What do your meals look like (show me pictures)....
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Batch cooking afternoon with a girlfriend. We made enough chilli con carne for dinner tonight and 10 portions that feed a household of two, split between the my freezer my cooking buddy's. We used Thomasina Mier's recipe. We also did a bit batch of aji verde, which I love for freshening up a chilli. My low fat cheesecake with quick raspberry sauce for dessert.
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Blueberry, Canadian bacon, cheddar cheese with bbq sauce thin crust 7” pizza4 -
Fresh ham and torn chicken bean soup with whole green beans and rotisserie chicken breast.
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When I first starting baking around 6-7 years ago, I tried a variety of methods. And got a variety of results. Then I stumbled onto the "artisanbreadwithstev" ..
Snip...
The mod I made for this batch was to add several rounded tablespoons of dried onion flakes into the dry mix, and upped the water a bit (2oz, for their hydration). I also rescaled the indgredients to yield 10 rolls rather than 6 (which exhausted my bread flour supply until I get to the store later today).
Big Snip...
Yeast is all around us - that's the basis of traditional sourdough,
I go directly to the millers for my flour when I can. It's fresher. I typically stick with King Arthur.
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/
My next evolution will be to start milling my own flour after September. I have the mill, and I have the wheat, but my docket is pretty full until then to include something new.
Wow, ty for all the info... will check it out... so adding 'explore yeast' to my adventures, lol
I think milling your own would be awesome. I have not noticed King Arthur, instead Bobs Red Mill is carried. Believe he picked up used granite wheels when he started in the 70s.
I browse all the variety, and wonder hmmm... i have a hard time comprehending how nut flours would work as a flour. When i tried some breadmaking with whole wheat and not a success, too dense, and realized I was clueless to adapt... Experiment ended there. I was surprised the focaccia discussion captured my attention.
Q - back to pickling, what kind of vinegars do you prefer? I tend to use unseasoned rice whenever recipe calls for vinegar.
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Adventurista wrote: »
When I first starting baking around 6-7 years ago, I tried a variety of methods. And got a variety of results. Then I stumbled onto the "artisanbreadwithstev" ..
Snip...
The mod I made for this batch was to add several rounded tablespoons of dried onion flakes into the dry mix, and upped the water a bit (2oz, for their hydration). I also rescaled the indgredients to yield 10 rolls rather than 6 (which exhausted my bread flour supply until I get to the store later today).
Big Snip...
Yeast is all around us - that's the basis of traditional sourdough,
I go directly to the millers for my flour when I can. It's fresher. I typically stick with King Arthur.
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/
My next evolution will be to start milling my own flour after September. I have the mill, and I have the wheat, but my docket is pretty full until then to include something new.
Wow, ty for all the info... will check it out... so adding 'explore yeast' to my adventures, lol
I think milling your own would be awesome. I have not noticed King Arthur, instead Bobs Red Mill is carried. Believe he picked up used granite wheels when he started in the 70s.
I browse all the variety, and wonder hmmm... i have a hard time comprehending how nut flours would work as a flour. When i tried some breadmaking with whole wheat and not a success, too dense, and realized I was clueless to adapt... Experiment ended there. I was surprised the focaccia discussion captured my attention.
Q - back to pickling, what kind of vinegars do you prefer? I tend to use unseasoned rice whenever recipe calls for vinegar.
You're welcome. Anytime. I enjoy sharing any tidbits I've picked up. Life's a journey for everyone.
a. I like Bob's too, but find King Arthur bread and whole wheat flours wholesome and a better pricepoint. During the pandemic, they shipped mail order 8lb bags for further lower unit price - I wish they would revert to 8-10lb bags, and I've written to them on that. I suppose 5lbs ensure regular restocking for freshness. I go for "unbleached" brands at minimum, fully organic if in the mood.
b. Speaking of Bob's, I have gotten almond flour from them recently on the thought of making my own fig newtons as my cycling snack as an alternative to something like Clif Bars. Project still not completed. They are supposedly very easy to produce. The nut flour is used in combination with regular flour.
c. Also speaking of Bob's, I have a bag of his semolina flour; another pending project is making my own pasta. I actually have a supply of durham wheat that will be part of the milling experiment, so the Bob's supply is to trial actually making pasta before I layer on milling on top of it.
d. Yeah, nut flours are dense. I have used them to augment regular flour in a few instances, such as holiday breads. They don't contain gluten and the gluten is what gives the ability for the dough to rise when leavened - the elastic traps the gas. No gluten, no entrapment, product is like a brick, lol.
e. My initial whole wheat experiments were the same - I produced bricks, not bread, LOL. So my "whole wheat" breads now generally vary from 25-70% whole wheat, depending on my mood and intent. My "lite whole wheat" that I posted recently was 30%, I've been doing this for a while as my wife prefers it to the denser. I have even added gluten (available as "vital wheat gluten" powder from various sources) to see if that helps (King Arthur whole wheat actually has a good portion of gluten in it, so it's another factor that impacts final results). Mixed results with adding gluten (lots of variables to balance, and I've not been a perfect scientist in conducting my experiments - I too impatient here at home, rather than at work in a lab LOL - time, temp, composition, process, etc.). I've been watching videos from a couple of home millers, where whole wheat is the raw material they produce from milling by definition. "Whole wheat" from commercial sources is a re-mix of the bran and stuff into their preferred target, white flour, not a once-thru milling. So we'll see. Life is for learning.
f. Vinegars: I use apple cider vinegar and red wine vinegar, mostly, in irregular alternation. This batch was red wine vinegar. Using ACV gives a slightly sweeter result IMHO. I typically don't use a vinegar with the "mother" in it, I prefer clarified. I've used plain white distilled too; it's OK/functional, but my favorite is ACV. I haven't tried rice or other vinegars, I keep them more for special uses. The batch I posted about the other day used 1C vinegar, 1C water to brine 2 large onions, so you need a good supply - then I used more vinegar to volume-up and make a chicken marinade from the leftover onion brine.
Hope this all helps. Good luck!
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Adventurista wrote: »
Q - back to pickling, what kind of vinegars do you prefer? I tend to use unseasoned rice whenever recipe calls for vinegar.
OOPS - Edited for reciope amount quoted. Not allowed to edit original post by MFP.
f. Vinegars: I use apple cider vinegar and red wine vinegar, mostly, in irregular alternation. This batch was red wine vinegar. Using ACV gives a slightly sweeter result IMHO. I typically don't use a vinegar with the "mother" in it, I prefer clarified. I've used plain white distilled too; it's OK/functional, but my favorite is ACV. I haven't tried rice or other vinegars, I keep them more for special uses. The batch I posted about the other day used 2C vinegar, 2C water to brine 2 large onions, so you need a good supply - then I used more vinegar to volume-up and make a chicken marinade from the leftover onion brine.
Hope this all helps. Good luck!
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Ty @mjbnj0001
-- vinegar volume is a thought. I also like red wine vinegar in salad dressings.
On other uses, keep distilled white vinegar on hand for laundry/odor cleaning. It would be a natural volume choice for a brine alright
Look forward to your milling experiments. A health book i read strongly encouraged nut flours, discouraged gluten/flours, and psrticularly bleached anything.
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Fake air fryer KFC with the Chicago Tribune recipe. Thai pomelo salad, braised bok choi and brown rice.
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And a slice of leftover lowfat cheesecake from last night after dinner.
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One pot no oil fried rice with tofu, mushrooms, napa cabbage and broccoli. Had it with shrimp, pork and cabbage dumplings and leftover gochujang green beans.
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Adventurista wrote: »Ty @mjbnj0001
-- vinegar volume is a thought. I also like red wine vinegar in salad dressings.
On other uses, keep distilled white vinegar on hand for laundry/odor cleaning. It would be a natural volume choice for a brine alright
Look forward to your milling experiments. A health book i read strongly encouraged nut flours, discouraged gluten/flours, and psrticularly bleached anything.
You're welcome. When I get to the milling, I'll be posting. In the meantime, this is the mill I have: https://pleasanthillgrain.com/komo-mio-grain-mill-flour-grinder-wood-stone-colors
I agree with the "no chemically bleached" flours recommendation. That pushes them over into the "ultra-processed foods" category, which I'm working on minimizing (you can't get entirely away from UPF and still live in our modern society, but minimizing is a healthy goal). That also goes for a most additives in flour, including vitamin fortification/etc.
Nut flours have their place, and nuts are certainly a component of a healthy diet. Folks following a more "keto" plan sometimes make almond flour breads, but they tend to be more cake-y. I add nut flour to wheat flour for various products, mostly holiday goods. One of the fig bar recipes I'm looking at uses both almond and wheat flours to make the fig bar shell, which is why I bought the Bob's Red Mill Almond Flour.
Gluten is a current hot topic. To paraphrase a catchy saying about another subject I used before I retired, "more is written about this topic than is known." I choose to not climb this hill tonight. I can say that myself and my immediate family do not have gluten issues.
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Leftover pinhead oatmeal (=steelcut) risotto made with peas and bacon pulled out of the freezer. Side of roast cherry tomatoes.
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Adventurista wrote: »Ty @mjbnj0001
-- vinegar volume is a thought. I also like red wine vinegar in salad dressings.
On other uses, keep distilled white vinegar on hand for laundry/odor cleaning. It would be a natural volume choice for a brine alright
Look forward to your milling experiments. A health book i read strongly encouraged nut flours, discouraged gluten/flours, and psrticularly bleached anything.
Hi. In yet another occurrence of "is it a random feed, or is it a result of tracking?" YouTube suggested this video to me today. It contains a nuanced view of nut nutrition, including some differentiation between whole nuts and other forms, such as nut butters and flours. Thought you'd find it interesting. While I haven't signed up for the app and service they offer, I find these podcasts to usually be interesting and informative.
https://youtu.be/Jmh_A-XJic4
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@mjbnj0001 ~ the storyteller in me imagines it's tracking. Whatever the impetus, appreciated. Will kick up feet and watch.
Picked up jar Red Star, best price, good thru 2025, so next step focaccia attempt in a round stainless deep casserole/roaster for proofing.
Q - do i need to move to lower rectangular/square form for the baking or will it work from the round, similar to dutch oven.2 -
Primo of batch cooked potato gnocchi and leftover meat and tomato sauce pulled out of the freezer. Secondo of pan fried sea bream, aji verde and grated carrot salad.
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Best thing I’ve made at home for a while: chicken marinated in soy sauce and gocuchang, edamame, corn on rice. A bit of sriracha and some furikake on top. I’m weird about texture and I nailed it w this dish.6 -
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Adventurista wrote: »@mjbnj0001 ~ the storyteller in me imagines it's tracking. Whatever the impetus, appreciated. Will kick up feet and watch.
Picked up jar Red Star, best price, good thru 2025, so next step focaccia attempt in a round stainless deep casserole/roaster for proofing.
Q - do i need to move to lower rectangular/square form for the baking or will it work from the round, similar to dutch oven.
that is an interesting question. being often accused of being square myself, i follow convention and use a standard rectangular sheet pan, lol.
i have made several types of shaped breads - the cousin-to-focaccia, fougasse - being one, so i dont think it matters. i could be wrong, but like pizza crust, being flat in uniform thickness of varying shapes doesn't seem to impact the result - as long as there are no acute projections or fingers that have smaller mass than the main body and would fully cook way faster and potentially toast or burn. i have made loaf bread in both and open cast iron skillet and covered dutch oven ok ( as opposed to rolls and buns and such). as far as i know, the resulting circular, ovoid loaves are termed "boule" loaves. i tend to think if you do attempt to bake focaccia in a dutch oven, the dough should remain shallow and the lid remain off. good luck.
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Adventurista wrote: »@mjbnj0001 ~ the storyteller in me imagines it's tracking. Whatever the impetus, appreciated. Will kick up feet and watch.
Picked up jar Red Star, best price, good thru 2025, so next step focaccia attempt in a round stainless deep casserole/roaster for proofing.
Q - do i need to move to lower rectangular/square form for the baking or will it work from the round, similar to dutch oven.
Shape of the pan doesn’t matter but size will as it affects thickness of the focaccia. If the recipe calls for a 9 x 13 inch tray a round tin 12 inches in diameter has a similar area. But using a nonstick pan will make your life easier. I use a wide fish spatula to lift out my focaccia. I like to bake on a low shelf in the oven for a crisp bottom.
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I have a new job and lunch at the new staff canteen is pretty good.
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@Adventurista @acpgee
Shape of the pan doesn’t matter but size will as it affects thickness of the focaccia. If the recipe calls for a 9 x 13 inch tray a round tin 12 inches in diameter has a similar area. But using a nonstick pan will make your life easier. I use a wide fish spatula to lift out my focaccia. I like to bake on a low shelf in the oven for a crisp bottom.
I've become a fan of these types of silicon mats for sheet pan baking. Caution - brand-dependent max temp is around 450F (230C). Alternatively, silicon parchment paper makes a good sheet liner for baking.
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@Adventurista
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e. My initial whole wheat experiments were the same - I produced bricks, not bread, LOL. So my "whole wheat" breads now generally vary from 25-70% whole wheat, depending on my mood and intent. My "lite whole wheat" that I posted recently was 30%, I've been doing this for a while as my wife prefers it to the denser. I have even added gluten (available as "vital wheat gluten" powder from various sources) to see if that helps (King Arthur whole wheat actually has a good portion of gluten in it, so it's another factor that impacts final results). Mixed results with adding gluten (lots of variables to balance, and I've not been a perfect scientist in conducting my experiments - I too impatient here at home, rather than at work in a lab LOL - time, temp, composition, process, etc.). I've been watching videos from a couple of home millers, where whole wheat is the raw material they produce from milling by definition. "Whole wheat" from commercial sources is a re-mix of the bran and stuff into their preferred target, white flour, not a once-thru milling. So we'll see. Life is for learning.
...
Hope this all helps. Good luck!
error: should have read something like, "... I have even occasionally added gluten ..." It's not a regular thing with me, and I got irregular results anyway.
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@mjbnj0001
Any tips on how to get a crisp bottom crust with silicon? I am unhappy with poor bottom browning when I use silicon mats for baking and have relegated mine for praline making. For focaccia I was even dissatisfied with browning on the bottom when I lined my old stainless steel tin with silicon parchment. I like the focaccia to taste almost fried in olive oil on the bottom.0 -
@mjbnj0001
Any tips on how to get a crisp bottom crust with silicon? I am unhappy with poor bottom browning when I use silicon mats for baking and have relegated mine for praline making. For focaccia I was even dissatisfied with browning on the bottom when I lined my old stainless steel tin with silicon parchment. I like the focaccia to taste almost fried in olive oil on the bottom.
Many of my breads doughs have a bit higher hydration than other doughs, so keep that in mind.
Dough at room temp. Oven preheated thoroughly. And a baking stone, also preheated.
I speak from supposition on stones, as one has been on my Christmas list for a couple of years now. The big decision is what type of material should the stone be made of (metal, ceramic/tile; actual stone).
In the meantime, I have tried a couple of hacks. One was parchment paper supporting the bread dough for long rolls on a raised rack sitting in a sheet pan for improved air flow. "Meh" results, and I feared for ignition in a repeat as the paper scorched moreso than when used as a pan liner.
In this new house, my oven has an optional convection feature, and I have tried this in baking to see if the flowing air does the trick in various experiments. OK results, but not distinctive enough to make a default practice of it. For loaf breads, in a loaf pan, doesn't seem to make even that much difference. If you use convection, you have to adjust your timings too.
In some of my bakes, mostly rolls/buns and flatter/braided breads, I get a better bottom when I emulate a baking stone via an inverted sheet pan as a base for my actual sheet pan. Also needs preheat. Here's a picture of the setup I used for the onion rolls/buns bake last week (the ones pictured above with the silicon mat). The dish in the bottom has water in to generate steam during the bake for better overall (top or open/exposed) crust - supposedly a traditional French baker's trick for baguettes. When I think of it, an experiment I have in mind is to use ONLY the inverted sheet pan to support my loaf pans rather than have a 2nd layer of metal from the 2nd pan. The conductivity is so high for these metals that I'm not sure it makes a difference, but who knows?
Since I've been tinkering with process for my "hybrid sourdough" approach and in advance of starting to mill my own wheat later this year, I've been getting more methodical and documentarian when I cook, so I am accumulating more process photos like this. Anyway, this inverted sheet pan trick is something I learned about from a forgotton pre-pandemic source as I began baking. The rolls were in for 15 minutes at 450F, so crisp bottoms weren't the goal - but they were well-cooked.
For my normal loaves, metal loaf pans sitting in a rightside-up sheet pan, produce a well-baked, but not crispy crust. I have coated steel, coated aluminium and Al foil loaf pans. They all produce essentially equal results as far as crust in the enclosed portion of the loaf; the loaftops get a nice crust as per my other preps. I may be switching away from all aluminium cookware.
I have a couple of times, in my cast-iron skillet early bakes, pre-heated the skillet before transferring the 2nd-rise risen dough into it for baking. This squished the resultant loaf a bit through being handled, even if the transfer operation was delicate. But I got a crustier crust. Just using the room-temp pan which was the dough recepticle for the 2nd rise got an improved crustal finish, but not what you'd get from a proper bakery. Hot baking stone = good crust seems to be the key takeaway from all this experimenting.
Since moving into this new house, I've been batch-baking several loaves at a time and freezing the excess over one, so, with only two of us here, I'm only baking a couple of times a month. Progress and experiments take time and repitition, so it's going to be a while before I can demonstrate a consistent result.
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@acpgee : "... I like the focaccia to taste almost fried in olive oil on the bottom. ..." - look into "Detroit-style pizza" YT videos. They're a good dish in and of themselves, differing from "conventional" pizzas, but the process and the pans they use encourage the fried-oil effect around the edges and crust bottom.
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@acpgee
Following up on "Detroit-style pizza" ... here's a decent video so you don't have to hunt around. Gives the "why" of how the process works, and draws many analogies to focaccia. It's not focaccia, but you can see the places where you can adapt your focaccia processes ...
https://youtu.be/ijHutbC2JnE
Good luck!
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To all,
I guess some of my recent postings have been trending into the semi-technical rather than just "what do your meals look like?" ... but this is the "Recipes" board after all. Not to worry, I won't always be this down-in-the-weeds ...
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Quick weeknight dinner. Char siu cooked sous vide a few weekends ago, stashed in the freezer and browned tonight in the air fryer. Mushrooms cooked in the air fryer. Braised bok choi. Leftover brown rice pulled out of the freezer and cooked in the microwave. We had some of last night's leftover carottes rapee but that only made it to the table later.
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@mjbnj0001
I had heard that those American deep dish pizza's were descendents of sfinzione, a Sicilian streetfood pizza. I ate a piece at a market one holiday once.
https://ouritaliantable.com/sfincione-sicilian-pizza/1 -
A sfincione recipe with pictures of the crunchy bottom crust I love on focaccia.
https://www.seriouseats.com/sfincione-sicilian-new-years-pizza-with-bread1 -
@mjbnj0001
I had heard that those American deep dish pizza's were descendents of sfinzione, a Sicilian streetfood pizza. I ate a piece at a market one holiday once.
https://ouritaliantable.com/sfincione-sicilian-pizza/
This is a new one to me, thanks. I grew up knowing that "pizza" as we know it didn't come from Italy in our accustomed typical format, but didn't know this. We (in the suburban NYC area of NJ I grew up in, in the 60s and 70s) had "regular" pizza and "Sicilian pizza" (which was a thick bready crust - effectively this sfincione, even to the rectangular shape); the "Serious Eats" article you linked to in your 2nd post makes humorous reference to "Sicilian" type, LOL. "Deep dish" I didn't encounter until I was an adult. Bread, sauce, cheese, and maybe some toppings - "perfect delicious food" - and a contributory reason I needed to seek out MFP, LOL. Since the pandemic, I've made a percentage of our pizza, which is yet another driver to finally get a baking stone. Now that I think of it, maybe cooking pizza is the source of the inspirational hint I encountered about the inverted sheet pan emulating a stone. Could be.
Anyway, "grazie!" and "buon appetito!"
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