Cooks who for various reasons prefer to avoid soy and canola oils have moved into such products as rice bran oil, grapeseed oil, olive oil, and peanut oil – and even coconut oil in some cases.
The recent practice in the USA of diverting peanut crops into the production of ethanol has meant that food grade peanuts have been scarcer and more expensive. Likewise peanut oil. Olive oil, grapeseed oil and rice bran oil are also somewhat more expensive than the bog standard canola and soy that provide the bulk of supermarket cooking oils.
Recent disturbing experience at a number of Asian food suppliers and supermarkets suggests we need to pay a little more attention when we buy these food oils. What you will likely find is a container clearly labelled “Grapeseed Oil” or “Peanut Oil”, or “Olive Oil”, etc, and when you look at the (very) fine print list of ingredients on the back you will find, for example, “Grapeseed Oil, Vegetable Oil”. In other words we are not getting pure grapeseed oil at all, or olive oil or peanut oil, but a blend that has been adulterated with God knows what. There is no indication in the large print that we are dealing with a blend.
Given that we are for whatever reason deliberately avoiding these generic “vegetable oils” when we elect to pay a little more for our olive or grapeseed or peanut oil etc, it is no good news to find that up to half of the more expensive product may consist of the very oils we are trying to avoid. (Convention rules that ingredients are listed in descending order.)
The message, as always, remains: Check the fine print panel on your groceries! You can still get the pure product, but you will need to pay attention.
Alice asked me to let people know that she has posted a new addition to her blog. You can read it at http://wudhi.com/schnauzer%2007.htm.
For those who enjoyed her earlier work, Alice has resumed blogging.
Check out http://wudhi.com/schnauzer%2006.htm
Just back from a week staying with Bonny at Norfolk Island. For a look at some of the walking tracks, check out http://wudhi.com/mrwalker/norfolk%20island/norfolk%20island%2001.htm for the first instalment.
One of my favourite breads, the Barbecue Bread, employs yoghurt and milk but no water at all.
A couple of days or so back, I experimented with my Dutch Oven Bread by substituting kefir for the water in the recipe. I had to add a little extra to get the dough looking and feeling about right, and I set it to rise in the usual way. It took about half as long again as the regular water-based version to rise properly, and I baked it at the regulation 210C.
The resulting loaf was a little more dense and a little softer in texture, with an excellent flavour. The most significant change however was that three days after being baked, it was still “fresh” and palatable, where the water based version is beginning to dry a little by the end of the second day.
It’s a little more expensive to make than the usual recipe, but I’ll certainly come back to this when I’m baking for a trip away in the van.
The Duchess of Portland has arrived for her annual visit.
If you’re in Wanganui and looking for a bit of a stretch, this will do nicely. Especially if you have a dog, as many of the other local attractions like Bushy Park are closed to dogs. This is a circuit of just over 2 hours fatman time, including photos. Peter, Alice and I started at the southern side of the Dublin St bridge, crossed the bridge and walked west as far as the City bridge, crossed again, and headed back down to the van on the south bank.
In Sepember 2007, Mayor Michael Laws officially opened the walkway project, and it is ongoing
Who exactly are we sharing it with?
We park the van and hitch Alice to a lead, something she is not all that keen on with so much to explore that is new. Would we like to go tramping on a lead. Not really. (more…)
Kefir is a fermented milk product, a little like yoghurt, but not as thick, or as sharply acid, a little like like a dairy version of sourdough bread. It’s relatively unknown in New Zealand except among health food people, and even then not widely. It deserves a lot more recognition.
According to enthusiasts, it’s simply chock full of probiotics, which aid your digestion, lower your blood pressure and your bad cholesterol, and enable dairy-sensitive persons to eat it in quantity and more easily absorb its calcium. These little fellows may also help you to win lotteries or change governments. Even if it does none of those things or only some, it will still have a place in my fridge from now on in. I’m a convert. (more…)
For a variety of perfectly good reasons, I neglected to put the Dutch Oven bread on to rise last night and breakfast saw the last of my bread disappear as toast.
I thought about my Beer Bread recipe, an hour from thinking about it to eating it, but my memory of it was not quite what I wanted. I have been enjoying the taste and texture of the Dutch Oven Bread so much I wasn’t ready to settle for less. Out of the inner tantrum came a thought. What would happen if I mixed up a batch of Beer Bread, and cooked it the way I do the Dutch Oven Bread?
(more…)
