Living dangerously by baking that close to your games! 
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Because a trip to Canada is not the brightest idea right now, we brought a little Canada to the table by making poutine last night:
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Today we made vegetarian miso ramen at home:
Last week-end I made 5 Liters of vegetable broth, so it was a natural occurrence also precipitated by an excursion to the local Asian supermarket yesterday and watching James May eat robot-sushi. If we canât go to the Ramen shop in town⊠we have to make our own.
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Not big on veggie broth, but that picture still makes me want some ramen!
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Tonight I invented a dish inspired by Cantonese food: I cut up one large carrot into eighth-inch disks, one red bell pepper into quarter-inch strips, three stalks of celery into quarter-inch sections, and two green onions into half-inch sections, and I cut up a half-pound cooked chicken breast. I put first the carrots and celery, then the pepper and chicken, and last the onion into hot sesame oil (a fairly think layer on the bottom of a skillet), seasoning them with powdered ginger, garlic powder, a pinch of orange peel, and soy sauce at the end, and cooked them with the lid on most of the time, taking it off occasionally to stir. Then I served it all over red rice. I hadnât tried this combination before, but I thought the outcome was happy; Iâm going to make it again.
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itâs late November and as I said Iâm baking PlĂ€tzchen.
These are my take on Elisen Lebkuchen. they are made with hazelnuts, almonds, Zitronat (sugared lemon peel) and some spices (cinnamon, cloves and cardamom). I reduce sugar and add flour (not an original ingredient) to add stability. these are the quickest and easiest of the bunch needing no prep time at all.
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With Thanksgiving here in the US coming up, Iâve really been struggling with what that means this year. Normally, Thanksgiving is one of the 2 or 3 times each year that I get to see my parents, sister, and my grandmother. We donât live far apart (each household no more than an hourâs drive from any other), but we are just not very good at being close. I see my in-laws weekly, whereas my 3 year old (sheâll be three on Friday, at least) doesnât even know what my mom looks like.
So, what would normally be a good reason to invite my family over is, this year, just a little depressing as I feel age 3 is probably within the prime years of starting to develop actual relationships with family.
My partner and I have decided to enjoy the holiday as much as we can, celebrating just the 4 of us (or 5, if you count the cat, which we do). Despite the fact that we see my partnerâs parents, on average, more than once a week, we will not be sharing the day with them as we all felt that would just seem unfair to my partnerâs siblings who, due to their lines of work, pose a significant threat to the health of my in-laws.
In preparation, my partner has made homemade apple pie filling (last weekend) and homemade pie crust dough (last night). I forgot to grab pictures of that.
Normally when it comes to Thanksgiving and Christmas, my family has a tradition of preparing âThe Mealâ which is beef roast, egg noodles, gravy, and mashed potatoes. The beef roast (for family reasons I donât quite understand) is intentionally burned in the slow cooker. If we are making âThe Mealâ for Thanksgiving, traditionally the beef roast would be in addition to the turkey, but lately that wholly depends on the number of people weâre expecting that day. Unfortunately, the egg noodles (a.k.a. the best part of âThe Mealâ) is a family recipe thatâs not well documented and my dad has not been willing to teach it to me at this time (mostly due to timelines and not an unwillingness to share⊠though⊠âŠ)
So, knowing that I wonât have homemade egg noodles, I felt I needed to compensate, so I opted to try my hand at homemade dinner rolls. I looked up an Alton Brown recipe and followed it dutifully, only remembering to take some pictures about half-way through:
After combining, resting, dough-hook working, and leaving to rise the first time, I parted the dough into roughly 2 oz balls and covered to let them proof
After proof, I brushed them with butter and baked them at 275° F (135 C) until reaching 185° F (85 C) internal temp
And then, they cooled on the counter, first in the pan and then turned out for about an hour and a half before going in the freezer.
Tomorrow afternoon, they will emerge from the freezer, thaw to room temp and then be introduced to a 400° F (204 C) oven for 10-12 minutes to brown.
Tomorrow, my partner will start a beef roast (weâre not big fans of turkey, so weâre passing on that hassle, expense, and overwhelming amount of food) in the morning in the electric slow cooker. Iâll be making mashed potatoes, candied yams, gravy from the roastâs drippings, and some fresh green beans. Hopefully Iâll remember to take some pictures.
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I like turkey a lot, but a whole roast turkey is unrealistically huge for two people. My usual practice is to buy separate turkey thighs, boil them, and use the meatâand save the broth. After three or four cycles itâs way better than any commercial product.
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Have a great day.
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My wife doesnât like turkey, and as Bill says itâs huge (and itâs just the two of us). So normally I have a turkey-type Christmas lunch at the pub at the end of the road, and on Christmas day something else entirely.
(Fortunately I am a warm sort of person, so I should be able to eat in the pub garden. I havenât been inside, other than for one brief trip to see what theyâd set up, since roughly March.)
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Yesterdayâs pie baking, for todayâs feast. Just the three of us, so only two pies.
Off to do rolls now.
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Not for one-upsmanship, but more of a reminder cue: the pies my partner made yesterday:
She was only going to make the apple pie, but her friend convinced her to do a pumpkin as well (reminding her to just freeze whatever we donât eat). Itâs an unwieldy amount of pie for 2 adults and 2 small children. (Also, weâre picking up a cake tomorrow for my oldestâs birthday tomorrow)
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Not a great picture, but these are our first attempt at potato, spinach and paneer burgers/ kebabs. There is a proper Indian name but I donât have the cookbook to hand. Topped with a homemade onion bhaji.
They were lovely, up there with the best burgers weâve ever made at home (including beef and chicken burgers)
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That sounds and looks delicious. So the burger is made from just potato and paneer? Since I canât eat beef anymore (I can eat other meats, just beef makes me sick) I am always on the lookout for alternativesâŠ
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Thatâs the ingredients and instructions. Hara bhara kebab burgers
Itâs from this fantastic book
He also does this for restaurant style curry
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Ahhh 
thank you so much.
My partner is going to love it when I am making those burger buns he likes so much 
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Can I have the recipe for the buns please?
The onion bhaji recipe is in the red book. It uses Panch Phoran which is something Iâd never heard of, but it makes them taste exactly like the ones from a restaurant.
We had a bit of mango chutney in them so they werenât dry
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I will get out my burger bun recipe tomorrow morning promised. They are a bit involved with sour dough and all that but I have made them twice and they were really good both times.
Hereâs the original:
from this book: Brotbackbuch Nr. 4 | brotbackbuch.debrotbackbuch.de
Iâll translate to the best of my ability.
Sour dough Burger Buns according to Plötz
The Plan
Start with a âplanâ as this recipe takes a while to make. Example from the book:
- refresh your sourdough starter Thursday 6pm (better Friday 2pm)
- make sourdough Friday 5pm
- knead dough Friday 9:30pm
- form dough pieces Saturday 6am
- bake Saturday 11am
Now the steps (as outlined above)
Sourdough
Ingredients:
| Amount | Ingredient | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 16g | Water at 80°C [1] | 4% |
| 10g | Sugar | 2.4% |
| 32g | wheat flour 550 [2] | 8% |
| 32g | wheat sourdough starter [3] | 8% |
| 14g | butter (soft) | 3.5% |
Dissolve the sugar in the water, put the other ingredients on top and mix into a medium-firm, homogenous dough.
Leave this alone for 4-5 hours at 27°-28°C [4]
The colume should at least double
Main Dough
Ingredients:
| Amount | Ingredient | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| the sourdough | ||
| 307g | wheat flour 550 | 76.67% |
| 40g | spelt four 630 [5] | 10% |
| 136g | water at 20°C [1] | 34% |
| 100g | egg ~= 2 eggs | 25% |
| 7g | salt | 1.8% |
| 30g | sugar | 7.6% |
| 86g | butter | 21.5% |
Once again dissolve sugar in water. Knead all the ingredients except for the butter for 5 minutes on the lowest setting of your kitchen machine. Then knead everything for 15 minutes on the second lowest setting. Then add the butter and knead for another 8 minutes.
Protect the dough from drying out by covering it and let it rise for 7-8 hours at 27°-28°C [4]
The volume should double.
Put some flour onto your work area and put the dough on top. Use a knife or dough scraper to cut 90g pieces (it really pays to use a scale here) and then process each dough pieces to a nice round form by a process called ârundschleifenâ
Then dunk each dough piece into water (top-side only) and cover with sesame seeds. I personally like to use both black and white sesame but use whatever you want.
Put the dough pieces on a baking tray and again protect them from drying out with a plastic back or other cover. [6]
Rest the dough pieces for another 4-5 hours at 27-28°C
When the volume has about double again, spray the dough pieces with water.
Bake them on a preheated stone in the oven at 230°. Add steam immediately. Reduce oven temperature to 200°C once the dough is inside. Do not open the door to let the steam out! Bake for 18-20 minutes.
[1] water temperatures are important! Try to get as close to this as you can
[2] 550 is the coarseness of the flour, this is the German variation of âstandardâ flour. Bread flour would be 1050 and rye is usually sold at 1150, there is a finer powdery variant sometimes used for cakes 405 but my local expert tells me that is just dusty leftovers from the grinding process and shouldnât be used.
[3] If you only have a rye starter thatâs ok but will change the results. Itâs really easy to make your own starter, just mix together whole wheat flour with water in equal measure (~ 50-100g each) and wait for it to start bubbling. Then feed it a couple times and at last when it off the whole wheat and replace with just wheat flour. VoilĂ starter. (If you really want to try this and donât already know, let me know Iâll post a more detailed step by step instruction)
[4] Again temperatures matter, for each 5 degrees you are off you need to shorten or lengthen the process by approximately 1 hour
[5] spelt flour is quite common here thanks to the teachings of Hildegard von Bingen being popular with a certain crowd (at least that is the reason people started using it I believe). If you donât have spelt replace it with more wheat flour
[6] for other recipes I use bakerâs linen but it turns out cloth is not enough to prevent these from drying out, so some kind of plastic is optimal.
If you have any questions please donât hesitate to ask.
Btw the recipe is from one of the books of the author of this blog: https://www.ploetzblog.de/
He also has a vegan variant using rye starter on his blog: Vegane Burger Buns - Plötzblog - Selbst gutes Brot backen
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Iâm gonna have to go and look for those books now, and definitely going to try that recipe. I had to lookup Panch Phoran too.
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