Acorn squash avocado muffins スクワシュ、アボカドマフィン

This muffin came about because we had a small amount of left over cooked acorn squash and a very ripe avocado.  Amazingly, my wife found a muffin recipe which used both these ingredients. The original recipe called for butternut squash but my wife (the wizard of substitution) thought the cooked acorn squash would work just fine. This recipe seemed such an implausible combination of ingredients she just had to make it.

Ingredients: makes 12 muffins (This is based on a recipe found on line but my wife changed a few items because of ingredients we had).

1 cup of cooked acorn squash (to cook the squash, cut in half, remove the seeds, place the cut side down on a cookie sheet and bake at 350F for 30 minutes or until it becomes soft then scoop out the cooked meat).
2 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cup almond flour
1 tbs baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 small ripe avocado, skin and stone removed and mashed (about 1/2 cup)
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 almond extract
2/3 cup milk

Directions:
Combine the wet ingredients (#1) and the dry ingredients (#2).
Mix the wet and dry ingredients in a bowl with a spatula until well combined (#3)
Place the batter in muffin tin (This filled 12 wells) (#4)
Bake 350F for 25 minutes (#5 and 6).

After tasting this muffin you would never in a million years guess that is was made with squash and avocado. The flavor was slightly sweet with a hint of cinnamon and maybe (if you really really looked for it) a slight hint of avocado. The texture was moist with a fine crumb--a very nice breakfast muffin. If we hadn't made it ourselves we never would have believed it.

No Knead whole wheat bread 捏ねない全粒小麦粉パン

This is from Washington post's  free-bee digital baking cookbook. We made "No knead English muffin"  from this cookbook which was very easy and good. So we decide to try this second recipe from the same cookbook. It turns out this is the most rustic bread we've ever made (or even eaten for that matter). Later we learned this recipe is originally by Jim Lahey's cookbook "My Bread. The revolutionally no-work, no-knead method". So, we also got his book. Certainly, this bread looks nice, rustic and artisanal without kneading.

Cutting into it; a nice crust and very "hole-y".

Ingredients:
300 grams (2 1⁄4 cups) bread flour, plus more for the work surface
100 grams (3/4 cup) whole-wheat flour
1 1⁄4 teaspoons table salt


1⁄2 teaspoon dried instant yeast

300 grams (1 1/3 cups) cool water (55 to 65 degrees)
Wheat bran or cornmeal, for dusting (may use additional flour)

I weighed the flours and water. I used yellow corn meal for dusting.

Directions:
Step 1: Stir together the flours, salt and yeast in a medium bowl. Add the water; use a wooden spoon or your hands to mix until you have a wet, sticky dough, about 30 seconds. Cover the bowl and let the mixture sit at room temperature until its surface is dotted with bubbles and the dough has more than doubled in size, 12 to 18 hours.

Step 2: Generously dust a work surface with flour. Use a rubber spatula or lightly floured hands to scrape the dough onto the surface in one piece. Use your lightly floured hands to lift the edges of the dough up and in toward the center. Gently pinch the pulled- up dough together, cupping the edges in your hands as needed to nudge it into a round (don’t worry about making it a perfect circle).

Step 3: Place a clean dish towel on your work surface; generously dust the towel with wheat bran, cornmeal or flour. Gently place the dough on the towel, seam side down. If the dough feels sticky, dust the top lightly with more wheat bran, cornmeal or flour. Fold the ends of the towel loosely over the dough to cover it. Place the dough in a warm, draft-free spot to rise for 1 to 2 hours. The dough is ready when it has almost doubled in size. When you gently poke the dough with your finger, it should hold the impression. If it springs back, let it rise for an additional 15 minutes.

Step 4: About half an hour before you think the second rise is complete, position a rack in the lower third of the oven and place a 4 1/2- to 5 1/2-quart heavy Dutch oven or pot with a lid in the center of the rack. Preheat to 475 degrees. Use pot holders to carefully remove the preheated pot from the oven, then lift off the lid. Uncover the dough. Quickly but gently invert it off the towel and into the pot, seam side up. (Use caution — the pot and lid will be very hot.) Cover with the lid; bake (lower rack) for 30 minutes.

Step 5: Remove the lid; continue baking until the loaf is a deep chestnut color but not burnt, 15 to 30 minutes more. (If you like a more precise measure, the bread is done when an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the bread registers 200 to 210 degrees.) Use a heatproof spatula or pot holders to carefully lift the bread out of the pot and place it on a rack to cool thoroughly before serving or storing.

Certainly, looks great.

It was still warm when we sliced off a piece, buttered it and tasted it. This may be too crusty and rustic for us. The crust was extreme and almost felt like it broke into shards when we crunched it. It also didn't seem to have much flavor. My wife commented that it would make a nice crouton to dunk into  hardy stews or soups but not the first choice for breakfast with coffee. Certainly some liquid is required and wine alone was not enough to enjoy this bread.

The next day, we had a toasted slice of this bread with cauliflower parmesan potage (similar to what we posted), and a small salad as a lunch and it was great! Somehow resting overnight made the bread much better. The crust, while crunchy, was not as hard and the overall texture of the bread had improved. The toasty flavor of the whole wheat flour really shone through.  So what was the lesson learned here? We were clearly too hasty busting into this bread before it had cooled enough. It needs to rest at least until fully cooled or, at best, one day to mature to its full potential--and it is well worth the wait.  This is definitely a very good bread to have.

Subsequently, reading Jim Lahey's cookbook we found the following passage which confirmed what we stumbled upon and mentioned above. "After the bread is removed from the oven there is a final step in the process. The cooling step is crucial. Thorough cooling actually completes the cooking of the dough and when you slice a hot loaf you are releasing heat and moisture prematurely. The bread will taste under baked and wet."

Carrot bread muffin キャロットブレッドマフィン

We made carrot juice recently since we had quite a few carrots which were beginning to put out roots and had to be quickly used. The juice was very sweet and delicious but my wife looked at the left over carrot pulp and thought it would be too wasteful to just throw it away. So, she used the left over pulp to make these carrot bread muffins.

The carrot pulp that remained in the juicer was very different from grated carrot which is usually used in carrot cake muffins. As shown below it was very fine and kind of dry after the juice was extracted. Despite this difference it made very nice carrot cake muffins. The recipe came from somewhere on the web but it appears to be a standard recipe.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) melted butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
2 tbsp. sour cream
1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup grated carrots (from about 4 carrots)
1/2 cup golden raisins (she used regular raisin)
1/2 cup chopped toasted pecans

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375°.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients; flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and ginger (#1 left bowl). In another large bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients; melted butter, brown sugar, egg, sour cream, and vanilla (#1 right bowl). Stir the carrots (#2), into the liquid ingredients until thoroughly blended (#3). Add the raisins,(#4) and pecans. Stir in the flour mixture until just combined. (# 5). Grease a 12-cup muffin tin with butter. Divide the batter among the muffin tins (#6). Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes.

Despite using the somewhat dry carrot pulp, the muffins came out really nice and moist with the characteristic carrot cake flavor. This muffin is perfect for breakfast.

"Wu-zaku" eel and cucumber 鰻ざく

Because of Covid-19, and the uncertainty of some food supplies particularly due to the closure of multiple meat processing plants, we were gradually increasing our frozen cache of meat and fish as well as stews and curries made using the stockpiled proteins. One day, I noticed a strange smell when I opened the refrigerator or freezer.  I asked our resident "sniffer" who has an uncanny sense of smell and also happens to be my wife to sniff out what was going bad. She said the smell is not coming from food but was an electric-related smell. Not good news! Red alert; the refrigerator/freezer could well be on its way out. We immediately went on line to order a back up small stand alone freezer to save all the food we had just stock-piled. Apparently, with everyone else stocking up on food in case of a shortage small stand alone freezers were in high demand and absolutely none were to be had.  Some sites specified how to order; pick out the model you want, pay for it in full and your name would be then be put on a waiting list. No expected delivery time indicated. We finally ended up placing an order for a small stand up freezer which would not arrive for at least 6 weeks.  (We always seem to be on the trailing edge of these things). (And wouldn't you know that if the fridge is going to fail it would be at a time like this-- just after you have fully stocked it.)

The refrigerator limped along for a day or two with the smell seeming to disappear only to return. One morning, I came into the kitchen and there was a puddle of water on the floor coming from the freezer side of the fridge.  I realized it had happened; the fridge was kaput.  I checked the frozen food. Many of the meats and fish luckily, were still frozen. Since the back-up freezer had not yet arrived, I quickly recommissioned a small stand-up freezer in which my wife keeps speciality flours for baking, from a baking freezer to a meat freezer. I removed all the flour and replaced it with the meat and fish. It all fit.

Unfortunately many of the Japanese items were on the top shelf of the freezer and had already almost completely thawed by the time I got to them. Among the Japanese fish packages was "eel" kabayaki うなぎの蒲焼. So, that evening we had unexpected "Eel" feast. I started with "Wu-zaku" 鰻ざく. This is warm grilled eel with eel sauce topped with cool slices of cucumber in vinegary dressing. I suppose the contrast of warm, oily, soft, sweet and salty eel with cold crunchy cucumber with vinegar dressing is the main attraction of this dish.

I first made cucumber topping.

Ingredients (2 small servings)
One American mini-cucumber, sliced, salted, left for a short while then squeezed to remove the excess moisture
1/2 inch ginger root, skin removed and finely julienned

For dressing
2 tbs Japanese dashi broth
1tbs rice vinegar
1 tsp mirin
1 tsp light colored soy sauce

Chill the cucumber topping in the fridge until just before serving.

Frozen package of eel kabayaki, thawed (whether accidentally like this time or intentionally). I used half for this dish, cut into pieces shown below).

Assembly:
I heated up the eel pieces in a toaster oven (I used toasting function at the highest).

Put the eel pieces on a small plate.

Top it with the cucumber.

Of course, cold sake was called for. Although we still like "Mu" which has been our house sake for a long time, we switched to "Tengumai" as seen below. This daiginjou has a bit more complexity than "Mu" and, at Tippsy sake, Tengumai is less expensive than "Mu".

This was followed by a few more items and we had eel donburi or "unadon" うな丼 as a "shime" ending dish with golden thread eggs 金糸卵. My wife is often leary of the multiple small bones in eel. From experience she found that big pieces of eel such as the kind used in donburi often have numerous hidden small bones but usually the pieces used in sushi do not. She even went so far as to call eel donburi "toothbrush buri". And after several bad experiences in Japan actually stopped ordering eel dunburi.  This time she was quite happy to discover that although the piece was quite large, it was sushi quality and didn't have any small bones. It was one of the best eel dunburies ever.

Garlic Mozzarella bread ニンニク、モッツァレラチーズパン

Somehow my wife found a YouTube video of this recipe and I follow the link to the recipe. The next day which happened to be Sunday, I made this bread. Although I followed the recipe and baked at 400F for 20 minutes, it was a bit over done (I used "intense heat" setting for the oven and the baking stone was in place. Next time I will bake this bread at 350F). The surface was nicely crunchy (essentially "fried" with butter).

The melted Mozzarella cheese made nice layers.

We started enjoying this bread as soon as it came out of the oven and it was still steaming. Since this was evening, we had it with a glass of Napa Cabernet. Within an hour the loaf had been reduced by 2/3's to the the size shown below. If you are wondering 'was the bread good' this should say it all.  This was sort of modified pizza or focaccia and yes, it was really good.

This recipe came from the blog "Baking and cooking with Ninik".


Ingredients:
Dough:
250g (2 cups) all-purpose flour/plain flour
5g (1-1/2 tsp) instant yeast
25g (2 tbsp) sugar
1/2 tsp salt
42g (3 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted
125ml (1/2 cup) warm milk
1 egg, whisked
Flour for kneading, if necessary

250g lactose-free fresh Mozzarella cheese (125g of each) (I just used cow milk fresh Mozzarella) .
Slice into small pieces.
Other cheese could be used if Mozzarella isn't available.

Garlic Scallion butter:
2 tbsp softened butter
1 tsp minced garlic
2 tbsp chopped scallions
1/2 tsp salt
Mix well

A sharp blade or regular knife.
Egg to brush the edge, if you are using.
Freshly cracked black pepper

Method for the dough:
In a mixing bowl, stir all the dough ingredients into a soggy dough.
Transfer to the counter, use flour if necessary to fold the dough with your fingers, fold, and press to guide the dough into a ball.
Put the dough ball on a baking tray (or we can use a round baking pan/pizza pan).
Cover until almost doubled (#1). After the dough expands, flatten with hand into a circle (#2).
Using a sharp blade, score the dough crisscross style (#3). Brush with egg at the edges if you like.
Spread garlic butter on the surface evenly (#4). Mark again the scored with a spoon for easier putting the cheese.
Insert pieces of Mozzarella cheese to fill the scored dough (#5). Add freshly cracked black pepper on top.
Bake at 200°C (400°F) preheated oven, top-bottom heat, for 20 - 25 minutes. An oven may vary.
During baking, you might find the butter leaking out to the baking tray (#4) (My oven appears to be hotter, I will bake it at 350F next time).
Best to eat warm to get the stretchy melting cheese. (Although, believe me, it is mighty-fine even when not piping hot.)

I think the scallion butter really made this bread special. The scallions became caramelized in the butter. The dough itself was very tender and almost slightly sweet. It made a nice contrast to the crunch of the crust and the toasted cheese. Wine and this bread, what else do you need? I will try it again for sure.

Version #2: The first version of this bread did not last long so fairly soon I made a second version with some various tweaks to hopefully improve an already pretty good final product. I decided to include my notes as an addendum to this blog. One of the changes I made was to score (cut) the loaf after I spread on the garlic onion butter as seen below (instead of before as suggested by the original recipe). This way, the cuts stayed open and it was easier to stuff them with the cheese.

Cheese stuffing is still a bit tedious but easier than with the previous version.

Another change was that I lowered the temperature to 350F. The original recipe did say the temperature may vary based on the oven. The oven I use is a convection oven and may run a bit hot. As shown below the loaf came out much better.

As before we had this with a glass of red wine. As before the bread was great and the changes I made were an improvement. The cheese was better distributed and cooking at the lower temperature resulted in a better texture to the bread. It was much more tender with an almost cake like crumb that was very pleasing.  As before the scallions caramelized beautifully and permeated the flavor throughout. As before, the only problem with this bread is that it pulls a pretty quick disappearing act. It's hard to resist going back for just one more piece--just another little one.

Homemade yogurt 自家製ヨーグルト

We do not like low-fat or non-fat yogurt. We go for the full fat version. Our favorite is Seven Stars Farm Yogurt from Pennsylvania. The only place we can get this is at Whole Foods. Even before Covid-19, we had periods when even regular plain Dannon yogurt was not available at our grocery store. This occurred at the start of Covid-19. In the face of this shortage, my wife decided to start making her own yogurt again. This is something she did many years ago as a means of milk inventory control. She used a recipe given to her by a Palestinian friend whose family used it to make yogurt in the middle-east. Unlike other recipes which require pedantic small jars heated for a long time in a yogurt heating appliance, this recipe can make large quantities of yogurt overnight in "one sitting". This recipe uses commercial Dannon yogurt as the seed. We remembered it as a success but my wife has not made it for sometime. Nonetheless, she found the old recipe and made a batch.

According to this recipe you can use any quantity of milk with any fat content. If using low fat milk, however, add 1 1/2 cups nonfat dry milk (NFDM) for every 1/2 gallon of low fat milk. (This boosts the volume of milk solids in the milk making the resulting yogurt thicker). Bring the milk to a boil. Add the NFDM and allow the milk to cool in a bowl until it reaches 110 to 115 degrees at which point add 4 oz. of Dannon plain yogurt. (The same amount is used regardless of the quantity of milk). Wrap the seeded bowl of milk in several towels to keep it warm overnight. The next morning you have yogurt.

My wife used to heat up the milk in a dutch oven but this was the most tedious part of making yogurt since you have to continuously keep stirring it to keep it from boiling over and to prevent scorching on the bottom. She read somewhere that a slow cooker could be used to heat up the milk. So, we took our slow cooker, which we have not used for ages, out of storage. She heated the milk in the cooker set on low for three hours then turned it off. She took about a cup of the hot milk and using an immersion blender added the NFDM whipping it until all the NFDM dissolved. She then added the whipped portion to the rest of the milk and stirred it until everything was incorporated. (She did this because she found from experience sometimes the NFDM does not dissolve completely and forms an unpleasant layer in the yogurt on the bottom of the bowl). She let the milk cool for two hours until it was about 110 to 115 degrees before inoculating with the seed yogurt. She put the slow cooker bowl with the lid on into an ice chest to keep it warm overnight. The final product is shown below.

As you can see the consistency of this yogurt is quite different from the original Dannon. It is, nonetheless, quite firm and creamy. A major difference as shown by the yogurt dripping off the spoon is that it is very elastic. When the bowl is gently shaken it jiggles almost like jello. My wife made some Greek yogurt from this batch. The resulting Greek yogurt is very creamy and a dip we made using the Greek yogurt was much better than one with just strained Dannon. I also made some salmon salad and potato salad using this yogurt and it was much better and creamier than when I use the regular Greek yogurt.

My wife also learned that she was not alone in this yogurt making endeavor. While people were stuck at home during Covid-19, they were making yogurt in addition to baking bread. She read an article in the Washington Post about yogurt starters from "Culture for Health" and ordered some. The heirloom yogurt starter she got contained 4 different kinds. She used the "Viili" starter first which is described as "A Finnish yogurt variety, very mild and creamy, with a fairly thick consistency. It’s a versatile favorite that’s perfect on its own or in any yogurt recipe." According to the recipe, this starter does not require a heated environment. Following the instructions she used one cup of cold 4% milk and dissolved the starter in a glass jar, covered it with several layers of cheese cloth fastened by rubber band around the opening.

After 24 hours, it was still basically a glass of milk. The instructions said it could ferment for up to 48 hours. By then it had congealed a bit but was still basically a drink of milk rather than yogurt. She moved it to the refrigerator. The instructions recommended refrigerating it for at least 6 hours before tasting. The picture below shows the batch after a few days in the refrigerator. It firmed up a bit and had some curd. It also had a nice tangy/acidic yogurt flavor without any "off" taste. But it was way too runny.

Somewhat disappointed she fired off an e-mail to the company explaining the situation and asking for advice. They responded very quickly saying that the dried starter may take some time to fully "wake-up" to its full potential. As long as the first batch still smelled good they recommended starting a new batch using the ratio of one tbs from the 1st batch to 1 cup of cold milk. They recommended making 1 to 2 cups with that ratio (no more no less). Then they suggested she make successive batches with the most recent batch as starter until the desired consistency is attained. My wife used 2 cups of 4% milk with 2 tbs of the first batch for the second batch. After 48 hours it congealed significantly more than the 1st batch. The picture below is after 1 day in the refrigerator. It coagulated a bit more with a creamy consistency.

She then used 3 tbs from the second batch with 3 cups of milk for the 3rd batch. It was yet more solid (below picture). In addition it firmed up in 24 rather than 48 hours. We thought this consistency was not bad. She then used 4 tbs of batch 3 with 4 cups milk for batch 4. As shown below, after 24 hours this is just the right consistency and has developed a more pronounced tangy yogurt flavor. Success!

Well, now we have no shortage of yogurt. We have two options for making it and both are very good; one for low fat milk that results in yogurt that tastes like full fat and one for "high-octane" i.e. 4 % fat milk. It's a good thing we like yogurt and eat a lot of it. As long as milk is available we will no longer ever be without yogurt.

Crumpets クランペット

My wife came across an article about using sour dough starter discards to make crumpets. Although we are not making sour dough starter (yet), making crumpets sounded interesting. We have never made them before and, to the best of our knowledge, nor have we ever eaten them. But they look like English muffins and our recent success making English muffins encouraged us to make crumpets. Also, we happened to have English muffin baking rings. These rings did not work out so well with English muffins because the batter is so sticky, it is almost impossible to get it into the rings. But they are necessary for making crumpets because the batter is so runny it won't hold its shape without them. We found a few recipes on line and, we ended up combining two recipes. The cooking part is a bit tricky and we finally came up with a method by combining the two recipes.

Both sets of pictures show the second batch of crumpets toasted served like English muffins (two layers separated, see below "How to serve"). The first batch did not go so well. You can see the nice crunchy surface with all the little nooks and crannies that capture the melted butter.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups milk
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 cups water (lukewarm)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder

Direction:
1. Warm the milk in a saucepan. Make sure that it is warm but not boiling (I was not sure how hot the milk should be but the milk gets mixed into the dry ingredients including the yeast. I reasoned that if it was too hot it would kill the yeast so I made sure the milk was about 110F.
2. Whisk together the warmed milk, flour, yeast, and sugar in a large bowl. (#2) I used a stand mixer with a paddle.
3. Once combined, add half the water and beat into the batter.
4. Continue to add more water until the batter is thick and smooth. Stop adding water once the batter reaches the consistency of thick cream. (I was not exactly sure what that consistency was, but I used up almost all the water so I decided that was enough).
5. Cover with plastic wrap and leave in a warm, draft-free place until foaming. This should take about 1 hour (#2). After one hour, it smelled very yeasty and looked bubbly.
6. Whisk the salt and baking powder into the batter (I added the salt in the dry ingredients).

How to cook (this is the most tricky part):
My wife carefully buttered the inside of the English muffin rings. Then, we melted the butter (my wife insisted it had to be butter not vegetable oil) in a large cast iron skillet on medium low flame.  The recipe I was following suggested if the batter seeps out from the bottom of the ring, it is too watery; add more flour. Conversely, if the surface of the cooking crumpet does not form many little bubbles the batter is too thick, add more water.  I started with one ring as a test. There was no seepage out the bottom (#3) and bubbles formed on the top. I concluded it was just right. So I went ahead and filled 4 rings (#4). The recipe said, fill the rings to just below the upper edge which I did.  After a few minutes, the batter expanded and started running over the top edge of the rings. The recipe said to flip the crumpets over with the ring still on to cook the other side. This resulted in the excess batter going all over the bottom of the pan (#5). The crumpets were too thick and the center remained somewhat wet and doughy even after cooking them for over 20 minutes. This batch was deemed "a lack of success".

So, the next batch we adapted some ideas from the King-Arthur website recipe for crumpets. We filled the rings just half full (#6). After a few minutes, the batter expanded coming close to the upper edge of the rings (#7) (this looked much better than the previous batch). But for some rings, the batter did not come up to the upper edge, so flipping them with the ring still on would not have worked out well. The King Arthur recipe indicated that after 4 minutes cooking, as the edge of the batter dries out a bit the ring could be removed using a tong. We thought removing the ring would be difficult but as long as the batter did not expand to reach the top edge of the ring, it was surprisingly easy. We then flipped the muffin to cook the other side (without the ring) (#8). This worked much better than the method suggested in the previous recipe. We let the muffins cool on the cooling rack (the first picture above).

Tips for cooking:
1. Fill with batter to half height of the rings.
2. After 4 minutes, remove the rings using a tong.
3. Then, flip it over.
4. cook each side for 5 minutes for a total to 10 minutes. Then take another 5 minutes, as needed, to make sure both sides are evenly browned.

How to serve:
The crusts of the crumpets we made were nice a crunchy with a lovely browned butter taste. But even with the second and third batches, the insides were a bit wet and doughy. So my wife decided to separate the crumpet into 2 halves like an English muffin using her special fork method and toasted it. This was much better for us. The inside dried out and added to the lovely crunchiness of the crust. In general these were pretty good but in the future, we may just stick with our previously successful no knead english muffin recipe.