Cooking

Some typical flours and their protein percentages: Cake or pastry flour: 8-9% Generic all-purpose flour: 10.3%? King Arthur all-purpose flour: 11.7% Generic bread flour: 11.7%? King Arthur bread flour: 12.7% King Arthur whole wheat flour: 14% <-- though I believe the protein / gluten relationship in whole wheat is different, because some of this protein is in the bran yet not available to promote gluten formation. King Arthur Sir Lancelot high-gluten flour: 14.2% Bob’s Red Mill Vital Wheat Gluten: 75% Why am I posting this? Mainly because I’m about to post a bagel recipe, and having a high-protein flour really does matter for them. ...

I’ve made bagels 7 or 8 times at this point, and thought I’d settled on a recipe I liked… but cooking in a new kitchen always throws a few wrenches in the works. In this case, the oven in a vacation home rented with friends didn’t seem to want to go above 350F, while I wanted 450F… so I baked some bagels in the oven, but cooked most of them on a gas BBQ grill on the outside deck. To my surprise, that worked pretty well. ...

Here’s a quick post-bike-ride dinner I assembled in 30 minutes from getting home to sitting down to eat (I say “assembled” because I picked up major premade components from Rainbow on the ride home– go ahead, think less of me). 1. Boiled water (slowly on my sad electric stove) and also heated milk on medium high with a few pinches of salt, stirring frequently to avoid scorching. 2. Shelled some fresh cranberry beans (they caught my eye after a recent conversation and a dinner at Camino). ...

A quick-and-simple (15-minute) dinner: boil soba (3-4 minutes), saute broccoli and minced garlic in sesame oil (just a few minutes), combine along with a bit of soy sauce for a minute more, serve with sriracha and avocado.

A quick dinner from mostly free-to-me ingredients: I sauteed some fresh ginger and moroccan spice[1] in peanut oil, then added crookneck squash[2], coated it in the spiced oil, and cooked for about 5 minutes. In parallel, I boiled the wide flat beans[3] for a few minutes (they turned bright green). I added the drained beans to the squash for a minute, emptied them onto a plate, then fried a duck egg[4] in the oil left over in the pan. I served them with lemon[2] and avocado[3]. Not bad! ...

This is the first time I’ve made a dinner for friends with courses each paired with / inspired by a specific beer. Some of them worked well together, some didn’t, but it was a good evening overall. Appetizers: a slightly bitter, slightly floral beer (Upright Flora Rustica) with a collection of snacks: bread, cheese (Cowgirl Creamery Mt Tam), radishes, fresh-pickled fennel (an interesting concept), Boccalone orange-fennel salami and pepper salami, salted almonds, and three kinds of pickled carrots (carrots pickled for a week with dill, vinegar, and salt, carrot quick pickles (overnight with lots of vinegar, mustard seed, cloves), and some Happy Girl spicy carrot pickles I bought). ...

This is great sliced thick and used to make a sandwich or luxurious toast (but with soup, I prefer whole wheat bread). I used to make this monthly but haven’t in many years– I just found the recipe card recently. White sandwich bread (two loaves, takes 4-5 hours total including cooling) Mix and let stand 5-10 minutes: 4 tsp dry yeast 1/4 cup warm water Meanwhile, mix: 1 cup warmed milk 1 cup warm water 2 Tbsp melted butter 2 Tbsp honey 1 Tbsp salt Combine the two mixtures. Gradually add: ...

Scones are one of the only things I’ve made where I’ve tried (and kept track of) many changes to a recipe over time and gradually evolved it. Here’s my current favorite version: Maple-Pecan Scones(makes 16) First, preheat the oven to 425 (don’t you hate recipes that don’t tell you to preheat the oven until late in the recipe?) You’ll need: 2 & 1/2 cups white flour 1 cup whole wheat flour (I’ve tried more– this is about as much as I can fit in) 1 & 1/2 cups chopped pecans (for even better scones, chop half of these pecans coarsely, and grind the other half into a powder, almost a “pecan flour”, in a food processor). 2 Tbsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 11(!) Tbsp cold butter 1 cup milk 1/3 cup maple syrup (plus a little extra to brush on) (real maple syrup, of course) A cast iron skillet The process: ...

Just a simple mayonnaise-free variant on potato salad I make from time to time: Wash and boil small russet potatoes with the skins on (20-30 minutes, until done). Toss some green beans into the water a minute before the potatoes are done (to blanche). Drain and rinse the potatoes and beans. Add plenty of mustard and olive oil, salt, pepper, fresh dill and chives.