In taking a cue from Fuddruckers, I tried using Emeril’s Creole Seasoning (homemade) on top of my hamburger, after it was cooked. It was delicious. BTW, Fuddruckers adds a seasoning on their hamburger after it is cooked. Maybe I can try blackened hamburgers next.
I had an interesting experience over Thanksgiving.
We were preparing wild rice, carrots, and walnuts pilaf when my wife decided to eat some of the shelled walnuts. She felt something funny in her mouth and spit it out. It was a piece of a walnut shell. Neither one of us had come across this before!
Next time you add walnuts to a recipe, sort through them and discard any walnut shell pieces.
Another dud.
I was following the directions of someone who made sprouted bread before.
This time I used a meat grinder to pulverize the sprouted seeds, which worked very well. The dough consistency was a lot better than previous experiments. The blender is out.
I should have measured the amount of pulverized seeds. With regular flour I would use 3 cups or so with 1 cup water.
I used 1 TBL sugar, 4 tsp wheat gluten, 1/2 cup water (115 degrees), 2 1/4 tsp active dried yeast, 1 tsp salt.
I put the dry ingredients at the bottom of a bowl (without mixing them and included yeast) topped them with pulverized seed. Mixed in 1/2 cup 115 deg water and used a dough hook to mix. The dough hook didn’t mix well. I had to use a rubber spatula to feed th glop into the dough hook.
The bread rose a little but was still gooey after cooking at 350 deg for 40 minutes (though the top was brown).
Next time:
1. All ingredients at room temp. Takes about 20 minutes out of the fridge.
2. Mix yeast in 115 deg bottled water. Yeast clings to surface so use something thin to stir (chopstick). Let yeast sit in water for a minute (to absorb) then stir until dissolved.
Use INSTANT dry yeast and you do not have to do this step.
3. Mix sugar, wheat gluten with seed flour.
4. in bowl, mix 1 cup sugar flour to dissolved yeast. Use paddle mixer.
5. switch to doughhook. On very low speed mix in salt then rest of flour.
6. once mixed, let rest for 5 minutes.
7. Knead using doughhook for 5 minutes on low speed.
8. Put in pan. Cover tightly so crust doesn’t form. Let rise 30 min to 2 hrs until it has doubled in size.
9. Punch down and put in baking pan. Covr and let rise about an hour. It should double in size.
10. Bake at 325 deg for 45 min.
After a long development period, I finally finished the code to handle comments. Well, nothing is ever finished. Converting all the recipes, articles, etc to handle comments will take some time. I started with the pizza section.
After posting several chili recipes I tried my hand at making a signature one. The first cut is called dougthecook vegetarian chili.
I started with vegetarian because I had no meat fit for chili around. Also the garden has been producing a lot of Anaheim chiles so they went into the chili pot. Since I have an affinity for black beans in they went. Next time I’ll add some pinto beans or red beans, too. The carrots add some sweetness and don’t affect the chili taste.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
The first crack at Ezekiel bread was not so good.
The seeds sprouted faster than I expected – about 2 days for all of them. I used a 1 quart mason jar, put the seeds in the jar, covered it with cheesecloth (held on by a rubberband), rinsed then covered the seeds about 3 times their height in water.
After sitting overnight, I drained the jars, rinsed, drained. The rinse, drain cycle was done until the seed sprouts were as long as the seed itself.
Here’s where I made a mistake.
I put the seeds in a blender with 1 cup water and ground them to a pulp. The problem was it was way too watery. I think there is enough moisture in the seeds to use 1/4 cup of water or less.
After mixing all the other ingredients, and putting it in a glass bread pan (next time I’m using metal because the bread did not cook crisp) the bread rose well. I sprinked sesame seeds on top and into the oven it went. 350 degrees for 45 minutes.
The bread was way too soggy for rescue. The taste was sprouted bread familiar so I’m on the right track.
I have another batch of seeds sprouting. On to phase 2!
Okay, I’m on a quest to make Ezekiel bread, much like Trader Joe’s sesame version. It is delicious and has a taste of its own. Many of the grains and beans are sprouted which give the bread much more nutrition than unsprouted version.
The Bible gave a generic recipe in Ezekiel 4:9 (the name of the bread in stores):
“Then take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and winter wheat. Put them in a container, and use them to make bread for yourself. Eat it during the 390 days that you are lying on your side.”
Unfortunately, there are no measurements. ..and the versions I have seen call for yeast, salt, and a few other ingredients.
The ingredients are:
We started sprouting the soybeans as they will take 5 days or so. Lentils 4 days and the rest 3 days. I’ll detail the sprouting and baking soon.
I have been collecting chili recipes for years. It is time to share them. Of course I have not made them all – way too many.
Chili Recipes at dougthecook
Also included are various tips on making better chili.
Be patient; there are a *lot* of them.
Though dougthecook has posted an excellent pizza dough, it has a lot of ingredients. In a pursuit to make a simpler dough for those busy nights, aka Trader Joe’s dough (which is 5 ingredients), here is the first try at it:
2 3/4 cups white flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
3 TBL vegetable oil
1 cup warm water (115 degrees)
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp active dry yeast
I made it 2 nights ago. It is a little sticky. Surprising, it rose quite a bit but no sugar was added for the yeast to feast upon. The taste results will be posted soon.
I made some pancakes, AJ whole wheat ones, and found a nice way to get them done in the middle and fluffy.
Normally pancakes are cooked on a griddle. Since my kitchen is sans griddle, I used a saucepan. The first pancake came out gooey in the middle.
My wife suggested covering the pan with a lid. Did that make a difference! Not only was the pancake cooked through, it came out nice and fluffy. A see-through lid is the best because you can see the bubbles forming on the pancake which means time to flip it.
Doug