Thursday, November 25, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving

Deader than a Door Nail

I made some beautiful whole wheat bread that did not rise, yesterday. Neither did the cinnamon buns rise last week. And two weeks before that, my white bread was heavy and dense – the loaves would have made good doorstops. Today I did an experiment with the yeast. I put some in a cup of water with some sugar and watched it over the period of an hour. In 10 minutes it should have been bubbling, but it wasn’t. Two hours later I swirled the water and the best I can say is ...that is the first time I have had DEAD yeast.

I read once that some Egyptian archaeologists pulled some old yeast out of a pharaoh’s tomb and they were able to activate the yeast. That made me think that yeast never dies. I wonder how the scientests did that, how they got the yeast?

Tomorrow I am going to Costco to get a large can of yeast and then use it faster than the last can, the residue of which I threw out. Three failures with bread dough is two to many for me.

Frank's Hot Sauce

David Pilling left me two litres of Frank’s Hot Sauce when he moved to northern Alberta, a place where someone could really make use of hot sauce. One day at a time I try to think of a new place to use it, either teaspoons full of it, or just a few drops. I read that a couple of tablespoons into the mixture when making hamburger patties deepens the flavour of the burgers.

I over-bought cabbages a couple of weeks ago (only by 6 extra, 6 large ones), and seeing that the hot sauce is going down slowly, I began to use it on the boiled cabbage. Yum, even if you don’t like cabbage. Tonight I wondered if I could heighten the flavour of the chilli I was eating, and sure enough, Frank’s Hot Sauce is good there as well. By the time David gets back to Calgary, I will have become a Frank’s Hot Sauce addict myself.

Happy American Thanksgiving to all who pulled out turkeys today.

Mmm. Wonder if that could be improved with some Frank’s Hot Sauce.

Arta

3 comments:

  1. A scientist, you are. I love a good experiment. I hate thinking of the lost batches of bread. I pulled some of your muffins out of the freezer last night. They were delicious. I had Borsch last night and will have Minestroni tonight. When I tell people my weight loss is the "eating my mother's cooking diet" they consistently think I am criticizing your culinary expertise. I will continue to keep it a secret so they don't go asking me to share the bounty with them (not very American Thanksgiving of me).

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  2. Frank's Hot Sauce: Good for evertying what ails ye!

    Interesting about the yeast, not being much of a baker. The best I can do are those pre-packaged cake mixes.

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  3. There is one local brewery left here in Winnipeg, Half Pints Brewery Ltd. and several friends and I went on a tour yesterday. The owner of the company took us on a 2 hour tour and told us so many interesting tidbits about the brewing process. He shared with us that there are German and Czech breweries that boast they have been using the same yeast for 500 years. The yeast does its job in one container, it is collected at the bottom of the tall metal cylinder, then the next batch is poured in, the yeast rises into the new liquid brew and goes to work. Sorry you cannot boast that you have been making bread from the same yeast for 500 years Arta....then again, that would be gross!

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