I bought a little convection oven at J. C. Penney for $70. I want to try baking outside during the hot summer months, now that we have an outdoor countertop with a convenient outlet. Also, my indoor oven is very small and I can never fit in the corn pudding and extra stuffing at Thanksgiving dinner.
Here is my first loaf of bread. It baked in 25 minutes at 400 degrees, rather than my usual time of 30 to 35 minutes.
Dear Miss Eva,
ReplyDeleteDo you remember me? I knew you when I was six years old and now I am eight years old.
Mom saw your blog and she knew I would love it because I am into cooking interesting food and, she's right, I do love it!
Can I use yellow summer squash in your Zucchini Gratin recipe?
Also, do you or your mom have a recipe for blackberries?
We have a very nice mill for grinding wheat but Mom doesn't like to bake bread in the summer. Do you think I could use my Hamilton Beach toaster oven outside that I got for Christmas 2005? I can roast chickens in it but it isn't a convection oven from J.C. Penney.
May I print your recipes for my notebook?
I love all the pictures, too!
Mom said to tell you hello from her.
Sincerely,
John Allen
(Sometimes my Diaryland email address doesn't work so you may email me at caker@curdsandthewhey.com if you ever want to.)
Also, my diaryland address is caker.diaryland.com and I have newer pictures of me since I've grown up some, in case you're interested.
ReplyDeleteBon Appetit!
John
Hi, Johnny! Of course I remember you. It's good to hear from you. I'm having fun getting caught up with reading your journal.
ReplyDeletePlease tell your mom that Lawson and I say hello.
I'm glad you still love cooking. Yes, you can absolutely use yellow summer squash in that gratin. I did so just yesterday, and it was delicious.
My mom is the one with the outdoor convection oven. (Her name is Kris; you can look at the bottom of each post and see which one of us wrote it.) I'm curious to know whether your toaster oven would cook bread well...let me know if you try it!
Dear Miss Eva,
ReplyDeleteI was a little confused at first because I thought Kris was your daughter but now I'm straight.
My little brother George and I looked all over your site at recipes and pictures and yesterday we made the recipe by Mrs. Kris called Penne with Garlic and Tomatoe Sauce because we already had the ingredients.
Dear Mrs. Kris,
How do you do? We made your recipe yesterday except we multiplied it because there are ten of us but we ran out of garlic because we only had one bunch but it was garlicy enough. We had it with Aldi frozen Chinese vegetables (without the Chinese sauce) because we were out of vegetables but it was so good anyway.
That is a good inexpensive recipe for us. If we have fancy food sometimes, then we have to have cheap food on other days because there are so many of us and eight of us are boys.
I am very, very, excited about y'all's site but I've been warned not to bug you since I'm allowed to come here and read it by myself.
You nice ladies keep up the good work!
Love,
Johnny Caker
Dear Johnny,
ReplyDeleteI'm pleased to meet you. Thanks for reading our blog. I have enjoyed posting back and forth to Eva but it's also nice to know someone else is reading it, too.
I have a suggestion for baking bread in the toaster oven: make smaller loaves. For instance, divide the dough for one loaf into four small ones. You don't need a special bread pan if you make free-form loaves.
I'm leaving on a trip right now, but when I get back I'll give you my favorite recipe for blackberry jam. Cobbler is my other favorite. It's much easier than pie because of having just sweetened biscuit dough on top.
Sincerely,
Kris Moore
Dear Mrs. Kris,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip on the bread and I'm very, very, much looking forward to your recipes.
We are going to try to make blackberry jam with sucanat this year for the first time. We usually make jam with low sugar recipes because it tastes more fruitier than sugarier. I'm not allowed to actually make jam because it is dangerous and it can really burn me but I like to watch and taste it warm on homemade bread! Berry jams look so beautiful and colorful in the sparkling clean jars, too. It might look cloudy with sucanat.
We have so many berries this year that we can try different recipes and if they fail, it is not the end of the world. I just found a new patch behind the workshop.
Also, Mom lost her cobbler recipe that had layers of crust inside, or she made it up and forgot to write it down. It was perfect for strong berries like blackberries. I like lots of crust. She thinks she cooked it with a top crust and a bottom crust and then pushed the top crust down into the cobbler and then put more crust on top and put it back in the oven to brown up, but she can't remember.
I hope you have a fun time on your trip and don't worry about somebody reading your blog because I've read almost all of it and my sister read some and my little brothers, George and Richard, looked at the pictures while I was reading it and my mother read a lot of it, especially the things I want to make.
You are nice looking people, too.
I didn't write back sooner because we had severe thunderstorms but we needed the rain because we have a drought.
Your friend,
Johnny
Dear Mrs. Moore,
ReplyDeleteAfter I wrote my note to you, I noticed you put your last name on your note to me but I can't change my note once I've clicked the "PUBLISH YOUR COMMENT" button. So I'm writing this to say that I would change it if I could change it. Where I live little boys don't call grownups by their first names although I know some people aren't worried about it. It's hard to know what people are feeling, so I just wanted you to know I wasn't trying to be fresh.
Sincerely,
Johnny
Dear Johnny,
ReplyDeleteI like being called Mrs. Kris. Here in the West manners are much more informal, so it's common to use first names. In fact, I probably shouldn't have put my last name at all, because of staying anonymous on the internet.
I just got back into town and will publish some more recipes soon.
Mrs. Kris