@wunderkind_lucy, those dinner rolls look delicious! One of these days I will have to start working with yeast...

@valiantarcher, your knowledge on fruit leather is more current than mine. I read a recipe four or five years ago. Anyway, yesterday I made a batch with a rhubarb and pear sauce. I tossed in a couple of apples too, to see if that made a difference. The flavor is more subtle than the crabapple version, and the texture is grainier than straight apple, but there is less cracking and it is otherwise the correct consistency. Working theories for pear are: start with a thicker base layer of sauce; lower temp and longer drying time; and make sure you have a smooth sauce with plenty of liquid to start with. (I put too many variables into the experiment, but it did turn out!)

As for the caramel stuff, I think I'd need to know a lot more about candy chemistry before trying to get a result that needs to hold together. I'd probably also need to know how to use our candy thermometer.  

All your cooking endeavours sound delicious, @wunderkind_lucy. The only add-in we've usually done to pizza dough is spinach - which was great because it didn't really affect the taste, but that doesn't help you.
As for cakes - have you done any rolled cakes before? Swiss roll is the one that comes to mind, but there are variants with jam fillings, whipped cream fillings, fruit & cream fillings, etc. The cake is pretty light because it's rolled, and the sweetness level for the ones I've made depend pretty heavily on the filling. I was going to suggest a variant on a Budapest roll, but the recipes coming up online are all a lot more complicated than the one I've made (unfortunately, I don't have the cookbook with me this minute since I remember that recipe being pretty simple).  

@mel, well, your practical experience with fruit leather is exponentially greater than mine. And yay for better results for the pear with a mixed fruit leather! You can either try removing variables and keep the working theories, or just keep making it the same way since it mostly turned out.
Ha! I like the idea of caramels, but I don't have any idea of successfully dealing with candy chemistry either.  

Posted by: @valiantarcher

I'd say the jam making is pretty good, @snowangel! I don't know that I'd ever heard of the jellies you made too - do you pick them wild?
I have not made pizza waffles, but it's something I've considered; I mostly get put off by the mess it would make of the waffle maker. I also don't usually like eating a lot of tomato sauce, so I'd probably have to tweak recipes.

Definitely wild. The fireweed was from last year, we had the tea in the freezer. We couldn't harvest fireweed and rosehips from our yard this year because of having to have several trees sprayed, all the fireweed and rose bushes were too close to the trees. But we did harvest the dandelion and clover from our yard since that's the main ground cover in our yard it was easy to get enough of both  away from the trees.

We tried some pizza waffles in the waffle iron, but we decided we like plain waffles for crust and then topping them with tomato sauce, cheese sauce, beef, peppers, mushrooms, black olives, and onions instead. It's way simpler and it more easily allows  everyone to have their favorite toppings.

 Posted by: @mel

@snowangel, ditto Valia's question about the jams. Earlier this summer we ran low on sweet stuff to put on sandwiches and all I had handy was rhubarb. 

I love rhubarb. We decided to make our jellies for waffles and pancakes and the raspberry and rhubarb jams for fresh bread and biscuits. Hopefully all will last longer this way.

Posted by: @wunderkind_lucy

@snowangel, your selection of jams and jellies sounds interesting. I've heard of dandelion salad and clover honey, but not jams or jellies. I do know that you can use the roots and leaves of the dandelion for tea (it's good for people with blood sugar issues).

I didn't care for the dandelion tea, but the jelly is quite tasty.   We have really enjoyed learning to use the plants on our own property, finally all those hours of playing Oregon Trail are paying off.  

After wanting to make pumpkin muffins with chocolate chips for weeks, finally made some this week, yummy! I was only going to have chocolate chips in half the recipe, but my younger brother put them in the whole batch, oh, well.  

SnowAngel

Very neat about gathering the fireweed and other plants from your own yard, @snowangel! I went and looked up a couple of recipes for fireweed jelly - it sounds pretty straight forward, though the blossom picking might be the most time consuming, is that right? Also, your edition of Oregon Trail was later than ours, because I don't remember ever being taught about wild plants, just how to completely mismanage your wildlife hunt.
I have to say your brother had the right idea with the muffins.

I'm hoping to do a bit of cooking this week, and I found a recipe for Sweet Potato Falafel that looks interesting. We'll see if I get a chance to try it, or if my courage fails me and I just eat my sweet potatoes plain.
I also bought a butternut squash this week; now I've got to figure out what to do with it. Does anybody have any favourite recipes or ideas for it?

Mmmm, butternut pumpkin — as we call it in Australia — is basically a lot like an ordinary pumpkin, but sweeter. (People here in the UK almost never eat pumpkins... they don't know what they're missing.) You can make a really nice soup out of it, or roast it along with other veg (for a Sunday roast dinner perhaps), or even include it in a curry. Yum.  I don't know what kinds of recipes you like, but you could always do a Google search and see what you find.

Fireweed fans: ALASKA WILD BERRY PRODUCTS.

http://alaskawildberryproducts.com/mercantool/mtool.pl?command=productpage_list&searchterms=yes&searchtype=loose&category=pseudo&searchterm_product_description=1&searchterm_product_merchant_ID=1&searchterm_product_name=1&searchtext=fireweed&x=0&y=0  

They still have some fireweed fruit/jellies. It's actually quite versatile. 🙂

Good points, @Courtenay! I went ahead and cooked the squash and then froze most of it mashed. I shall probably use it in a soup, or possibly for baking, at some later date.

I tried a sweet potato falafel recipe today; it was pretty good, though I didn't love it. I also tried my hand at making pita bread. The pita tasted fine but didn't "pop" and so was not a critical success; I think the oven temp may've needed to be higher and/or an actual baking tray used instead of tin foil on a glass pan (my baking tray was iffy about handling even the lower temp I had the oven at).

For the past five weeks we have curled up, entranced, to watch on TV an ABC series, entitled Further back in time for dinner, following the journey of a family, the Ferrones, consisting of Mother, Father, elder (Sienna) & younger (Olivia) sisters plus a son, Julian, through the first five decades of life in Australia. As well as fashions in clothing, dances, what was going on, the two WW's, & the depression, each week included the sorts of foods that were eaten, when Vegemite was invented (1922, in Melbourne, Courtenay,) & when refrigerators became generally available in Australia, in 1923, thanks to a local, Edward Hallstrom. I've been having a little fun in the games forum with some of the food items on offer in these years. 

At Federation - there was a federation meal to celebrate in the 1900's - cooking was sheer drudgery, dealing with wood or coal-fueled stoves, plucking chickens, & cooking & eating foods like brains, liver or kidneys plus other innards, because of the lack of efficient refrigeration. It wasn't unusual pre-1950 to have dishes like pig's trotters in aspic, or tripe & onions, which I absolutely loathed, but was expected to at least try, anyway. I hope I try to be nice to everyone here - there is no way I'd put tripe & onions on the Yum or Yuck thread, for instance. In those days people even ate bread & dripping, made out of clarified suet, when butter & even margarine were hard to get during WW 2 rationing. 

But other such dishes are actually not too bad to eat. I remember making steak & kidney pies for dinner, years ago. My children didn't seem to mind eating it, then. Lamb's fry & bacon, good to beef up one's vitamin B intake, was still on the $11 menu at our local tavern last January. During the 1930's Depression, & during the WW2 food shortages, we were "blessed" by a rabbit plague which provided good eating for many a family when people could shoot their own rabbit or buy one cheap from the Rabbito, someone who caught rabbits & sold them to inner city areas like South Sydney. And who could forget the old choko or passionfruit vine growing down the backyard? Passionfruit is still one of my favourite fruits.

For a Federation dinner, to be "posh" they even tried Mock Turtle Soup, one of the dishes which I've been having fun with in some of the games, here. I've often wondered what Mock Turtle Soup might be, having first heard of it in Alice in Wonderland. Basically, all it is, is just stock made with left over cuts of meat, made somewhat more palatable with various herbs & spices. It wasn't until the 1950's & the Post WW2 flood of immigrants that foods like pasta, pizza, Spag Bol & other glorious Italian-style cooking became part of our diet. So the series finished a couple of nights ago with a Ferrone family reunion with their extended family. 

@waggawerewolf27, that sounds like a fun show to watch! Were there any dishes prepared that you want to try your hand at now?

Today is Cinnamon Roll Day*, so yesterday I made some kanelbullar (Swedish cinnamon rolls). The recipe I used had a cardamom dough and then mixed cardamom in with the cinnamon sugar filling; sadly, we were short on cardamom, so I'm not sure if it was even noticeable in the end result. As I learned how to make them, the dough is filled and folded, then cut into strips and twisted before tying into a knot (instead of rolling and slicing into circles, as with American cinnamon rolls) and then topped with pearl sugar instead of icing. I've had issues with getting the shape correct, but they turned out pretty well this time - and were delicious.

*Wikipedia informs me it is only a holiday in Sweden and Finland, so now I should ask my sister if she found the date in one of our Swedish cookbooks.

Valia, both yes & no. In any illustrated edition of Alice in Wonderland, which I've ever seen, including a Children's Classics comic version I loved when I was a child, Mock Turtle Soup was served with the head of a lamb or calf, usually a breed of either which isn't normally available here. But the Ferrones on the show, found such a head, provided for the show, somewhat confronting, & so do I. I can't even see myself marching up to my local butcher to buy a whole calf's head, anyway, just to sit in the middle of a traditional soup tureen, for authentic effect.    What would I do with it later? 

I didn't catch all of the ingredients, as the show was more "food for thought" rather than a cooking show, so l googled Mock Turtle Soup, getting a Louisiana version, & another more manageable Marsha Gardner version, from Just a pinch, here & here , where interested parties can also print out their own copy as they require. 

The meat in the one I printed out is 2lb oxtails, roughly a kilo in our measurements.  But the recipe & method are otherwise straightforward enough, though it has quite a collection of herbs & spices. (1/4 tsp each thyme, allspice, 1/2 tsp bay seasoning? + 1 bay leaf) My tip would be to have all these herbs & spices on standby, all lined up in order, not just the chopped ingredients, before starting any cooking. Basically it is just browning a finely chopped onion, in 1 tbsp butter & 2 of olive oil, add a mashed clove of garlic + 3 whole ones, brown the oxtails slightly, add spices & herbs, then stir in a tbsp of plain flour, until absorbed thoroughly, then add 3 c (cups?) chicken stock, + 3 cups hot water, bring to boil, add remaining ingredients, (1 cup peeled,chopped tomatoes, 2tbs kitchen bouquet? or gravy master? [same quantity of Traditional Gravox powder would do?] 1/2 a thin skinned lemon, chopped, skin & all, plus salt & pepper). Then simmer mixture for 2 hours, stirring as required, I should imagine.

Then remove oxtails, cut the meat & marrow away from bones & add back to soup. Discard bones. Before serving out soup add 2 large hard boiled eggs, chopped coarsely, & stir into soup. Ladle into bowls, stir in each bowl a teaspoon (or more to taste) of dry sherry (Apera, here, due to EU regulations). Garnish bowls with parsley, & ensure there is a carafe or cruet of dry sherry provided on the table to keep guests happy. Then guests may enjoy "soup of the evening, beautiful soup"

One whinge I sometimes have with recipes is if they make ingredients sound fancier than what they are. Does salt really have to be kosher, as mentioned in the recipe I printed out? Or halal, either, for that matter? Apart from stamps provided on grocery packaging, there is no way of knowing what the difference would be from the common salt we normally use. Plus, what is bay seasoning? I would just add a few more dry bay leaves, instead, fishing them out when the cooking is finished. Another thing is that both recipes suggested that where they got their recipes, real turtle was also available, which it definitely would not be here, to my knowledge, even though sea-going turtles do visit to nest on Australian beaches. I guess the point of Mock turtle soup is that it is meant to be a mock up, not the real thing. It also helps if there are enough people present who really want to try it. Otherwise we would be obliged to live on it for goodness knows how long.

I'm glad you liked the idea of the program.  Some dishes mentioned in it, I've already either eaten at some time or other, or cooked myself, such as dishes like Steak & Kidney pie, served once a week at a girls' home I was at, & rather better done by my old grandmother, later on. One suggestion I might try sometime or other, would be to slather vegemite over the meat when preparing & cooking a roast beef, for a real Aussie flavour.  

We are finishing the NRL football semi-final, the Roosters (East Sydney) having been made into feather-dusters last night. So I am wondering if I should try Rabbit stew. Except that the rabbit plague of the 1930's depression years, is long over & rabbit is now expensive to get & almost a delicacy. Or maybe even Puddleglum's Eel pie. Yes, in tonight's game, South Sydney (Rabbitos) is playing Parramatta (Eels). Parramatta means place of many Eels in the Dharug dialect.        How did the cinnamon rolls turn out? They sound really nice for morning or afternoon tea. 

I am going to embark on an adventure tomorrow! But first, some back story. Last week I found a recipe by Ree Drummond/Pioneer Woman, my most favorite celebrity chef, for Short Ribs. So I go trotting into a local meat market and ask for 8 short ribs. What I ended up with was a whole side of cow basically. This recipe is SUPPOSED to be cooked in an Instant Pot, so as I'm staring at them today trying to figure out if there's any way I can fit them in there, my husband asks "why do you use our pressure cooker?"  

I've never used a pressure cooker for anything except canning, so after some calls to my mom and some research online, I'm going to give it a shot tomorrow! Hopefully it will be tasty and awesome. 

Posted by: @valiantarcher

Very neat about gathering the fireweed and other plants from your own yard, @snowangel! I went and looked up a couple of recipes for fireweed jelly - it sounds pretty straight forward, though the blossom picking might be the most time consuming, is that right? 

Actually it's fairly simple to gather fireweed, you just have to ignore the smallest bugs when you grab a handful of blossoms and again when boiling the flowers.   It takes 8 cups of blossoms for one batch of jelly which isn't too hard to get if there's nice size patch of fireweed, we gathered enough for 3 batches last summer from fairly small area. 

Last week I made a double batch of enchilada sauce in the crockpot, I am never going to make it on the stove top again. It was too easy in the crockpot and this way I didn't have to clean the stove off. Most of the sauce went into the freezer, the rest was eaten with quesdillas or fried eggs.

Tuesday I made grits with green chilies, sour cream, and cumin, so yummy. This is the second time I have made grits with green chilies and both times my siblings ate seconds which is not normal...so I think green chilies are the way forward for grits at our house.  

Did your pressure cooking go well, @fantasia? We usually use our pressure cooker for potatoes, beans, rice, quinoa, or lentils...mainly lentils since we have them every week on Thursday.

SnowAngel

Posted by: @snowangel

Did your pressure cooking go well, @fantasia?

Let me simply say that we succeeded in cooking the short ribs in the pressure cooker LOL. And honestly the best thing I learned from the whole experience was how EASY it can be to just use that. 😉 

But it wasn't without drama. We were missing the regulator weight (I think it's called?) and so my husband was engineering on the fly while we were actually cooking. In the end he managed to get it up to 13lbs of pressure (we needed 11lbs) and the day was saved LOL.

@waggawerewolf27, that mock turtle soup recipe was interesting, thanks for sharing. It sounds like it feeds a lot of people! I suppose you could always make it and freeze the leftovers in single or double portion servings. The cinnamon rolls turned out very nicely - I've been eaten some of the frozen one for breakfasts, though they would be lovely as a midmorning or afternoon snack with some tea.

@fantasia, haha! I love that you all were engineering the pressure while cooking. I'm glad it worked out!

@snowangel, I suppose you can strain out any stray bugs and if anything gets through that, you're not likely to notice them anyhow. Hurrah for the crockpot enchilada sauce! I love the idea of using a crockpot to cook things instead of the stove or oven - but I mostly use the microwave, or have the situation that what I'm making really has to go in the oven or on the stove.

 I did use the microwave this past week to make some chili. I'm not a huge fan of tomato-based chili (I know, I know), so I was trying to figure out an alternate. My sister suggested using sweet potatoes as a base, and I found a few recipes where you cook chunks of sweet potato in with the beans and broth, and it seemed simple enough. However, I rapidly went another direction as what I had most convenient was a container of frozen butternut squash (see my post from September 30). I defrosted and heated this with seasonings, a couple of cans of beans (black and pinto), a tiny bit of ketchup, and a little water to thin it. It was really good - the squash gave the chili a slightly sweet flavour and a pleasant textures to the "broth". So, @Courtenay, there's another recipe option for squash.

 I also made a batch of gingerbread (not cookies) the other day - I think it turned out okay, but I may've overspiced it a bit.

I get a lot of food-related visitors, and here's the latest:

Aaron's eats

Someone has been making fall desserts! Baked apples, bakery-styled PBJ donuts, and a very fresh-looking pile of cheese nachos.