgive my vagueness. I hesitate to share anything I possibly shouldn't share.

The six deaths headline was the front page of the Courier News. Just now looking at their website I saw no mention of deaths (at least deaths due to cold cuts) -- but photographs of "football field length" lines queued up for free hepatitis shots. Including the Courier News reporter with a fatal fondness for Cajun chicken breast and muenster cheese.

Too bad. It would make a great short story.

Sorry! That's what I get for reading just the headline.

My older KitchenAid is well more than thirty years. I suspect they may out last me. And before anyone states the obvious, my granddaughter already has a KitchenAid.

Is that fruitcake from one of her short stories or does she have a real cookbook?

Local and probably not of interest to most: prepared food and delicatessen items from Shoprite (not the same Shoprite store where I shop) have been recalled for hepatitis A contamination. The county is offing free hepatitis A immunizations, though vaccine supplies have run out. As of this morning's headlines six people have died. One of my coworkers received notice from Shoprite that she had purchased potentially contaminated cheese. She reports the shot is painful.

Does your country have venomous cucumbers?

Hsiao-Ching Chou's simple stir-fried greens, a favorite recipe of mine. Chou's family is Taiwanese but at the suggestion of a Hongkonger friend I substituted oyster sauce for soy sauce. I think I like it even better. In my youth I never would have dreamed a piece of plant and a little seasoning could have been so good.

I'm sorry, I misunderstood.

@Ann_T I'm sure you could make gorgeous bread with an Electrolux vacuum cleaner.

@lindag and @ElsieD, what amount of dough do you mix at one time in the Zojirushi?

@teonzo, just now I was reading Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Bread Bible and I noticed she calls for mixing bread dough on speed #4 with a KitchenAid. For whatever reason speed #2 does not do much of anything at all. At least for me. I was hoping that the problem was simply that my batch size was too small; but as I found, doubling the quantity did not help.

I have a Zojirushi bread maker that long served admirably for mixing bread dough. But when I got my chamber vacuum sealer I had to relegate the Zojirushi to the bedroom. Do you recall which model Bosch you had?

I was looking at the Bosch Universal Plus. It is said to work well for small quantities of flour.

Thanks Franci, I was not aware of a Bosch mixer. Seems they make a zillion different models, not all of which are sold in the US. If you recommend Bosch I may give one a try. They are about half the price of KitchenAid. I had been looking at Ankarsrum but Ankarsrum is too expensive for me at the moment. Meanwhile I have higher protein flour on order, though I am still unconvinced that flour is my problem.

Since you don't need one I guess that's called no-knead.

For lack of anything better I would try my bread knife.

If only I had a vehicle.

Thanks to everyone I now have some new ideas to try. But before that I have two 500-600g bags of dough in the freezer. I should probably just pitch them, but I'd like to give them a fighting chance. How can I best thaw the dough? In the refrigerator? In a water bath? In the dumpster? The bags are vacuum sealed which in itself may have built some additional dough strength.

If not with your broken KitchenAid how do you mix your dough now? One of the flours MB calls for is KA Sir Galahad 11.7% protein. Sir Galahad is a commercial flour, sold in 50 pound bags. I use KA 11.7% protein but in 2 pound bags. I autolyze my dough for about 30 minutes before the 8 minute mix on speed 1.

Franci, I mix initially at 66.6% then add the rest of the water with the salt.