Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics Food, Drink and Cooking What's for dinner?

My yeast arrived a day early from Utah, and this morning we found a bit of flour (5 lb max per customer) at the grocery store at 7 AM. So I am just eating my first slices of bread from my bread machine. Yum!

Nice to have the bread & toast option again after about a month without.

My wife sewed some high-quality masks yesterday. These are double-layer cloth with a filter insert pocket. That's why we have not gone into the grocery store until now. When you have to reserve a late pickup time slot, they are out of a lot of stuff you wanted.

I use a bread machine for mixing and kneading but I like to shape the loaf and bake it myself. I dropped close to $400 on groceries today. I forgot Buttermilk at Publix so I hadda swing by the poor people's store. I got the buttermilk and some chicken paws and pork tails. They had all sorts of wonderfoul Q-Rations! Canned pulled pork, can you imagine that? It's pretty good and there's enough for two sandwiches in the can. The chicken paws are for making bone broth, lots of collagen. After I simmer them for 24 hours I feed them to the chickens. The dog gets the pork tails.

I got five pounds of store brand flour. I find that I'm not snooty at all about flour when there's only one bag on the shelf.

Five bags on my grocery store shelf. Put two in the cart, but a guy restocking said one per household. It's general purpose, but actually has 10% protein, so it's almost bread flour. Makes a nice dense loaf that's easy to slice without tearing it up.

Had my first chicken salad sandwich in over a month yesterday.

There isn't a huge difference between bread and AP flour, both will bake bread, one isn't so good for pancakes. If you're just letting the bread machine do it's thing it won't matter a bit, the extra gluten comes in handy when you're shaping the loaf and building tension in it to make it pop. The spinner in the bread machine does it perfectly if you just leave it alone and let it bake the bread.

But I don't like those loaves, mostly I want a nice fat 18-20 inch loaf of French bread. A loaf that resembles a slug, or sometimes a manatee. A loaf that I can get a f*ck ton of slices from but a little too small for sandwiches.

You ever toss in a handfull of chopped dehydrated onions? If not DO IT! you might need to add an ounce of water but it makes great soft oniony bread.

Wish I had some of those onions, but all I have is onion powder. I have enjoyed onion bread before. I do have sunflower seeds, raisins, and flax meal. My wife is wheat intolerant, so I also have a bunch of weird stuff like almond flour.

I just put eight burgers in the sous vide with one side coated with the dehydrated chopped onions. They re-hydrate in the SV and I can make a pretty good imitation of a White Castle burger.

Pasteurized in the bag, they keep for weeks in the bottom drawer of the fridge.

Burgers and fries tonight with a salad...F*cking chicken got in the house and ruined all my tomatoes!

What kind of a chicken?

We just got six new chicks. My wife's favorite chicken, a Cochin, suddenly got sick a week ago and died, which left is with five (Town code allows four). She was so distraught that she over-over compensated. The new chicks are in a tub in the bathroom under a heat lamp, rapidly turning into chickens. The neighbors are begging for eggs...

Rhode Island Red. I generally go for the prolific layers, Blue Star hybrids are my favorite. I use two-three dozen a week. Neighbors can get there own god damn chickens.

I really like those Rhode Island Red's brown eggs. They just seem to taste better.

Made some chicken salad tonight with canned chicken breast. Surprisingly good. You probably don't notice the nasty texture of the canned chicken when you mash it up with celery and mayo. On Ritz crackers it was outstanding. My wife made us some canned broccoli-cheese soup with fresh potatoes added. That was nice too.

Tomorrow, I will make potato salad with the extra potatoes.

Blue Star hybrids are a cross between Barred Plymouth Rock and Rhode Island Reds. They lay a slightly larger egg and tons of them.

As far a flavor goes an egg's an egg's an egg. The flavor depends entirely on what they eat. Nutrition wise a pastured hen that can graze freely is far superior to a battery hen or cooped birds.

Honey Sriracha Chicken with rice and stir fried veggies.