Biggest cooking fail...

[samhexum]

On 1/12/2024 at 12:17 PM, Rudynate said:

Several years ago, I was going to serve roast goose on New Year's day.  I came down with a bad cold and had to cancel the dinner.  I roasted the goose anyway and it was nearly inedible - it was so tough and stringy.  I read, afterward, that you should always buy small geese to avoid that problem. I had bought the largest goose I could find.  

knowing when the bird is done can also be a problem

[TruHart1]

I make a pretty fair lasagna, so back in college, (in ancient times!) I and my bestie girlfriend buddy decided to make the pastry sheets from scratch, neither of us having ever done so before. We started the process around 4:30 pm, right after classes were finished for the day. All by hand, no pasta press or cutter. Little did either of us think it would take so long to mix up and roll the pasta thin enough and cut it, but it took much longer than either expected.

Around 10:30 and we still needed to let our pasta dry before we could assemble our lasagna. To make a long (much longer than either of us ever imagined) story short, we finally got our pan of lasagna done and ate at around around 12:45 AM! Needless to say, we were so exhausted by then that neither of us was very hungry, especially to eat a full meal with lasagna, salad, and bread.

On the bright side, the lasagna was even better tasting the next few days, though we still found the pasta sheets turned out to be too thick and therefore a bit undercooked and doughy. Since that attempt, I only use store-bought pasta sheets if I make lasagna. It’s definitely faster and easier!

TruHart1 😎

[+ bashful]

On 1/9/2024 at 6:53 PM, Becket said:

I've been trying to make sourdough bread. Ordered some good starter from the King Arthur baking company. But my results have been kinda MEH!

Any bread bakers among the brethren? I need some tips.

The only tip I can offer is go to Shop and Save (Chicago and burbs).  They make a good Sourdough (no yeast) bread.

[+ APPLE1]

On 1/9/2024 at 6:53 PM, Becket said:

I've been trying to make sourdough bread. Ordered some good starter from the King Arthur baking company. But my results have been kinda MEH!

Any bread bakers among the brethren? I need some tips.

Everyone in my family bakes their own bread and has for as long as I have been around. With a wide network people who create, maintain, share, and trade starter, I have, admittedly, never bought it, but if I did, the King Arthur variety would not have been my choice. And I am not saying their FLOUR isn't quality.

Their website indicates they are using their all propose flour for starter. The easiest flour for a novice to use in starter is a high protein flour - whole wheat, Bran, Barley, etc. Once you have the knack, virtually any flour will work - rice, nut, all purpose, etc. I even have a great aunt who makes a cake flour starter.  If you seek a recipe online, or elsewhere, take a hard pass on the ones that add yeast. Starter is only flour and water. Anything else muddles the mix. If you hear people using yeast and sugar, that's Herman (sweat bread) starter, and it's a completely different animal.

If your tap water is high in Flouride or Chlorine, that can cause poor starter growth. A lot of my family uses filtered water, or trades well water as often as they trade starter.

Their prefered storage is a plastic bowl inside the oven. The plastic is resistant to temp changes, and the oven shields drafts. And yes, there has been more than one melted plastic bowl and ruined starter incident when someone forgot and turned the oven on.

A little about the final dough:

Some of my relatives love a bakers wisk, and some find them haughty fru fru.

The flour you have in the starter doesn't dictate the final flour you use in the dough.

It's a low effort process. So less is more when it comes to mixing/kneading. It can be a knack to figure out how much is just enough.

Often doughs are baked in an oven that isn't preheated. Therefore, a  heating pad  under your "rising" bowl can be a huge time saver when waiting for the dough to double in size.

And remember, if it's edible, it's a success!

Edited January 26 by APPLE1
Spelling

[TonyDown]

Crabcakes tonight.  1st try.

Not firm enough.  😥

Edited January 29 by TonyDown

[Becket]

Hey @APPLE1, thanks for all the advice. Still working on my starter; it is not really strong enough to make my bread rise sufficiently. But I'm kinda hooked, so I'll keep plugging away hoping to get it right. 

[samhexum]

On 1/28/2024 at 10:08 PM, TonyDown said:

Crabcakes tonight.  1st try.

Not firm enough.  😥

 

On 2/4/2024 at 3:26 PM, Becket said:

Hey @APPLE1, thanks for all the advice. Still working on my starter; it is not really strong enough to make my bread rise sufficiently. But I'm kinda hooked, so I'll keep plugging away hoping to get it right. 

Any positive updates in the past 6 weeks?

 

Edited March 11 by samhexum
because he's bored as hell

[Becket]

Positive updates. Yea. I'm positively done with trying to make sourdough bread. I flopped. Threw away all my "starter" which was more of a stopper. Filled the starter crock with chocolate chip cookies. I'm much happier now. Can't make bread for s***, but do a killer cookie. SIGH!!!!!

[samhexum]

On 1/10/2024 at 8:21 AM, sync said:

I am so envious of those with the ability/skill/desire to prepare food(s).  I've trained my body to endure my food preparations, but I wouldn't serve my preparations to other human beings unless they were starving on death row.  

[samhexum]

On 1/11/2024 at 3:36 AM, BSR said:

I still can't believe they let you into Yankee Stadium with a full pan of baked ziti.  Just how long ago was this?  Were the Dodgers still in Brooklyn??

 

On 1/11/2024 at 12:05 PM, samhexum said:

I believe they were still called the Brooklyn Superbas back then.

 

White Sox tie 1907 Brooklyn Superbas for most shutouts through 16 games

who'd a-thunk they'd be relevant twice in three months?