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Post by farmerjack41 on May 16, 2020 23:49:54 GMT -5
Chicken breast on the grill and a baked spud. Took some strawberries out of the freezer and covered ice cream with them.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 18, 2020 11:21:11 GMT -5
Chicken fajitas are the plan for tonight - my oldest son is making them. Hopefully soon I won't have to use store-bought peppers for my fajitas for the rest of the summer.
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Post by brownrexx on May 18, 2020 16:27:27 GMT -5
Hopefully soon I won't have to use store-bought peppers for my fajitas for the rest of the summer. I used the last of my frozen green peppers tonight and made stuffed peppers. Stuffed Peppers by Brownrexx, on Flickr
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Post by september on May 18, 2020 16:51:03 GMT -5
brownrexx , do you freeze them already stuffed, or do you freeze empty cut halves? I always slice or chop my frozen peppers, I assumed that cut halves would be too floppy to hold the stuffing, but if it works .....?
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Post by brownrexx on May 18, 2020 17:18:02 GMT -5
september, these were not frozen already stuffed. The stuffing was made fresh tonight but I freeze all of my peppers as halves. I use most of them cut into strips for things like stir fry or quesadillas and I cut them while they are still frozen. They are really easy to cut that way. I don't like to cut them before freezing for 2 reasons. First I am super busy putting veggies in the freezer at that time. It is really easy to just cut the peppers in half and blot them dry with a paper towel to remove excess moisture and pop into bags in the freezer. Secondly I think that it allows the peppers to lose less moisture in the freezer by not having as many cut edges as in chopped peppers. They are so easy to cut when frozen.
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dirtguy50
Pro Member
My avatar got in trouble for digging in the garden
Posts: 255
Zone:: 6b
Joined: February 2014
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Post by dirtguy50 on May 18, 2020 19:32:35 GMT -5
brownrexx, we stuff the whole peppers with raw stuffing and freeze on sheets then vacumn seal when they are still frozen. For us, that really works well. I do blanch the peppers first.
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Post by september on May 18, 2020 21:49:13 GMT -5
brownrexx , I grow a lot of non-bells, different colors of the mini-peppers, and many large elongated cone or flat ones, none of them work for easy stuffing, so I chop some for soups and stews, and slice some of the longer ones for stir fry. For me, it works to just smash the frozen package on the side of the counter a few times, which loosens up the peppers so I can take out what I need. But I like the idea of leaving some of the bells as halves.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 19, 2020 10:43:12 GMT -5
It's not supper, but right now I am having my first BLT with a homegrown tomato (Prime Rib) and the last of my lettuce. Yum!
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 19, 2020 20:12:32 GMT -5
Rye bread, with sprouted rye flour. by pepperhead212, on Flickr OMG that bread smells good!! It's not for supper, but I will eat some, as soon as it cools. I'm baking a type of bread for the first time - using something I have not made before: sprouted rye flour. First, I sprouted the rye, then dehydrated the sprouts, then ground them into flour. Rye berries started sprouting 5-14 by pepperhead212, on Flickr Rye berries sprouting, after just about 8 hours. by pepperhead212, on Flickr Sprouted rye, ready to put into the dehydrator, after just 32 hours. by pepperhead212, on Flickr The bread that I'm baking started with a soaker, in which the rye sprout flour is soaked overnight with some salt and the buttermilk, as the liquid. A biga is made with a small amount of yeast, plus some water and white bread flour, and that is refrigerated overnight. These are combined the following day, with more yeast, salt, rye flour, and molasses, to make the final dough. I didn't use any WW flour, just to get the flavor of the sprouted rye, with little to mask it. Now I'm making some sprouted wheat flour - even more of that. I bought 25 lbs each of rye and hard white wheat berries, since I didn't want to go to my usual places to get my whole grain flours. It's been a while since I used my grain mill - I've used the Vitamix for making smaller amounts of flours now for years, but the Nutrimill is better for larger amounts. The wheat sprouted slower, but it's in the dehydrator now. I started with 6 c of berries - I'll see what that results in. About half of my sprouted wheat, after 28 hours. by pepperhead212, on Flickr Sprouted wheat, after 28 hours, around 10 am Monday - slower than the rye berries. by pepperhead212, on Flickr Wheat sprouts, being put in the dehydrator, around 2:00 pm Tuesday. by pepperhead212, on Flickr
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Post by september on May 19, 2020 22:41:58 GMT -5
pepperhead212 , talk about cooking from scratch! You even 'grow" and grind your own flour! I would love a taste of that bread. At some point, can you use the same recipe using sprouted vs hard berry flour to see if there is a difference in taste or texture?
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 20, 2020 9:45:54 GMT -5
That would be an interesting experiment. If you decide to do that, I'd love to hear the results.
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 20, 2020 18:59:02 GMT -5
pepperhead212 , talk about cooking from scratch! You even 'grow" and grind your own flour! I would love a taste of that bread. At some point, can you use the same recipe using sprouted vs hard berry flour to see if there is a difference in taste or texture? I have never used the sprouted wheat flour (and haven't even seen sprouted rye flour), but since the 70s I have been making a recipe of WW bread, that has a quarter cup of wheat berries (to I think 6 c of WW flour), that are sprouted, and added whole, to the dough, and they give it a unique flavor. It wasn't until many years later that I started seeing the sprouted wheat flour in the catalogs, and later online. But the price is sky-high, so you know I didn't pay it! lol But all those rye berries and wheat berries made me think about making my own, so I did! And I had no problem in that clear sprouter, as far as the sprouts turning green, the time was so short, and I'm not even sure that would be a bad thing. I'll have to make a batch of WW bread sticks, one with just WW flour, and one with the sprouted wheat flour. This would be the easiest way to compare them side by side. I'll post my results. I can't really say that the sprouted rye bread had a different flavor - I had never made that particular recipe, and chose it for simplicity, with the rye flour in the forefront. Maybe I'll make another batch, with just fresh rye flour, to compare them.
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Post by spike on May 20, 2020 19:01:02 GMT -5
I am impressed! I managed to nuke left overs in the micro and you are sprouting wheat and rye berries!
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 21, 2020 19:02:36 GMT -5
Homemade lasagna is in the oven and starting to smell really good, so it will be ready soon. One end of the lasagna has eggplant in it instead of pasta for me.
The herbs in the lasagna are from my garden. The lettuce and tomatoes in the salad are mine, too.
Yes, we're eating late. I had my youngest help me cook, and he is just starting to learn to cook. This is only his third time using a chef's knife, and today I taught him how to crack eggs - I only had to fish out one bit of shell, heh.) Plus I was taking the time to explain why we do things in certain ways - food safety, knife safety, etc. So, prepping took a wee bit longer than usual. Okay, more than a wee bit. But I think it's important to teaching the kids how to cook.
Hmmm, smells like time to get the garlic bread going...
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 21, 2020 23:29:31 GMT -5
Today I made a nutritious one dish sort of a Thai fusion dish, between a curry and satay. I first pressure cooked about 1/2 lb of red chori seeds in the Instantpot for 10 min, while preparing the greens (purple kale, senposai, and outer red dragon napa leaves), and onion (actually a very large scallion, from the garden), then drained and rinsed them. Then I cooked the chopped scallion in some coconut oil until turning golden, and added about 1/2 c red Thai curry paste, and cooked about 5 min. Then I stirred in a quart of coconut milk, 5 pairs of lime leaves, 3 tb each of fish sauce, palm sugar, and lime juice, along with the half cooked beans, and about a half cup of brown basmati rice, soaked while the beans were cooking. I also added a whole chocolate habanero, and whole aji dulce, and a pound of chopped up greens - purple kale, senposai, and purple napa...so not many greens really! lol I cooked it for 10 min. again, then let the pressure release naturally (update - this is where I added 2 tb of chunky peanut butter - thus the satay part). I removed the leaves and the chiles, and adjusted the salt with a little more fish sauce. Sort of a Thai curry/satay with chori beans and greens. by pepperhead212, on Flickr
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 22, 2020 9:31:26 GMT -5
Ooh, that sounds really different and really good (but I'm sure it was way too hot for a pepper wimp like me).
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Post by brownrexx on May 25, 2020 8:39:37 GMT -5
It's Memorial Day so I decided on a traditional meal of burgers on the grill, grilled fresh garden asparagus and I made potato salad from the last 6 potatoes that I had stored from last year's garden.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 25, 2020 14:00:32 GMT -5
We're going to grill burgers later also. I don't have any fresh asparagus here, but at least I have a few tomatoes!
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Post by spike on May 25, 2020 15:09:38 GMT -5
We will be having hamburgers, hotdogs, baked beans, potato salad and macaroni salad. My brother cooked enough food for 30 people yesterday and it is just the 4 of us SO I will go raid his fridge. I am tuckered out.
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Post by bestofour on May 25, 2020 22:41:57 GMT -5
No burgers here. Fried chicken and potato salad.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 26, 2020 10:51:00 GMT -5
Doing a chicken stir-fry tonight, nothing fancy.
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Post by brownrexx on May 26, 2020 14:47:13 GMT -5
Same here doing a chicken and bok choy stir-fry over rice with a side salad because I just picked my red romaine lettuce. My bok choy bolted due to our crazy weather and I read that the unopened flowers are tasty and salad so we are going to give that a try. Took a pic after I made dinner. The chicken and Bok Choy was served over Basmati rice and you can see the Bok Choy flowers in the salads. The flowers were not bad. They pretty much tasted like Bok Choy with a broccoli like feel.
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Post by farmerjack41 on May 26, 2020 17:42:02 GMT -5
Put a pork roast in the crock pot, probably add some mashed taters to the plate. Nothing fancy like you folks do.
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 26, 2020 20:42:00 GMT -5
Though I didn't have this for dinner (actually, I haven't even baked them yet!), I made two small batches of dough, with WW flour, and WW sprout flour, both of which I ground today. The sprout flour definitely has a different aroma, so the flavor should different, and it reminds me of that bread that I make, with the whole sprouts in it, even though the raw sprouts don't have that flavor. I first ground just a few of the sprouts, as the instructions said not to grind sprouted grains, but it worked fine. I think they said not to do that because not all sprouted grain would be dried as much, but I dehydrated mine. WW sprouts in Nutrimill. by pepperhead212, on Flickr Finished WW sprout flour. by pepperhead212, on Flickr I ground about 42 oz of WW sprouts, 54 oz of the hard white wheat, 64 oz of rye, and 3 c of sorghum, which ground into about 4 c. I was thinking of grinding some other things, since I had to clean up just once, but the other things I can do smaller amounts of, in the Vitamix - the reason I haven't used the mill for a while. For the dough flours I used 8.50 oz of, and equal weights of water, salt, yeast, and honey. I added a small amount of the regular flour, as that dough was slightly wet - maybe the sprouts were dryer, having been in the dehydrator. Dough made for bread sticks, left one WW sprout flour, right with plain WW. by pepperhead212, on Flickr I'll post my taste test!
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 26, 2020 22:27:38 GMT -5
I baked the two sets of bread sticks, diving them into approximately 72 g amounts. The regular WW batch was still slightly moister, and the sprout batch baked slightly darker. The flavor of the sprout batch did have a different flavor, though it wasn't as strong as the aroma of the flour. Both rose about the same amount. Bread sticks, with WW flour and WW sprout flour. by pepperhead212, on Flickr
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Post by september on May 26, 2020 22:35:35 GMT -5
Fascinating comparison! Wish I could help with the taste test ... so which did you prefer? Or equally good, just different?
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 26, 2020 22:53:34 GMT -5
Both good, but different, september. I'll have to make a batch of WW bread with some fresh sprouts, and some with maybe 30% sprout flour, to see if the flour gives it as much and the same flavor as the fresh sprouts.
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Post by brownrexx on May 27, 2020 17:38:26 GMT -5
I had a big head of cauliflower in the refrigerator and also some left over home made pizza sauce so I decided to bread and fry some cauliflower "steaks" and then covered them with sauce and mozzarella cheese. We had asparagus as a side dish and I think that it was a good meal. Hubby indicated that I should not make this again. I also made some rhubarb bread for dessert later and I think that he will l like that. Cauliflower Parmesan by Brownrexx, on Flickr
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Post by spike on May 27, 2020 19:01:28 GMT -5
Hubby indicated that I should not make this again. LOL Looks delicious to me!
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 27, 2020 19:45:23 GMT -5
Some friends talking about Asian chili garlic sauce gave me a craving for one of my favorites - the Thai Mahogany Fire Noodles. I used 16 Thai dragons (frozen from last year) and 12 cloves of garlic, minced up to start the stir-fry, and fortunately, I have a powerful range hood! I used some chicken from the freezer (something I'm trying to empty as much as possible), sliced carrots, instead of bamboo shoots (I often use kohlrabi, or broccoli stems, for the crispy slices), and I only had the narrower, pad Thai type noodles instead of the wider ones I like better, but it was all good...and hot! If I had to pick a hottest dish that I make, this is it. Some of the ingredients for Mahogany Fire Noodles. by pepperhead212, on Flickr Garlic and Thai dragons, starting Mahogany Fire Noodles. by pepperhead212, on Flickr Mint and Basil, finishing of the Mahogany Fire Noodles. by pepperhead212, on Flickr Mahogany Fire Noodles, ready to burn me up! by pepperhead212, on Flickr
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