As I stated in my profile, this journal is to chronicle my adventures with my stand mixer. I'm going to be making breads, cakes and cookies, primarily, but there will be the occasional bit of yumminess that didn't go into the oven, as well. Pancakes, f'r instance...

I'll be posting photos of at least the finished item, as well as possibly various steps from start to finish.

I hope to post at least one finished item per week, since I (foolishly?) promised chronovius that I would bake one batch of cookies a week, for him.

Welcome to my Baking Journal.

I am having Dental Issues, so I needed to make something for dinner Saturday night that would deliver protein and would be something my family would eat. Crock Pot Chicken Wings to the rescue!

I had a bag of frozen chicken wings, so I threw those into my rather large crockpot. I then put most of the other ingredients into a measuring cup, so I could mix them together when pouring over the chicken... except I forgot the oil. I figured, "Hey! I'll eyeball it! It's only two tablespoons - just a quick glorp!" I didn't take into account how wide the bottle's opening was, and I think I dropped in about a half-cup (or more?). Oops. I also used dried minced onion since we didn't have any scallions in-house. Still, it was fantastic, and I'll be making this again, and again, and again. Frankly, I could use this with any bag of frozen chicken, and be very happy with the results.

I put the leftovers into a plastic container and tucked it in the fridge. The next day, I discarded the skimmed fat from the top (I should have kept it - it was white! Oooh, the eggs that could have been fried in that! Gah! Well, you know what they say about hindsight), and the sauce had settled into a jelly. It was very interesting to excavate the very tender meat from the rather solid jelly. I have saved the jelly to put over rice, it was that good! Oooh, and it'll be good with mashed potatoes, too...

So, you know how when you're eating chicken wings - not the drumettes, but the flat part, with the two bones inside? Here's a stupidly simple method of enjoying all the meat, and not gnaw around the bones.

Simply remove the bones!

I'm so doing this next time I have chicken wings.

( Video behind cut )

Thank you, cvirtue, for finding this nifty PSA. And thank you, Food Wishes, for producing it.

The Cinnamon Raisin Bread that BoyZilla and I made for Mommy's Cooking Show (Episode 2) is now posted to RecipeZaar.

Yeah, and the reason for posting that Cinnamon Raisin Bread recipe? To accompany MOMMY'S COOKING SHOW!

5:32 minutes of your life that will never return!

Taken from The Biggest Book Of Bread Machine Recipes, and slightly modified (to add more cinnamon).

• 1 Cup and 2 Tablespoons of (2%) Milk
• 1 Tablespoon Butter or Margarine
• 3 Cups Bread Flour
• 1 Tablespoon Brown Sugar
• 1 1/2 Teaspoons Ground Cinnamon (we used about 2 1/2 teaspoons)
• 3/4 Teaspoons (Kosher) Salt
• 1 Teaspoon Bread Machine Yeast
• 3/4 Cup Dark Raisins

Dump stuff into the hopper according to manufacturer's directions, select 1.5# loaf, White Bread cycle, and let'er rip.

Today, I did the post-production on Mommy's Cooking Show! This week: How to make a Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich!

Needless to say, it's not terribly technical, complicated, or brain-bending. It's 4 minutes of my son at the camera, me making a sandwich, and the "witty" banter to accompany.

It's four minutes of your life that will NEVER RETURN!

I just took it out of the bread machine, and it smells woooooonderful! I promised my son that his after school snack will include some of it.

Blueberry Melomel's specific gravity: 1.125. Alcohol % according to the hydrometer: 16.5% (I never took an original reading).

Show mead: 0, across the board, and it's stinky.

So, on my regular journal (snobahr), I'd been discussing PostCrossing. As one of the first five postcards I sent out two weeks ago arrived, it made me eligible to send out another card (long story short: Send a card, receive a card. You can't get a card until you send one, first). I chortled because the card that was received yesterday was to Finland, and the card I'm sending tomorrow is also going to Finland.

I took advantage of PostCrossing's partnership with this website that makes custom post cards, and sent a photo of the Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies that I made in 2006.

( How to make Springerle cookies )

I'm thinking of going through snobahr and re-posting all the cooking-related items here, backdated appropriately, since a number of them are friends-locked, due to containing non-cooking-related information.

So, my son (who is 5 years old at the time of this entry) asked for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. Okay, no problem. I slapped it together, and asked the Dreaded Question, "How do you want it cut?"

"I want ten pieces!" he informed me, confidently.

I thought about it a moment, regarding the pristine sandwich on the cutting board. "Well, how about eight?" I asked.

"How are you going to do that?" he replied, disbelievingly.

"Like this!" I responded, and proceeded to cut the sandwich into eighths. This delighed my son to no end. Moreso, because of the flourish of getting it from (very small) cutting board to plate, done by putting the plate face-down on the sandwich, and flipping the whole shebang ass over teakettle...

( Because it doesn't take much to amuse a 5 yr old, or his mother. )

This is what I'm making for dinner, tonight. I used the shredder attachment on the food processor my mom-in-law handed down to me, but frankly, that thing's a pain in the butt for such a relatively small amount of cheese. Harrumph, I say.

Makes 6 servings
From Fall 2009 Kraft Food & Family. They say to use Velveeta, I just use cheddar or any of the block cheeses.

• 1 pound ground beef
• 2 3/4 cups water
• 1/3 cup ketchup
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 2 cups uncooked macaroni
• 8 ounces cheddar cheese (Velveeta) - cut to 1/2" cubes

Brown meat in large skillet; drain.

Add water, ketchup and onion powder; mix well. Bring to boil. Stir in macaroni; cover. Simmer on medium-low heat 8-10 min or until macaroni is dender.

Stir in cheese; cook until melted, stirring occasionally.

I will post a photo of it, when it's done cooking. I'm stil in the "Simmer on medium-low heat" phase right now.

Thanks to sasha_khan for this link to The Ultimate Super Bowl Snack Stadium! It's horrific! I must make it!

Unmodified, I baked a batch of Betty Crocker Fudge Brownies. I decided to line the baking pan with a layer of foil, since the purpose of today's baking is to take some of it to Disneyland tomorrow, and figured foil would make brownie-extraction that much easier.

Boy, was I correct!

After the pan cooled, I lifted the foil out and set the brick? block? of brownie top-side down on a cutting board. I used a bread knife to cut as shown in the photo, since it conveniently was longer than the width of the unpanned brownie. I then cut each bar into thirds, and after sampling a "square" (they're quite rectangular, to be perfectly honest) purely for quality control purposes, put the rest into a large ziploc food storage box. The box has been put on top of the fridge, where my 5 year old son can't reach. Yet.

Indeed, I shall be using this method for brownie baking in the future. Easy clean-up, easy cutting. Happy Bahr.

( Brownies in bar form )

Since I have bread flour in the house once again, I am using my bread machine. Once again.

My bread machine is currently chugging away with Cheese Bread! Yay! BoyZilla helped with the ingredients (I measured, he poured - he got to pour the flour, this time!)

The Ingredients ( are behind the cut )

I will post a photo of the finished loaf later today, assuming I remember to. Because I'm simple, that way.

I'm thinking of making a tweet account to show stuff that I've made on any given day. A stupid food-photo blog.

The second batch of mead, which I started yesterday, is now percolating sedately in the shower. I think I'll move it to under the sink tomorrow (Monday), in case the slow-to-start means delayed over-foaming in the carboy. It's easier to hose down the shower stall than clean out the cabinet.

I'm also planning on getting another couple of gallon bottles of apple juice, so I can use the bottles themselves as carboys. Where I'm going to put those is a question for another day.

I currently have on my stove (about) 1.5 qts honey, 1 qt apple juice, 1 cup dried blueberries (thoroughly rinsed), and 1 qt water.

Later this afternoon, I will attempt to transfer this into a gallon carboy and fill the leftover space with (filtered) water. I will put the carboy in the shower stall overnight, in case it gets very interesting (like the batch I started earlier this week did), but I just realised that I don't think the blueberries will fit through the hose I use to transfer from pot to carboy. I'll burn that bridge when I get to it.

Oh well! We'll see how it tastes, come Halloween or Thanksgiving!

I'm Chef of the Day!

( (rather wide) Screencap )

EEEEE!!!

I back-dated this to correspond to the day I made the mead.

selenesue poked me via FaceBook, which got me started on the mead.

czina

Today's batch is very... dark. It's almost as dark as a glass of Guinness. We'll see how it turns out, around Halloween or Thanksgiving. I think tomorrow's batch will get the superfood added, so I can schnorgle it down around July 4th.