Culinary School of Rockies Dinner at Zephros

We were invited to the Culinary School of the Rockies dinner at Zephros Farm.



Here the students are busily working on the feast.

I got several shots of the students, both with and without the chef instructors. This was just before the rain.





We had a brief downpour and all the plates got wet. So several students quickly dried everything off.




It was nice after the rain and we had a good time.




In back Monica and Sue and in front, Gretchen, Mike and Riley.

Ken being silly!

Lemon (or Lime) Pie

Lemon or Lime Pie Recipe

1 cup fresh lemon or lime juice
zest from the fruit 2-3 tablespoons if available
2 cans sweetened condensed milk
8 egg yolks

pie crust

Mix juice, egg yolks and zest and blend well on medium speed of a mixer
Add both cans of sweetened condensed milk and blend until mixed well.
Pour into a baked pie crust and bake at 325 degrees for 15-20 minutes until the filling is set and barely jiggles.
Cool on a wire rack then chill for several hours.

The pie crust can be graham cracker or a regular one but be sure to bake it before filling the pie.

Recipe can be halved for a smaller pie and can even be put into custard or individual pie portions.

Flat Stanley's Thanksgiving Dinner

Flat Stanley joined us for Thanksgiving dinner.


But first we had to make the mashed potatoes.


I had made some bread so Stanley got to see it.


The turkey looks great. It wasn't done so we had to cook it some more.


Oogie & Ray McGuinness at the table ready to eat.


Doing the dishes afterwards.

More Bread Recipes

The bread experiments continue.

Our latest recipe has been modified a bit:

15 ounces of flour (weighed) or 3 cups
1/4 teaspoon quick acting yeast
1 teaspoon table salt
1 bottle or can lager or pilsner beer
1 tablespoon white vinegar
Additional water as needed to get all the flour incorporated. Usually takes at most 1 extra tablespoon.

Mix the dry ingredients. Then stir in the wet ones and cover with plastic wrap and let it rest for at least 8 hours or longer. Kneed briefly and place dough on a parchment paper to let it rise for 2 hours. Slash the top before baking. Preheat a covered dutch oven and bake bread covered for 30 minutes then uncovered for 20-30 minutes more. We are using a 425 degree preheat and a 375 degree bake.

The pictures at the left show the mixing of the dough initially. What it looks like when it starts the long overnight rise. What it looks like as a sponge before kneading and just before I start kneading it.

Variations have been good:

Whole wheat using 5-10 oz whole wheat flour and the rest regular flour.

Rye using 7 oz rye flour and the rest regular flour plus 2 TBSP caraway seeds.

Herb add 1 TBSP dried parsley, 1 TBSP ground up dried garlic slices or dried minced garlic, needs to be chunky not powder, 1 teaspoon each of oregano, thyme, marjoram, white pepper, 1/8 tsp sage. My recipe also says add 1/8 tsp celery seed but I didn't have any and it was still great.

Beer variations tried
Corona - Best so far
Budweiser - Good
5 barrel ale ok but more like regular bread
double pilsner - good
Pacifico - good but not as good as others

The experiments continue!

More Bread

For Christmas we spent the entire day baking the bread we started last night. We made some changes to the Cooks Illustrated No-Knead Bread recipe. We started with the basic recipe
15 ounces of flour (weighed) or 3 cups
1/4 teaspoon yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons water
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons lager or pilsner beer
1 tablespoon white vinegar

Mix the dry ingredients. Then stir in the wet ones and cover with plastic wrap and let it rest for at least 8 hours or longer. Kneed briefly and place dough on a parchment paper to let it rise for 2 hours. Slash the top before baking. Preheat a covered dutch oven and bake bread covered for 30 minutes then uncovered for 20-30 minutes more. The recipe calls for a 500 degree preheat and a 425 degree bake.

To that basic recipe we made the following changes to every batch. In all cases 5 ounces or 1 cup of the regular flour was replaced by whole wheat flour. After our last attempts I did some on-line checking and talked to skilled local bread bakers. Based on those discussions we had several things to try including more water to the dough initially, lower start and baking temperatures and eliminate the honey to prevent the crust from getting too dark. To all the sets we ended up adding 3 extra tablespoons plus a teaspoon of water. It took that much for the dough to incorporate all the flour. We bought new yeast in case our old yeast was too old to work.

Version 1 used regular all purpose flour for the white flour portion and new yeast. We preheated the oven and dutch oven to 425 degree. When we put the bread in we reduced the heat to 375 degrees and baked it covered for 30 minutes then uncovered for 25 minutes.

Version 2 used bread flour for the white flour portion and new yeast but the baking times and temperatures were the same.

Version 3 used bread flour and old yeast and the same baking temperatures and times.

The final result is that the old yeast is a problem. Bread made with the old yeast did not rise as well and was not as good. A surprising result was that the bread made with the regular flour rose better and was our winner in terms of taste and texture. I had expected the bread flour to perform better than it did. Making 3 loaves at a time used up one can of Budweiser so there was no beer wasted.

Next set of tests we want to try will use the same preheat and baking temperatures. We'll stick with regular flour for the white flour portion and it's clear we don't need any honey. The additional liquid seemed necessary and is easy to do. I want to reduce the salt used and I want to try replacing more of the water with beer. We also want to try other pilsner yeast beers. First up, trying Corona as a lager with a bit more flavor.

Bread Second and Third Try

Here's my second and third attempts at bread. The loaf on the left is the whole wheat variation. The one on the right is the regular one but for both loaves I weighed the flour rather than using a measuring cup.

For the regular one I increased the second part of the baking without the cover to 35 minutes before I gave up and the internal temperature only got to 202 degrees. For the whole wheat version I used a probe in the bread while it was baking so I didn't have to open the oven at all and I went for 45 minutes and got the internal temperature to 203 but no further.

Both versions tasted ok but neither got up to the proper temperature and the regular one was still clearly underdone. The whole wheat one was badly burnt as you can see. We ate the crust of what we had but I suspect that the chickens will get some treats tomorrow, it was pretty bad.

No clue how to adapt the recipe. I suspect the altitude here is the cause of the problem but I am at a loss as to what to do to fix it, suggestions welcomed.

Bread!

Usually when I've tried to make bread here in Colorado I get hockey pucks, bricks or other building materials. Bread fails to rise, or rises then falls flat. In any case it's dense beyond belief, and while tasty a loaf could feed an army for a week.

This bread actually came out nearly perfect! I used the no-knead recipe in the latest issue of Cooks Illustrated Magazine. The only problem I had was that I don't have an instant read thermometer and the recipe says to get the inside of the bread to 210 degrees. We couldn't wait and took it out at 200 and yes, the inside was not quite done. But it was still the best I've ever made.

One secret is to use a light lager or pilsner beer. I had to explain to the liquor store lady why I was buying Budweiser! We usually drink good beer, like Arrogant Bastard Ale or Ruination IPA from Stone Brewing. But the recipe calls for a bottom fermented beer using lager yeast so a pilsner was the choice. Best and as far as I am concerned the only good use for a can of Bud. The recipe only uses 1/4 cup so I dumped the rest. Probably should have given it to the chickens, they will eat anything.

Next time I want to try the whole wheat and rye bread versions. And then branch out into better beer but still sticking with a lager yeast.