Flour measurements

I found this handy way to convert flour measurements in cookbooks from volume to weight. Food people are always blah blah blahing about how it's more accurate to measure flour by weight than by volume, and it's not a real cookbook unless it does flour by weight. Whatever. It's just easier for me since I got a scale.

• 5.5 ounces per cup for bread flour
• 5 ounces per cup for all purpose flour
• 4 ounces per cup for cake flour

Mushroom Lasagna

From Smitten Kitchen:

Serves 6 to 8 (more as a first course)

• Salt
• Olive oil
• 3/4 pound dried lasagna noodles
• 1 large clove garlic, minced
• 4 cups whole milk
• 3/4 cup (12 tablespoons or 1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, divided
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/3 teaspoon ground nutmeg (the recipe called for 1 tsp)
• 1 1/2 pounds cremini or portobello mushrooms
• 1 cup freshly grated parmesan

Preheat your oven to 375°F. Bring a large, wide (if you use a wide one, you can save a dish later and saute your mushrooms in the bottom of it) of water to boil with salt and a splash of oil, that will help keep your noodles from sticking together as they drain. Add the lasagna noodles and cook for 10 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Make béchamel: Bring the milk and garlic to simmer in a saucepan, or heat it in your microwave, and set it aside. Melt 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons or 1 stick) butter in a large saucepan. If your name is Deb, you will probably brown this butter, too. Add the flour and cook for one minute over low heat, stirring constantly with a whisk or wooden spoon. Pour in the hot milk, a little at a time at first and stirring until combined. Once you’ve added half of it, you can add the second half all at once, along with 1 1/2 teaspoons table salt, the pepper, and nutmeg. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring or whisking frequently, for 3 to 5 minutes, or until thick. Set aside.

Prepare mushrooms: Discard portobello mushroom stems and/or trim the ends of the cremini stems. Slice mushrooms 1/4-inch thick. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil and 2 tablespoons butter over medium in the bottom of the large, wide pot you used to cook the noodles earlier, or in a large sauté pan. Cook the mushrooms with a couple pinches of salt for about 5 minutes, or until they are tender and release some of their juices, tossing to make sure they cook evenly. Repeat with additional oil and butter, and remaining mushrooms.

Assemble lasagna: Spread some of the sauce in the bottom of an 8 x 12 or 9 x 13 baking dish. (Ina recommends the former, I only had the latter; if you’d like to freeze or give this dish as a gift, remember to use a foil pan). Arrange a layer of noodles on top*, then more sauce (about 1/4 of what remains), 1/3 of the mushrooms and 1/4 cup grated parmesan. Repeat two more times then top with a final layer of noodles, your remaining sauce and last 1/4 cup of parmesan.

Bake for 45 minutes, or until top is browned and the sauce is bubbly. Let sit at room temperature for 15 minutes before serving. To freeze for future use, allow it to cool completely and wrap two to three times in plastic wrap before freezing.

RESULTS:
Holy nutmeg Batman! The recipe called for 1 tsp. I used 3/4 tsp, and it was a lot of nutmeg still. In the recipe above I reduced the amount. Otherwise this was very good. I would also recommend caution with cooking the mushroom. I overcooked them, so they released a LOT of their juices, and it left them a little dried out in the lasagna, but with a runny mushroom juice (I poured the juice in the final layer thinking the pasta would soak it up, but it didn't).

I'm procrastinating and thought I'd assemble some recent thoughts on and realizations about food.

Things I used to like and now, for various reasons, don't

Turmeric: There was an incident involving me and the wrong end of a practical joke. I'd rather not go into it at the moment, but let's just say a perfectly good white shirt was no longer white. [Chris wanted me to say that he had nothing to do with this particular incident.]

Scallops: It could be that I just thought I liked scallops because the chefs on Top Chef are always cooking with them, but I've decided that they just don't have any flavor and the texture isn't great. Meh. No wonder the chefs who cook with scallops tend to get sent home that episode.

Ground Beef: I think this is a case of me just cooking dishes with ground beef wrongly over and over that now I don't like it, at least when I make it. I like it when other people make it, say in chili, hamburgers, or sauce, but not when I make it.

Things I still don't like, and may never like

Arugala: It's just mean. You think you're going to get lettuce--nice, sweet, simple lettuce. And then BAM! You get socked in the jaw with this impostor lettuce, this sneaky spicy assassin lettuce that gets you when you least expect it. Pass.

Radishes: See above. I'll leave the radishes to the fraggles.

Raisins: I get creeped out just thinking about raisins and that awful grit that they have sometimes. Yeesh. Gives me the willies. And they're so cloyingly sweet. My dislike of raisins eclipses my dislike of any other food, which is to say that I will eat them when I have to, or when it would be rude to not, or if they are covered in a lot of chocolate, but given my druthers they would drop off the face of the planet.

Beets: This one might be iffy. I liked beets when Jean made them for me once, and I like borscht. I just never like them when I make them, they always seem to taste like pickled beets, which I do not like.

Things I have always liked, but now I like more

Cherry Tomatoes: Once I discovered how good home-grown tomatoes are, warm from the sun and sweet, I've bought so many fewer grocery store tomatoes. It's just a completely different animal, and so much less fun than my own.

Pickles: The freezer pickles I made have been heaven. I could eat an entire pint in a sitting if I didn't remember how much salt and sugar is in a pint.

Things I used to not like, but now I do, and why

Eggplant: I think I primarily didn't like eggplant because I never cooked it long enough so I didn't like the texture, and I didn't like the flavor. So basically, I just hated it. When they were visiting, Dave and Kathy told me about the trick of salting the cut-up eggplant, letting it sit for a while, and then rinsing it off to get rid of the bitterness (also works with cucumbers, apparently, although I've always liked the way they taste). I also tried some eggplant Parmesan that I liked a lot, although what doesn't taste excellent smothered in tomato sauce and cheese? Regardless, now I loooove eggplant! I've been getting the long, skinny kind, but might soon branch out to the more eggplant-y shaped.

Chives: Mostly, I think that I like that I grew these chives (which I planted for their pretty purple flower in early spring). The chives, shall we say, thrived, and now I have to like them as I am my father's daughter and can't let food go to waste. They're growing on me, especially with mushrooms.

Brussel Sprouts: All it takes is one good recipe, I think.

Harper the Killer

Only tangentially related to food. I was in the front yard harvesting some chives when I hear Harper barking from the backyard. It was the same bark she uses when she's playing with another dog, and the dog is taking a time out and lying down and refusing to run around. It's sort of her, "come on, play with me!" bark, and is usually accompanied by a play bow. I go to the back to see what the ruckus is and I see Harper poking and barking at a rather dead mouse. Since she left it alone rather quickly once I yelled at her and hadn't already tried to eat it, I'm guessing she didn't see it as a food source, but rather as a playmate (it is very difficult to separate Harper from food. Not that she's protective of it and growls, just that she gulps food down so quickly there's no opportunity). I don't know if I would be more disturbed by her actually going after a mouse to kill it on purpose, or that she accidentally killed what she thought was a playmate.... well, either way, that's one less mouse that we have to worry about getting into the house!

No-Time Bread

4 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (two packets)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 cups water
3 1/2 cups bread flour
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

• In the bowl of a heavy-duty stand mixer put the yeast, sugar, and water and let it sit.
• Heat the oven to 450°F. Put a Dutch oven (or one of these alternatives) in to warm as the oven heats. Get out your flour, salt, vinegar, spray oil, and anything else you need.
• Now that the yeast has had a few minutes to bubble up, add 3 cups of the flour as well as the salt and vinegar and beat for several minutes with the paddle. Add the last 1/2 cup of flour and switch to the dough hook and beat for seven minutes. Alternately, knead vigorously for five minutes, or until the dough becomes extremely elastic. This will still be a wet dough, but not goopy. The dough will clear the sides of the bowl but still stick to the bottom.
• Lightly grease a microwave-safe bowl with vegetable oil and transfer the bread dough to it, rolling it in the oil. Cover the bowl with a very wet towel. Cover the whole thing with a dry towel and put in the microwave. Microwave on HIGH for 25 seconds.
• Let rest in the microwave for about five minutes.
• Microwave on HIGH for another 25 seconds, then remove.
• Let rest and rise for another 15 minutes.
• Shape into a ball and plop into the preheated pan. Quickly slash the top with a knife. Cover and bake for about 30 minutes, then remove the cover and bake for another 10 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown and the internal temperature hits 210.

RESULTS:
Chris and I are both sick, and our food supplies are awfully low, so bread seemed like a good thing to make. I was more intrigued by this recipe than expecting it to be good--I mean, how can you beat good old regular bread? First impression is that calling it "no-time" bread is a bit of a misnomer. I mean, it still takes about an hour to come together, which is certainly shorter than regular bread, but it's not like you can just pull it together last minute. It's also certainly not simpler than regular bread. I also think it could have used more salt.