AlaMoi

following up on the kind interest in this thread, here's the latest on "How to Break the Rules Without Really Trying" the above loaf was 430g KA Bread flour + 345g hot water + 1 t DAY + 1 tsp salt in a 9x5 loaf pan. "Smart Living" - coated, which I buttered&floured just to be safe on the first try. no need to grease/flour that brand - they are 'coated' and this second loaf released cleanly without the grease/flour routine. the first try didn't fill the pan to my heart's desire, so I upped the volumes: 645g flour + 518g hot water, same yeast&salt. many descriptions of no-knead cite mixing to a shaggy dough; and I've seen questions: "whot?" so, this is a shaggy dough - immediately after adding water & a good stir with a wooden spoon: the lid (aka dinner plate, in my case) goes on and after 16 hours at a cool 68'F rise looks like: panned, rising prior to ovening. when lacking a cover, invent... pre-heated to 500'F; 20 minutes covered at 475'F; uncovered 10 minutes; reduced heat to 450' for another 10 minutes. it popped out of the loaf pan immediately on leaving the oven - I could hear the crust crackling as it cooled. this volume fills makes for a nice size sandwich slice. the smaller cross section, and the rounds, are nice for a 'dinner bread' - but a bit skimpy for a sandwich. max height here about 4.5 inches. and the crumb shot...

the classic no knead bread is started in a covered pot - many shapes used but using the same technique, reducing the hydration about 5%, makes for really nice rounds (done on a stone) an upside down stainless bowl creates veddy nice crackle so why not a loaf? this is a 9x5 pan; thinking I'll up the volume next try crumb shot

and limits apply. we have a Giant and a Weiss within spitting distance of each other. once-upon-a-day-dream-dreary this Giant location was, by sq ft, biggest in the state. the manager tells me they continue to "set records" amongst their peers. they have 20+ checkout lanes plus six self-check out stations. most of which are working on any given year, but the self-checkout units are Windows based software, so every month at auto-update time things get , , , ah,,,,errr, uhmmmm, interesting. the Weiss Market has markedly less business. better produce, better prices on many things. they had self-check out lanes but took them out. the employees should all be fired and replaced. two OMG examples: - months back, shopped, went to check out. two cashiers - one a (at least 70+ yo) dear lady who clearly had issues scanning anything without a protracted visual check of every single item. there were 11 customers + me in two lines to check out. I counted. the on duty 'manager' approaches the front in conversation with an obvious personal acquaintance - she looks at the lines, says to her friend "come over here." the """manager""" then opens a register, checks out her """friend""" and closes the register leaving the rest of us standing tooth in mouth. - last week went in on a similar relatively minor shopping expedition. one cashier/check-out lane open; three fake cashiers/employees/check-out females holding up the dividing wall to the customer service counter area, peering at their smart phones, ignoring the 8+ line of customers waiting. so I picked out the most decent looking one, and stood staring - perhaps glaring is a better word, at her until she finally opted to wander over to a check-out lane and open it up. it took 10.5 minutes of staring; I timed it. I would shop there more often/extensively had any upper management a clue about what makes for customer service. as it is, I go only when I am repulsed at the Giant produce selection. which, regrets, is rather often.

>>> Ken Forkish' video helps with the shaping. an item to note from that video - handling is done from the board (down) side - where the bench flour is. if the top of the loaf is "well floured" and then put to the stretch&fold technique, it is possible to develop a "weak layer/bond" resulting in something similar the pix'd voids. I've done it - the problem was not quite as pronounced - but the bauer style loaf 'cleanly' separated 'in the middle' - so I don't wildly 'flour the whole dough' when I turn it out anymore... more flour on the hands, less/none on the loaf proper... from the size of the split, methinks it must be generated by oven spring - i.e. gas (co2) is already there, and rapidly expanding when it hits the oven. this could mean the dough needs a bit more 'punching down' prior to shaping to avoid large trapped bubbles. I've also experienced the 'dense bottom' issue - baking on a stone, my fix was to reduce the heat after 10-15 minutes. high heat initially to set the dough; reduce temp & open door to spill the heat.... the dense bottom "cause" may be completely unrelated to the "mega holes"

...I'd like a brick oven meeeeee 2! for bread as well as pizza. I have many times gone into the initial planning and to-date have abandoned the idea for one simple reason: it takes longer to preheat a (massive) masonry oven that to mix, rise & bake the bread. and pizza ... what - 10 minutes....? however comma I could be coerced into a propane fired "loose built" unit - "loose" as in not a massive mortar type construction - because the theory behind using propane would be to hit the ignite button, turn it up full blast to pre-heat as fast as possible. "fast heating" and "masonry" are not compatible. but a pile of insulating/fire brick & a gas burner would work.... any one run across such a set-up?

wonder which came first - the egg or the debate on how to cook one . . . the "add salt / sugar / vinegar / baking soda / baking powder / etc" has one interesting aspect. supposedly "it" passes through the shell and changes the white, somehow, making it non-stick. and - cited by many many people is the air sac on the big end. the resulting dimple, etc... the "air" is actually not "air" - the gas is carbon dioxide which has come out of solution from the egg white, and accumulates at the big end. the older the egg, the more carbon dioxide accumulates and the larger the air sac. now, as is famously said at cookware demonstrations.... "we all know" gases expand as they are heated. this means the interior of the egg is "pressurized" - which raises the question of how the liquid solution of water plus salt / sugar / vinegar / baking soda / baking powder / etc gets through the shell, through not one but _two_ membranes, thence affecting at least some outer depth of the white, making it "non-stick" if you've ever poked a pin hole in the big end and then put the egg in hot-to-boiling water, you've seen the little bubbles coming out of the pin hole. but WAIT, there's MORE! putting a pin hole in the egg allows water to enter the egg. opinions vary as to how / when this happens - on heating (water goes in as bubbles come out) or on cooling (if submerged; the egg shrinks and water is sucked in....) which all works until one carefully peels the big end of a hard cooked egg and finds that the air sac has formed between the shell membrane and the egg membrane - and the egg white is still inside the egg membrane and any water is outside of the egg membrane. the poke-a-pin-hole practice is aimed at preventing eggs from cracking (more) open in hot water. "more open" - yes. eggs that crack from internal pressure/heat most frequently were cracked / nicked / damaged before they hit the water - which is why not every egg in the batch cracks when it goes into boiling water. so what makes for a sticky egg peeling and results in divots and torn up egg white.....? what sticks to what? and conversely, what observable phenomena makes an egg peel easily? what does not stick to what? my observations: - it is the egg membrane sticks to the (cooked) egg white. one has a tedious job carefully peeling the egg membrane off the cooked egg white. - an egg which peels cleanly/easily has a thin layer of water between the cooked egg white and the egg membrane. this thin water 'coating' lubricates the cooked white allowing the shell to peel easily. it is a very thin layer of water; if the eggs are still warm, the water very rapidly evaporates and "you'll miss (seeing) it" so where does this thin layer of lubricating / freeing-up water come from? not thru the pinhole. from the inside of the egg - but with a caveat: if the eggs are removed from the hot cooking water and immediately plunged into ice water, the continued cooking from the hot interior generates water vapor which wants to escape - and the vapor condenses when it hits the ice cold membrane&shell. for reliability, use ice water - water with ice cubes floating around in it. not cold tap water. Alaskans have cold tap water, Floridians have cold tap water - but the "cold" part isn't the same temperature and yes, it makes a difference.

sliced and pounded thin . . . (careful pre-trim required) does a decent imitation of carpaccio or a Phila style cheese steak or (less thinly pounded) a neat beef schnitzel come (breaded) chicken fried steak. or stuff it - look for "stuffed chuck roast" - many many ideas there.

something like the below? these are left-over mashed potatoes, dressed up with some chopped green onion. used a can (top/bottom cut out) as a form to squish them in tight - then in the fridge for 4-5 hours to get max firmness. then tamped onto panko & pan fried with minimal oil. as you sensed, making anything cohesive with mashed potato is a bit tricky... moisture and fats will cause the potato to go thin and fluid as it is heated. with the procedure as given, the beef is one problem from both water and fat standpoint. ground beef tends to give up a lot of water when cooked - the fat you can control via ultra lean cuts. if at first you don't succeed,,, I'd be tempted to cook the beef separately - allowing you to drain off / blot out (all) moisture and fat. onions will also give up a lot of water. if doing this all in one pan, I'd wilt/sweat down the onions on the side before mixing them into the mashed potato. once the mashed potato gets too much moisture, it takes a long slow patient cooking to drive off the moisture.

/quote The East Coast supermarket chain ranked as consumers' favorite grocery retailer, according to a recent report from Market Force Information. This is the first time in four years Trader Joe's didn't take the top spot. /unquote link is: http://www.marketforce.com/wegmans-and-publix-are-america%E2%80%99s-favorite-grocery-retailers-market-force-panel-research to the thread,,,, Aldi was #5 of 15. also a surprise, Aldi has bunches more locations than many "more famous" names. before getting into the happy dance mode, do go to the source and read what the survey measured - this is one of those deals where one can construct a survey to get any answer you want. /quote Market Force asked participants to rate their satisfaction with their most recent grocery shopping experience and their likelihood to refer that grocer to others. /unquote the survey does not ask "Do you find X better than Y?" it asks if you were a happy shopper on your last visit. Question: if one was not a happy shopper, why would one go back? could such a built-in bias skew the results?

you could try sugar - it acts to retain moisture... we're in the crust-that-snaps-crisp camp - haven't done the sugar thing. based on other bread experiments, I'd start with one Tbsp per 10 inch pie size.

Giant used to have a loose bin. I didn't always buy them - sometimes they were like open ended green rubber bands. most of the time they would snap. . . . there's a reason for the moniker "snap beans"..... Giant is making major/massive changes / shifts - and very few of them for the better. beans-in-a-bin is one of them. eliminating 1 or 2 lb packages of ground beef is another. so while the baby boomers are becoming a geriatric empty nest force, Giant is moving to 15 lb packages of ground beef, 8 pound fryer chickens, two pounds of pre-packaged (fresh?) green beans, etc etc. actually, they moved all the meat cutting to an outside supplier. the USDA meat grade on the package....? it's a lie. Giant meat has become terrible. the fish counter is (at local) a stinking disaster; every day there's a different teenager behind the counter - who thinks fish are baked and coming in a foil lined Gold Fish bag - they're both fish, right? a Giant 20 minutes off still employs a fish dude who knows his business and he'll tell me what they unfroze this AM. the loose mushroom bin - used to have white button and crimini. local store: no crimini no more; per the store manager they stopped stocking them because the loose crimini didn't sell well and there was a lot of waste. this is BS - two loose bins, if there was an empty bin, it was _not_ the white button.... good fish Giant, they have loose crimini. again, it's a situation where I want to buy what I need, not by the pound. actually I'm slight puzzled that Giant even stocks any fresh veggies anymore - looking at the moms with the cart piled high - nuttin' but nukable salt, sugar, fat instant crap - and two waddling pre-schoolers in tow.... but, I rant......

okay okay okay. depending on who-where-when--what-why-how a ground up hot dog likely may not be different than bologna. I once had a discussion with a dude who insisted that a 'sauce bolognaise' was totally utterly meat frree. so - any undefined 'sunday gravy / sunday sauce' could have some / all / any kind of yum-yums included. there are / is exceedingly few "foodstuffs" of any kind which have one and only one definition.

veddy tasty sandwiches - not huge - on a croissant or pretzel roll. made fresh, not "mass produced" - interesting combos of meats&cheeses.... bowl of pickled appetizer toothpick tidbits -

next trip, lookup Isaac's - very close to convention center.

Good Shew! as Ed would say . . . as for replacement software, if you must go fancy,,,, look for "open source" software. this is computer code that is in the "public domain" meaning if Programmer A gets hit by a bus, it's likely Programmer B will pick up the pieces and keep it functional. here's some starters: http://ostatic.com/blog/get-cooking-with-these-open-source-recipe-management-apps

Win10 updates what Microsoft thinks needs an update, whether the user has any other ideas or not. system files, program files, driver files - basically the computer is no longer under user control. and since computer "configurations" vary, not everyone gets the same set of updates. the pro version of W10 allows automatic updating to be turned off. Microsoft has a long, colorful and bloody history of issuing updates that break their own software as well as other software. and frankly my deer, they don't give a damn. unless and until someone trips across what "updated file/whatever" has disabled the software, and in the absence of the author, you're toast. your best option is to get it reinstalled and working on an older computer and then export all the recipes/data. you'll very likely need some new recipe software - or not - keeping your recipes outside of highly proprietary software could prevent a repeat at some point down the line.

the pith, nuttin but the pith . . . lottsa pithie thickie stuff. it was not candied skin&rind&pith&whatever. very thick almost pure white pith that was still tender to the tooth. I have the feeling unless someone who instantly recognizes the 'dish' trips over this, I'm not likely to ever learn the secret.... it's obviously not something that is widespread&common.

define thousands. if the definition is in the vicinity of 65,535-'ish it could be an "integer" bug in the software. could be issues of file sizes. for such problems there is no fix except by the author / access to the source code. silly question, but did this happen when installing to a new machine and/or upgrading the operating system (i.e. to Win10, etc) do you have a back up copy of your data from before this problem? I would back up the current state of the program; delete all traces of it (see Revouninstaller.com) and reinstall with the old data to see if that is still working.

"""4 thick-skinned organic lemons or 2 lemons and 2 Seville oranges Zest half of each fruit –you can use the zest to make lemon curd– then score and remove the peel in segments and cut it into triangles....""" I can be quite dense at times. if you zest half of each fruit, does that mean one uses both the zested pith and the 'unzested' whole peel / rind in this recipe? but anyway it doesn't resemble the dish in question - thanks tho.

the language . . . my Greek is so bad it does not exist (g) the nice lady was perhaps 50'ish, she spoke a little English, so it was a discussion of a few words and lots of hands. she told me the name and held up the dish of lemon being served for use on the octopus....accompanied by "bigger" and a set of cupped hands... Cyprus lemons sounds suspicious - the pix of pomelo also fits the bill. a local Greek Orthodox church recently did a big fund raising dinner - the main dishes were quite so-so but the desserts were absolutely out of this world. I asked around and drew a blank; makes one wonder if this 'treat' was something especially local/regional.

no - not citron. I asked and was told it was lemon rind - and I did at the time get a very brief "peel it, soak it, cook it" type explanation. I was also 'plained it was a large lemon - from the hand gestures something close to a grapefruit in size - which is why I've always thought it might be a 'only in Greece' type thing.... I guess "they" only send the skinny thin skinned lemons east - not encountered a lemon of that skin size! although I have to say ,,, Giant produce department offerings are marginally adequate to downright awful. time to shop around a bit....

being a fruit cake baker , , , I've candied all kinds of things, the basic concept is pretty clear. the pith of these lemons was a solid 5+ mm - quarter inch or so - I've not found any such thing in USA. cut into 'dices / cubes' I'm hoping one of the international members may know / recognize the lemon treat and be able to provide a bit more info on the lemon type and if-it-is-any-different-than-a-mark 1-mod zero candy thing....

last century (! true !) I was in the Navy, in the Mediterranean, on a big gray boat with funny numbers painted on it, anchored off Athens/Piraeus - and a local threw a big bash. presented was a finger food - candied lemon peel. stunningly delicious, never have found out how to make/replicate it. particulars: it appeared to be just the white of the rind - no 'skin' - odd, as that is most often touted as the bitter part it was quite thick it was sugar crusted this probably requires a specific lemon variety for the thick thick skin...may not exist around here.... any ideas / experience on how to reproduce this snack in USA?

have you tried vitamin C aka ascorbic acid ? I've had good results improving the rise of no-knead types. winter (cool) I go 18 hrs - summer (warmer) 14 hrs. and it's also one of those 'tiny dash on the end of a teaspoon handle' amount things - too much seems to make / keep the bread texture "wet." I use FruitFresh - a jar per lifetime (g) - I toss it every two years tho.

duck and goose fat is very expensive!