Whatcha Cooking today?

[karstopography]

Citrus, Fennel, Avocado & Shrimp Salad. Large headless Key west pink shrimp on sale at the market for $5.97/#. Already have most all the other ingredients. The lettuce, arugula and bulb fennel will be picked from the garden moments before preparation. It was a good year to plant a lot of salad greens considering where lettuce prices are these days.

[karstopography]

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[worth1]

Made a toss together dough for homemade pizza.
2 cups of all purpose flour.
Yeast about 3 teaspoons.
2 in a half cup of warm water and a pinch of sugar to proof and one dry in the flour.
Very coarse freshly ground black pepper about 2 teaspoons
Italian seasoning blend about a tablespoon.
Salt a teaspoon.
Fennel seeds about a tablespoon.
Sugar about a teaspoon.
Garlic powder about 2 teaspoons or so.
EVO olive oil about 2 tablespoons
Water a little under a cup then adjusted during mixing.
After kneading it was formed into a ball put in an oiled bowl and put in the cold garage.
To rest and flavors to meld plus bing out a slightly sour taste.

My smell is slowly coming back after a year or so and the smell is amazing.
Sorry for the lack of exact measurements but that's the way I roll and it always comes out good.

The pizza if all goes well will be.
Pepperoni.
Red onion.
My homemade hot Italian sausage.
Fresh habanero slices.
And of course my signature sauce made with tomato puree.

[worth1]

The DCA meat lovers pizza aka don't chinch out.
Habanero cheese blend with freshly chopped habanero muenster cheese and mozzarella cheese.
Blanched salted red onion and so on.
Like pepperoni bacon and hot Italian sausage.

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[worth1]

Last but not least.

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[bower]

How on earth would I end up with 4 partly used packages of cranberries in the freezer?
I managed to use up one partial package with two full cups of berries in these 'cramberry' muffins with lemon glaze.
This is a tweak on an old recipe - I used to use some millet flour to give these a buttery flavor, but couldn't find any in the store. I ended up buying this Besan flour to try instead. Was not entirely pleased - they sunk immediately on coming out and have some wierd cavernous texture otherwise very dense - no gluten at all in the Besan. Also I should've removed the paper before glazing, as much of it pooled underneath instead of soaking into the bottom of the cake the way I like it. But the overall taste (fairly buttery) and texture has been growing on me as I work my way through. I think it's worth trying another batch and keep tweaking the ratio of ingredients until it works better or I am too fat to reach into the oven.
Everything in this freezer must go...

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[pepperhead212]

What kind of millet were you looking for, @Bower? They sometimes have up to 7 varieties of millets in Indian markets, though not always in flour form. They usually have the jowar - the sorghum flour, which can be used in place of a millet flour, for some things.

I just read an interesting article about millets, that came out today!
https://www.upgrademyfood.com/millet-easy-guide/

[bower]

That's a great article @pepperhead212 ! I've seen some different named millet seed available to grow and would be tempted to do so, if it was feasible to get a crop here. However in the store I've only seen one kind of millet and one type of millet flour. It is quite yellow so probably the foxtail. That is good to know because they do grow it successfully in Nova Scotia and have it at Annapolis Seeds.

[worth1]

@Bower
Did you use baking powder?
And are you trying to go gluten free.

[karstopography]

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Golden Beauty Chinese Cabbage. I might make kimchi or I might do something else with this. Any ideas? One of these seeds grown out in the garden from Baker Creek chinese cabbage selections, it’s supposed to be this color.

[GoDawgs]

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Golden Beauty Chinese Cabbage. I might make kimchi or I might do something else with this. Any ideas? One of these seeds grown out in the garden from Baker Creek chinese cabbage selections, it’s supposed to be this color.

That's a beautiful cabbage. I have a big problem with flea beetles on Chinese cabbage, way more than on regular cabbage, so I tend not to grow it. Lettuce in the garden has the same problem so I grow some of that in window boxes on the front porch. No problem there.

BTW, thanks for the kimchi reminder. I need to start more as the jar's getting low!

[bower]

Gorgeous cabbage @karstopography ! I have a tendency to devour the Napa raw, but they're also great in a stir fry.

@worth1 maybe old baking powder was the culprit? Also I think I had 1.5 tsp bp to 1/2 tsp salt, which may not be quite right either. I was sloppy measuring as usual (well maybe more than usual).
No my goodness I will never go gluten free! Love me some gluten.
But I don't mind some extra protein and nutrients in a muffin, and eying out recipes that might be good for my Mom since she's now vegetarian. I mean to foist some muffins on her every time I make a batch.

[worth1]

Gorgeous cabbage @karstopography ! I have a tendency to devour the Napa raw, but they're also great in a stir fry.

@worth1 maybe old baking powder was the culprit? Also I think I had 1.5 tsp bp to 1/2 tsp salt, which may not be quite right either. I was sloppy measuring as usual (well maybe more than usual).
No my goodness I will never go gluten free! Love me some gluten.
But I don't mind some extra protein and nutrients in a muffin, and eying out recipes that might be good for my Mom since she's now vegetarian. I mean to foist some muffins on her every time I make a batch.

The salt has nothing to do with the rise of the baking powder but acid does.
Also the baking powder could be old.
My wife never used it enough to not need a new can every time she did use it.
This resulted in a total failure.
If baking powder is a hard brick it isn't worth a hoot.
My rule of thumb is two teaspoons of baking powder for every cup of flour.
My guess is from the picture is you used over a cup of flour probably two cups of flour.
The cavities looks like uneven mixing of the dry ingredients.
I use a whisk.
Next once wet ingredients are mixed in its important to put in pan or muffin tins as soon as possible.
Don't over mix or you'll just collapse all the bubbles that the baking powder made in the reaction.
Ya gotta work fast and you can't walk away.
It's like cleaning aluminum before you weld.
If you clean and go have a beer ya gotta clean it again.
I use aluminum free double acting baking powder.
I'm no expert but I have been making muffins on my own since I was about 10 years old.
On time my sister made Goodyear rubber.

You can make muffins out of fine sawdust with acid fluid and baking powder.

One last thing they may have collapsed because you disturbed them during the rise and baking process.
Like a cake falling.
Or that was a way to keep me from running around the house while my mom backed cakes.

[worth1]

I had to work so fast I couldn't take pictures.
It's stuffed with mozzarella cheese habanero and spicey Italian sausage with onion and a little sauce.
Calzone brushed with egg and topped with kosher salt black pepper and garlic powder.
Off to the oven.

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[worth1]

This is ridiculous.
That's a new 12 inch pizza pan I had to buy because somehow I lost my other one.
No idea where I put it.

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[karstopography]

Avo

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Avocado toast with two kinds of radishes, arugula and a fried egg.

[bower]

@worth1 those muffins looked perfectly rounded when I took them out but immediately collapsed. I've never had this happen before and not sure why they had big holes in places and very dense in others. I suspected the frozen cranberries which I chopped in half may have played a part. But it could just be the besan flour too, which I've never used in a muffin before. I've eaten a few 'gluten free' type cakes and they all seemed to be very poorly risen and dense, even though they use baking powder.
This baking powder is not new, but it was fine for other things at Christmas time so I'd be surprised if it suddenly was no good.
Still not well combined ingredients could be a cause, or if there was any lump in the bp that I failed to crush when combining dry ingredients.
I knew about the fast work part, so it wasn't that.

[worth1]

@worth1 those muffins looked perfectly rounded when I took them out but immediately collapsed. I've never had this happen before and not sure why they had big holes in places and very dense in others. I suspected the frozen cranberries which I chopped in half may have played a part. But it could just be the besan flour too, which I've never used in a muffin before. I've eaten a few 'gluten free' type cakes and they all seemed to be very poorly risen and dense, even though they use baking powder.
This baking powder is not new, but it was fine for other things at Christmas time so I'd be surprised if it suddenly was no good.
Still not well combined ingredients could be a cause, or if there was any lump in the bp that I failed to crush when combining dry ingredients.
I knew about the fast work part, so it wasn't that.

I'm suspecting its the mixture wasn't even.
I've kept baking powder for quite some time and it was still good.
Never had lumps in baking powder and I don't sift flour.
Maybe I'll experiment and make sawdust muffins made from cedar.
And have someone try it.


As for my calzone I have no idea what to do with it.
I just think they're fun to make.
I'll probably eat it tomorrow because I ate the last of my pizza for breakfast.

[worth1]

People would think i was sick of cooking but I'm not.
For supper I'm having maybe corned beef brisket.
The thin flat I put in the brine the other day.
The water is seasoned with.
A certain brand of 5 spice powder.
Crushed allspice.
Busted up real cinnamon stick.
Black pepper.
Whole cloves.
And half a red onion roots and all.
I cut the end flat in half and it looks cured to me.
We shall see.
I left the bigger half in the brine.

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[worth1]

Corned beef cabbage and carrots.

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