A big food project this week

Good morning, and happy post-Thanksgiving weekend.

This week I had major project going on.  My wife asked me if I would provide some food treats for her workplace.  Of course, I agreed without hesitation.

So last week, I worked out the menu of treats.  Then I carefully planned out the logistics for the week, the timing of what doughs could be made ahead of time and what needed to be made on the last day, the balance of different types of treats, the timing of baking which would last a whole day, etc.

This project included 4 types of cookies, 3 types of brownies, gingerbread mini cakes with lemon zest, and several mini loaves of banana bread.  As always, when I am baking I am constantly looking for little tweaks to make either in recipes or in preparation protocols or even packaging.  And with this amount of food being made with an initial prep of doughs and batter ahead of time and then all being baked on the final day, there were plenty of opportunities to find tweaks and refine processes.  Large-scale batch baking can get easier and easier every time you do it if you use each attempt as a way to identify refinements.

This morning, I got up early, packaged everything in boxes, took them in with my wife as she went to work, and set them all out and unwrapped cakes and opened boxes.  It was a very satisfying thing, indeed, to see it all completed.  And of course my wife was all smiles.  And that alone is worth the effort.

Preparing for the next step

Good morning and welcome to Thanksgiving week!  

I've been doing weekly food orders for quite some now.  In doing that, I've been able to refine many processes, tweak and polish many foods, and work out scheduling routines for multiple food preps on the same day.  And now I have decided that it's time to prepare for the next step.

As a result, I'm on hiatus for a short while.  I won't be accepting weekly orders during this hiatus.  I will continue to post here on the blog.  I will continue to add new foods to the menu.  And occasionally I will text out to some of you that I have some experiments for you to try if you wish, a new cookie, a new stew, a new brownie, etc.

But when the hiatus is over, and I don't expect it to last long, the website will be open again for orders, and I will be somewhat along in developing plans to take this whole enterprise further. 

So please keep checking back here on the blog for updates and regular posts, and I will let everyone know when the ordering website will be open for orders again.

Have a great holiday week.  I will be back again in a day or two with a new post.

All-night baking

 

It has been a quite a while since I had an all-night baking session.  Today, I'm preparing ginger spice cookies and mac/cheese for orders this weekend.  However, next week, I'm doing a lot of baking for a special event that my wife asked me to help with.  I won't have to bake all night for this event, but I thought about it.  I have scheduled different doughs and foods to be done at different points in the week with a final burst of preparation on Friday night before the Saturday event.  With the schedule designed as it is, an all-night baking session won't be needed.

But all-night baking sessions are sort of fun.  To be awake in the middle of the night churning out tray after tray of cookies and rolls and muffins and cakes while the rest of the world is asleep .... there's something rather uniquely special about that. 

When I do an all-night session, I carefully plan out my ingredients and the order of items to be prepared and baked.  I select a few fun things to put on the TV as background, things that I'm already familiar with such as a favorite TV show, and in this way I have something going on that I'm listening to and which is engaging part of my mind to keep me fresh as I work in the kitchen.

As the hours pass and dawn draws closer, the food piles up, going into boxes as it cools, or being wrapped in appropriate wrappings and bags, and the work of the night becomes ever more evident.

Finally when first light is hitting and the work is almost done and almost ready to be picked up, there comes that moment of "what did I forget to make?" and other similar thoughts.  I always think about what else I could have made, even with no time left.  I always think big and then bigger at the end, I suppose.

When the food is out the door and the kitchen is empty, it is as though nothing had happened at all.  No evidence remains.  But when I hear about how everyone enjoyed the food, it makes the work all worthwhile.

The holidays are getting close

 

The holidays are getting close.  I can smell the spices.  I can feel the dough.  I can see the textures.  All before I even make the food that is being planned for next week.

This coming weekend we have a wonderful spiced cookie ready to order and also macaroni and cheese.  Mac and cheese is perfect for autumn weather, don't you think?

I have nothing earth-shattering to write about today.  I'm enjoying a relaxed morning.  I'm beginning to plan out the foods for Thanksgiving week.  As always, I will not do usual food orders for Thanksgiving week.  However, I have had a special request to provide some food for an event and I am happily fulfilling that request.

That means deciding on multiple cookies, brownies and muffins/cupcakes.  And that means a lot of planning to determine how to schedule it all throughout the week so that it doesn't all have to be done on a single day.

It's fun.  It will be busy.  But it will be fun.

Have a great week, everyone.  I'll be back with another more substantial post in a few days.

A recipe for everyone to try

 

Today I'm going to give you a recipe for strawberry lemonade.

This recipe makes 6 10-ounce servings.

You need:

2 cups of water

1 cup of sugar

Zest from 1 medium or large lemon

1 cup of lemon juice

325 grams of strawberries (measure the weight AFTER hulling)

2 cups of club soda.

1.  In a medium saucepan, bring the water and sugar to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally until the sugar is dissolved.  Add the lemon zest and juice, stir and remove from the heat and let it cool completely.  Then strain it into a pitcher.

2.  In a blender, place the strawberries and some of the lemon sugar water, and puree completely. 

3.  Add the rest of the water and the club soda.  Blend well.

4.  Pour into a pitcher and serve right away or chill.  Stir before serving if it sits for a while in the fridge.

That's all you need to do.  This is very easy.  The most work comes from hulling strawberries.  Everything is can be done in a matter of minutes and with minimal effort. 

Give it a try!

A new month

As we start this new month, I have had a chance to test out the new oven.  It maintains temperature very well, quite uniformly, and seems as good or better than the old one.  I don't think I will have any significant tweaking to do for any of the cooking times for items that I regularly bake.  

I have had a busy busy month (meaning October), and so today I decided to push off orders for one week so that I could take a few moments, breathe deeply, and enjoy unmeasured time off and on over the upcoming weekend.

But that doesn't mean I won't be making food.  I have a bunch of items on a list that I have been working on for a while.  For each of these, I simply need to do one final bake or preparation, take a good photo, and add them to my recipe database, and they'll be all set for addition to the ordering menu.  So I will hope do some of that this weekend, but I'm not going to pressure myself too much.  This weekend is about rebalancing after a busy month.

At the very least, I will eat a lot of good food, some of it my own, and some of it my wife's.  She makes amazing haleem and biryani and dal and seekh kebabs.

That's all for now.  I will post something more substantial this weekend, I hope.

Eat well!  And enjoy the day!

New oven

After several days of not having an oven to use, the new range was finally delivered and installed yesterday.  Hooray!!!

I haven't tested it yet, but it will get its first run this week with brownies.

Not baking for several days was hard.  I couldn't make breads or cookies or brownies or lasagna or so many other things that came to mind.  So now I'm eager to get back to a more normal baking routine.

Having this new appliance after several days without makes me want to do an all-night baking session.  I won't actually do it, but I'd love to fill the kitchen with a wide assortment of newly baked foods.

Tomorrow is November 1 which is, in my mind, the beginning of the end-of-year holiday season.  I am always excited by that.  There is nothing quite so fun as the holiday season full of great festivities, great decorations, and great food.

The first weekend in November

It is a cold Sunday morning here in Kansas City as October comes to a close.  On my mind are snow and windy blustery days and the approaching holidays.

This coming weekend we have roasted tomatoes and brownies ready to order.  And for the following weekend, you can select ginger spice cookies as well as macaroni and cheese.

This is the perfect weather for comfort foods like mac and cheese.  I feel like making a pot today because it's cold and dreary out, but I have other plans.  For the next few days, both my wife and I have no obligations and we are planning a variety of activities that will keep us busy.

Tomorrow the new stove/oven arrives.  That means I can bake again for the first time since the element burned out several days ago.  And as I mentioned in a previous blog post, that means I get to acquaint myself with this new oven and see how it maintains temperature.  I may have to do a few tweaks to my baking times of some of my menu items.  We'll see how it goes.

Enjoy this final weekend of October.  Get ready for the holidays!

Back on track

 

Well, after having a couple weeks off, things are back on track here now.  This upcoming weekend you can order chili.  And the menu also shows brownies.  However, if you read my last blog post, you will recall that I am waiting for a new oven to arrive.  It won't arrive in time for this weekend, so brownies have been put on the menu for next weekend.  And you can also order roasted tomatoes for next weekend as well.

I will have some significant time off in the upcoming weeks as we head towards the end of the year.  I'm hoping to utilize that time to add some new things to the menu that I've been working on for the last few months.

Some of those include new fruited lemonades, a couple new cakes, a new ice cream, and a few other new things as well.  

That's all for now.  Have a great week and enjoy the cool autumn weather.

Oven temperatures

Good morning and Happy Thursday to everyone!

After many years of service and thousands of hours of use, my oven lost it's heating element -- burnt completely through.  It's the second element to go in the life of this oven.  After having this appliance for many long years, after having replaced the element once before, after seeing the control panel on top start to develop a few cracks from constant pushing of fingertips on the controls, it was decided that it's time to get a new one.

So my wife and I went out on Monday and selected a brand new range/oven which will soon be delivered.  

This means that I will have to carefully check my existing baking times for all the different things I create in the kitchen.  A different oven may have a different warm-up time, a more efficient or less efficient thermostatic temperature constancy, and other similar things.

I will carefully monitor times and temperatures for several items during the first few weeks of usage to see how it works.  I knew the old one so well.  I knew exactly what to expect from it.  Now I will enjoy getting to know this new one.

Looking forward next week to making chili for everyone since I can use the still-working stovetop.  However, the brownies that are one the menu will be pushed back to the next week since the new oven won't arrive until October 30.