dabrownman's blog

I got roped into making another Thanksgiving Dinner this past Sunday since we had Thanksgiving at Cousin Jay’s and the girls missed their favorite sides of of sweet and Yukon gold mashed potatoes, Brownman’s killer Cognac gravy, bacon, itty bitty onions and Brussels Sprouts and the ever popular candied carrots and butternut squash with brown sugar and maple syrup but we also missed the home made rolls.

My wife and daughter said I had to make Thanksgiving Dinner on Sunday a few days late because they missed our dressing, sides and especially the Cognac gravy for the sweet and golden potato smashed that wasn't served at cousin Jay's.  I missed the brown sugar carrot and butternut squash and braised / baked little cabbages.known as Brussels Sprouts.  For the dressing,  we always mix some yeast white, cornbread and some sourdough for the dressing bread mix.

It has been weeks since we last baked bead due to a no a carb diet where I am trying to lose 40 odd pounds and now half way there.  But Thanksgiving is upon us and there are no diets allowed by law for this holiday fete.  It is always a total carb blow out.  Many people do not now that dieting during Thanksgiving is against the law but many folks don’t know the slightest thing about physics either or that Lucy only speaks Swedish….and poorly at that.

It is easy to make one for yourself though using Lucy's variation of Peter Reinhart's whole grain rye method that takes 4 days and makes bread on day 5 with left over starter for storage - without any discard!

Day 1- 30 g of whole grain rye and 25 g of water.  mix cover with plastic wrap and leave for 24 hour

Day 2 add 30 g of WG rye and 25 g of water Mix and let sit for 24 hours covered in plastic

Day 3 - divide in half.  Add 30 g of WG rye and 25 g of water to each half, stir and cover each with plastic

Here we are in Kansas City for a wedding.  My wife’s very best friend’s son is getting married.  He is the same age as our daughter.  It is very cold and raining here today after a cold but sunny day yesterday.  We hate cold of any kind and are not fond of having to live in it for a few days this weekend. We had to bring their pet tortoise; Sheldon, who is 25 years old, in from the cold of the back yard so he didn’t freeze because tortoises hate the cold even more than we do.  He will call his basement pen home till spring.

After not baking bread for weeks – The Houston Miche

This one is a big boy.  It went into the oven at 1,871 g and came out at 1,675 g losing 10.5% of its water weight as it baked.  It turned out with the 3 B’s but we won’t cut into it till Thursday or Friday to see if it is OSM.  We baked it to 208 F, 20 minutes under Mega Lava Steam at 450 F and 36 minutes at 425 F convection.

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Since Lucy and I didn’t die, or even get sick from our new wild and black rice starter we made last week we decoded to keep I around in the fridge for a while and see what we could do with this exotic culture.  Lucy said we need should make some SD noodles, something we haven’t done for a long time and it is too good not to do and so much better than most anything you can buy!

We have been making a few fruit tarts instead of the more usual galettes of late.  This time to get farther from the French and more toward the Italians we put a small tub of mascarpone in the French Cream Patisserie and we added some lemon zest and vanilla to it too.

Here is the combo black rice ground into flour

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