Instagram story viewer> @jlvallas> Posts

jlvallas

@jlvallas

205

followers

792

following

@𝕛𝕝𝕧𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕒𝕤 𝕠𝕟 𝕋𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣
𝕛𝕧𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕒𝕤 𝕠𝕟 ℝ𝕒𝕧𝕖𝕝𝕣𝕪 at:

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Caramel Apples

We had a blast. But we need some practice!

Kacey did all the real work, following along with @PreppyKitchen's instructions. The caramel was delicious, but it kept sliding off the apples once we tried to attach peanuts or sprinkles. We figure we either messed up the temperature control or didn't get all the wax off the apples. It'll be a while before we try again, because this consumed a lot of time (Kacey does not give up easily). We reheated, re-cooled, microwaved, re-washed the apples; you name it, we tried it.

But it was fun. And netted one really good apple plus a few more that are perfectly edible - just not the end result we had in mind!

And now I have a jar of great caramel that will be terrific sauce for my yogurt once I thin it down a little. All's well that ends well. 🍎

#caramel #apples by @jlvallas

8

0

8 days ago

Yesterday, I saw a method for making baguettes in pretty much the least possible time. 10 minutes of the baker's time (mix, cover, turn on oven, kind of shape, & bake). But overnight fermentation consumes a lot of non-active time (while I just sleep).

Thing is, it's good bread - but I'd call it ciabatta. Regardless, it was so little work for good reward. As with a lot of bread dough, just water, yeast, salt and flour. Pretty high hydration. Whatever it's called, it was good with this morning's egg. And will make a good sandwich.

#breadmaking #breadbaking #ciabatta #baguette ? by @jlvallas

3

0

9 days ago

Cinnamon Rolls
It was Cinnamon Roll Day on Oct. 4th in the U.S. - established in Sweden in 1999. But I wasn't in the mood till yesterday (the 5th).

These turned out well & would also have made awesome dinner rolls or hamburger/hot dog buns. Soft & slightly enriched. (But no egg.)

I was basing it on a 2-roll recipe but didn't really pay attention - did my own thing - and ended up abandoning the recipe & got 6 rolls. So my "measurements" are just me eyeballing it:
• Maybe almost 2c of flour in bowl
• Good sprinkle of yeast with dry milk & warm water - let it get fluffy, then
• Cooled melted butter, not all that much. Add to flour (+ warm water as needed for soft dough).
• Forgot the salt, so added it during kneading
Knead to count of 120+ (couple minutes). Nice & soft.

A little oil to cover & proof in steamy microwave till doubled. I forgot to retrieve it on time, so it over-proofed, but no harm seemed to be done. Might have gotten a higher rise if I'd remembered it sooner.

Knock back, roll fairly thin (for more layers of filling). Roll up tightly as possible. Cut 6 and place close to one another in 8" pan. Proof while heating oven to 350° about :20 - :30.

Bake almost 30 minutes. I almost always check interior with thermometer, just to not have it so underdone that there's any raw dough. Google AI says:
• 185°F to 190°F: Best for a very soft, ultra-gooey center.
• 190°F to 200°F: The sweet spot where the center dough is fully cooked through while keeping the texture light and fluffy.
I usually aim for the 2nd set (190-200).

Cool slightly & frost them: cream cheese, salt, powdered sugar, cream, vanilla. (I frosted 2; saved remaining unfrosted rolls plus frosting for another day; photo 3 = reheating instructions • roll was in parchment • on day 2.)

Obviously, I'm pretty blasé about cooking/baking a lot of the time, but these honestly were pretty darned good. I'm not sure precision would have made them better, but that's not always the case!

#cinnamon #roll #yeast #breadbaking #breadmaking by @jlvallas

5

2

12 days ago

"The old must always make way for the new, and one thing must be built out of the ruins of another." -Lucretius

I have spent 3 days trying to make yogurt, and it just hasn't been working out. I'd done things a little differently, messed with ingredients, used a different incubator, and I learned that the old way had been working just fine. Leave well enough alone.

I woke up at 5am today to check the latest iteration, and it was garbage, too (like 1/4 of the way set). But not inedible, so I finally got a brilliant idea • went through my frozen yogurt recipes and decided my old faithful New York (I think) ice cream recipe would probably work just fine. And it did. Maybe could be better if I hadn't tweaked the yogurt, but this is a pretty darned good quart of #FroYo.

THIS is why I buy Blue Bunny ice cream. For the plastic ice cream containers (& the ice cream, though that's secondary.)

After letting it harden for a couple hours, I made a bowl, and it was YUMMY.

Note: some recipes I have make sweetened yogurt ice cubes & do their magic with a processor. See @emmafontanella or @biggerbolderbaking or @testkitchen if you have no ice cream maker but wish to make froyo.

#frozenyogurt #frozen #yogurt by @jlvallas

3

0

19 days ago

French Style Yogurt with Caramel

* Bring milk/half and half to 180° and hold at temp for 10-15 min. (Actually boiled it for a bit because I wasn’t paying attention.) 2.25c milk+1.75c half and half (1 qt. total).
* Place room temp homemade caramel in bottoms of 7 LaFermière pots.
* Cool milk to 115°; meanwhile, put 1c boiled water in outer container of thermal cooker for 5 min. and nuke a measuring cup of water to 140°. That goes in inner container. Lids on.
* When milk comes to temp (115°), add a couple tablespoons previous homemade yogurt or new commercial yogurt - I like Fage 5% - as starter. Pour over the caramel (gingerly), straining, in each pot.
* Remove boiled water from outer pot.
* Place pots (7 fit perfectly) in thermal cooker (leave 140° water in the inner pot coming 1/2way up the sides of the pots). Cover, wrap in blanket (probably an overly cautious step) & leave undisturbed for 10 hours.
After incubation:
* Place in fridge for at least 4 hours to firm up further. The finished product is a sort of beige rather than white, a result of a little caramel mixing in. This is almost a mishti doi (combo milk/caramel before incubating, but it has its own particular process).

It’s nice and firm after incubation; no straining required. The caramel becomes liquid and could be easily stirred into the yogurt at serving time.

What makes it firmer and silkier than most: the clay pots (they absorb some liquid); mixture has some half and half (richer); holding the temperature at 180° for several minutes evaporates some of the liquid. So we haven't lost any of the whey, as you do when you strain it.

There are always @lafermiere.us pots for sale on eBay, but I advise buying some of their yogurt first. I still buy it despite making my own; they have a lot of flavors & it's the OG.

[Music brought to you by Dale Janetka & me, fellow employee at the Yamaha store, messing around on the electric pianos 30 or 40 years ago. I'm on piano with sheet music, and Dale is improvising every other instrument and rhythm 😘 Last I knew, Dale was serving in the U.S. Coast Guard. He's a good bit younger than me (I?), so he may still be there.]

#french #yogurt #cara by @jlvallas

3

1

a month ago

There's a fabulous soup called No Water Soup (I like @flolum 's version). It's simple and intensely flavored. You lay down a few veg/aromatics in a stock pot or Dutch oven, with a whole chicken on top, close it up tightly so it will steam, and let it cook on low to medium-low for 90 minutes to 2 hours. As the title indicates, no water. The ingredients create their own liquid, and you end up with a ready-to-eat delicious soup. Not tons of it, but an adequate amount - 3-4 bowls of soup.

Because I really, really would miss having my 6 cups of stock, though, I was very hesitant about trying this recipe. One might say stubborn. And of course, once I did make it, I loved it.

But...

Still stubborn, last night I made the No Water Soup (Yum as usual) and then experimented. I cut off the meat I wished to use later (breast and legs/thighs). I'd also used some of the chicken meat in the original soup. Then I threw the carcass and remaining meat into my slow cooker with onion, carrot, celery, bay leaves, black peppercorns and about 8c of water. Set to low and let it go all night because it was bedtime (I usually do the stock on the stove for maybe 3 hours, sometimes roasting the carcass & veg first a bit for flavor enhancement).

Voila! Stock - about 6 cups. I usually toss all the vegetation out, but some of it was actually salvageable. I chopped the cooked carrot and celery, but went for fresh onion. They will go into tomorrow's bowl of soup after a short warm-up to soften the onions (plus some additional ingredients, especially salt).

I consider this a success, but next time I'll add a few chicken feet in batch #2 just to enhance the richness and the collagen. Fine without them, though.

#chicken #soup #stock #broth by @jlvallas

3

2

a month ago

Sort of a "request night." I had sent Kacey a noodle recipe, and she had later sent me one for "Salmon en Papillote." We decided to try both of them, along with some Benihana salad with ginger dressing, rice, asparagus, and a topper of vanilla ice cream with caramel. Kind of a dinner without much of a theme! I forgot to get a photo of the fish packets before dumping out the contents; we substituted tilapia for the salmon - Kacey's preference. A little too juicy, but that got soaked up in the rice.

We haven't had dinner together in a while, so it was an extra treat.

If you'd like a really quick and simple snack or side, @thewoksoflife has their "after-school special:" noodles of choice (I used ramen noodles), chili oil, soy sauce, sesame oil, scallions, and I threw in some sesame seeds. So simple and so yum.

#tilapia en #papillote #asparagus #ramen #caramel on vanilla ice cream by @jlvallas

8

0

a month ago

Get your Lake ONTARIO sock pattern on Ravelry while it's on sale! Designed by @knitsiphappy

#knitting #socks #lakeontario by @jlvallas

4

1

2 months ago

I asked Google what are the 5 Great Lakes and it named the ones we know. Then I said, "not any more," and it answered, "You are absolutely right, things have changed depending on how you look at the science or the latest headlines! There are a couple of different reasons why the traditional count of "five" is being challenged:

1. The Sudden Name Change (August 2026)
If you are referring to the very latest news, Lake Ontario has just been renamed "Lake America" within the United States. President Trump signed an executive order directing the Interior Department to officially change the name on U.S. geographic maps, escalating a trade dispute with Canada. While Canada still calls it Lake Ontario, the official U.S. naming system has shifted." by @jlvallas

2

0

2 months ago

Perfecting the Curd.

I am getting close to yogurt nirvana. After reading everything I can get my hands on, then asking specific questions of Google AI, I may have come as close as I ever will to making the yogurt I've been hoping for.

Heat 1/2 gal. whole milk plus 3/4 cup dry milk powder to 185°F.
Once it hits 185, put heat at its lowest and keep it going 10-15 min. for some evaporation/thickening (opt.).

Heat off and cool the milk to approx. 110°F.

Now you can just put your yogurt container into some kind of thermal environment. Or to be "extra," while the milk cools, you can setup this specific fermentation environment (which is what I did):
In a thermal cooker (or a thermal bag, etc., if no cooker available), place a bowl that you can rest the yogurt bowl on and put some really hot water in it. Place another bowl on top (optional; I just try to avoid the hot water condensing onto the bottom of the final clay pot). Place clay pot on that and I used a plate as a lid (the clay lid is too tall).

When milk has cooled, add 2-3T LaFermière plain yogurt (I'm trying to come close to their creamy French yogurt - they make it directly in each individual clay pot. You may use any yogurt that has appropriate bacteria). Mix well, place in the clay pot, multiple lids on and wait about 7.5 hours. Refrigerate.

You won't need to strain; it's a near-perfect consistency. The clay pot in my 1st photo is how the yogurt came out of its fermentation before the fridge.

The reason for so much putzing around: clay is typically used in India for their curd/yogurt (& by La Fermière) because it has properties of soaking in some of the liquid. It's also said to impart a particular subtle flavor, but I don't really taste anything "earthy." The thermal cooker is a good way of fermenting; there are many alternatives, including the heat of an oven's pilot light - and the hot water is kind of insurance, but I'm pretty sure I'm going overboard & it's not necessary. @brodandtaylor recommended keeping the milk at 185° for several minutes - some scientific reason! Dry milk helps consistency.

#yogurt #curd by @jlvallas

2

0

2 months ago

One pretty perfect poached egg coming up!

Bring water just to a boil in a tin cup, drop in a cookie cutter that fits nicely (with wiggle room to remove it), then gently drop a strained egg* into the cookie cutter position.

This one went about 3 minutes with the heat turned to a very slight simmer, uncovered. Nice soft yolk. I remove the cookie cutter (cooking tweezers) & fish out the egg with a small ladle that has holes in it. Improvise with whatever you have.

I assume this would work with several eggs dropped into several cookie cutters in a skillet with enough water to cover the eggs if you’re cooking for your gang.

*I usually strain away the loose bits of white that make it stringy.

#poached #eggs by @jlvallas

2

0

3 months ago

@blueapron Chicken Satay Rice Bowl. I could eat this once a week!

Rice
Pan fried chicken
Pickled veg
Peanut sauce
& Jasmine rice.

Delicious! by @jlvallas

1

4

3 months ago