Kitchen Notes: Yeast, Part I - Active Dry Yeast

You may have noticed this year that not only did 5, 10, and 20 lb bags of all purpose flour (white and wheat, bleached and unbleached) flew off the grocery store, restaurant grocery outlet, and big box store shelves (e.g., Walmart, Costco), but also all types of bread yeast all but disappeared in the last three months. The last time I saw a brick of Red Star Yeast (active dry) at Costco was back in March. It reappeared briefly on Costco.com in late August this year, but has since then disappeared and never actually showed up on the shelves at my local Costco. Forget supermarkets, they have been out of yeast for months. I guess people are just going to be stuck with non-yeast recipes to use with all that flour. It isn't a bad thing. Recipes such as pancakes, crepes, scones, crackers, some flatbreads (spring onion pancakes), tortillas, cookies, etc., don't use yeast at all.

A reasonably priced 1.5 lb to 2.0 lb brick should cost you roughly $5 at Costco (versus $7-10 for that 4-oz jar at the grocery store), or between $7-10/brick at an online retailer who sells to consumers, such as King Arthur Flour; though, you might not appreciate the minimum $69 order at KAF to qualify for free shipping. And, forget about ordering via Amazon. Who knows how old that stuff is or how it was stored.

Stop buying those 3-pocket packages and 4 oz jars of yeast from the grocery store. If you bake a lot of yeasted items (or brew a lot of ginger beer), you're better off cost-wise to buy a yeast brick. It's called a brick because of how the yeast is packaged. It's vacuum sealed and has a dry shelf life of 2 years.. or longer after you open it if you do the following:

• store in a freezer-safe freezer jar in the freezer (bring up to room temp before using)
• store in a glass jar in the refrigerator, use as needed

I am still using active dry yeast that I bought that had originally expired (according to its manufacturing label) in 2016. But, while I'm an avid baker, I do not make yeasted bread items on a regular basis.

You might have noticed that hardly anyone touched the gluten-free flours or already made gluten-free breads at both the grocery and big box supermarkets, or the bulk retailers. That is probably because all that gluten-free nonsense is just that.. marketing nonsense. Though, it's estimated that there are 18 million Americans with gluten sensitivity.

Zucchini Noodles with Lemon Garlic Shrimp

Earlier in the year, large shrimp was on sale for an abnormally low price ($5.99/lb) at the supermarket. It is likely due to excess supply and schools/restaurants were closed for the past two or three months. I procured several pounds of this and froze half of it in manageable serving sizes.

For this dish, I enough for one serving. Though in retrospect, I feel like I just made a shrimp dish with a side of zucchini noodles. I'm using the Veggetti spiralizer which is essentially a pencil sharpener for carrots, zucchini, and smaller squash.

The Foodening Blog: Zucchini Noodles with Lemon Garlic Shrimp

Ingredients

8 oz raw shrimp (per person), peeled and deveined
1-2 raw zucchini per person
1 tbsp olive oil, for frying
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp white wine, chicken broth, or dry vermouth
dash of red pepper flakes, to taste
sea salt, to taste
fresh ground black pepper, to taste

Directions

Prepare the zucchini by trimming the ends off the squash and using either a mandoline or a spiralizer to transform the zucchini into thin noodle-like strips.

Heat oil in a large frying pan. Add shrimp in a single layer, season with sea salt and black pepper. Add garlic. Cook for one minute on each side. Remove shrimp from pan to a plate.

Deglaze the pan by adding vermouth. Add red pepper flakes, vermouth, unsalted butter, and lemon juice. Let simmer for about a minute more.

(optional) Add zucchini noodles to the pan and stir until coated in the sauce.

Remove from heat. Stir in the shrimp. Transfer all to a plate or bowl and serve.

Sweet Cornbread

Font type seems to have vanished from the new Blogger interface and instead, this crappy default Times New Roman is what looks to be in the composer with the Font selector drop-down nowhere in sight or settings. Hmm..

As we all spend way too much time at home this year with 24x7 access to the pantry, you should be able to cycle through the ingredients in a more timely manner. Except, not in the last sweep of my pantry where I found several items past their "best buy" or "use by" dates. I'm not sure if a dry good like cornmeal goes bad if its stored in an air tight container. Yellow cornmeal used is from 2018, hope it's still good.

The Foodening Blog - Sweet Cornbread in a 9" round tin

Ingredients

1 c all-purpose flour

1 c yellow cornmeal

2/3 c organic granulated sugar

1/2 tsp salt 

3 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 whole egg

1 c organic whole milk

1/3 c neutral-tasting vegetable oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 F

Prepare a 9" round cake pan. I used butter, but any vegetable oil will work.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt. and baking powder. Add egg, milk and oil. Mix until well combined.

Pour into prepared cake pan.

Bake for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center of the bread. Slice into eighths.

Ninja Foodi: Moroccan Beef Stew

The recipe ratio is adapted from the April 2020 issue of Men's Health, which calls for lamb stew meat, and this recipe substitutes beef for lamb. While I really enjoy grilled lamb for the occasional treat, lamb meat is price prohibitive at nearly $12/lb at my local grocery store w/ a butcher counter. And, after wondering what made this beef stew "Moroccan", I added some dried apricots and raisins it as well. While it is peculiar that there's no added salt, there is salt in some of the canned goods used to make the stew. For the green olives, I am using green castelvetrano olives. At my local grocery store chain, it sells under the HemisFares label in a 4.2 oz glass jar. It has a radically different taste and texture than the generic brand canned green olives that one would use in a salad or cocktail.

TheFoodening Blog - Moroccan Beef Stew

Ingredients

1 lb beef stew meat, cubed
1 15-oz can organic garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-oz can organic diced tomatoes
4 organic carrots, diced
4 oz pitted green olives, drained and rinsed
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
7 dried apricot slices
2 tbsp raisins
1 cinnamon stick
2 tsp Better than Bouillon Beef Flavor + 2 cups of water
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander

Directions

Having a Ninja Foodi means that I can start with a lack of planning and preparation to make most beef-based recipes. I imagine that if I had fresh stew meat on hand, I would skip this step and go straight to browning the meat in the Foodi on its sauté setting. In the event that you are starting from frozen beef stew meat. Here's what you do:

In the Foodi, add to the cooking pot, 1 lb frozen stew meat plus 1 cup of water. Pressure cook on high for 1 minute and quick release. This is my half cooked and still raw but thawed method.

Remove the lid and add the rest of the ingredients.

Pressure cook for 25 minutes on high with a natural release.

Once you remove the lid, discard the cinnamon stick. Serve hot.

Sweet Potato Roti (flatbread)

I've been putting this recipe off for years and have only just gotten around to making it. It has a relatively short prep time, including pressure steaming the sweet potato (not the garnet yam, but the Japanese sweet potato with white flesh). The original recipe ratio comes from Lathi's Kitchen blog. The flatbread tasted a little doughy because I dredged the dough balls in some flour before rolling it out. It helped the dough from sticking to the silicone mat and rolling pin. The ground cumin adds much flavor to what would taste really bland otherwise. Lathi's recipe calls for 1.5 cups of wheat flour, I used half that amount including what I used to dust the dough with before rolling out. It could very well be due to the fact that it's been raining and indoor humidity is higher than normal.

TheFoodening Blog - Sweet Potato Roti / Flatbread

Ingredients

1 medium sweet potato, steamed and mashed
up to 1 c all purpose unbleached wheat flour
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp ground cumin (optional)

Directions

If you have a Ninja Foodi, peel and cut the sweet potato into chunks. Use the crisper rack instead of the elevated stainless steel rack. Add 1 cup of water to the pot and add the sweet potato to the rack. Pressure cook on high for 6 minutes, then quick release.

I think this is how I ended up with a lower-moisture mashed sweet potato than if I were to use a slower, more traditional stove method of steaming a root vegetable.

In a food processor, pulse the cooked sweet potato until a paste forms. Gradually add the flour, about 1/4 cup at a time. Pulse until a soft and slightly sticky dough forms.

Use a dough cutter and split the dough ball into 3/4" to 1" chunks. Roll dough bits into balls.

On a lightly floured silicone mat, roll out dough balls to 5" wide and thin pancakes.

Heat a cast iron skillet or nonstick skillet over medium heat. You can add a neutral or high heat oil (such as coconut oil) to the pan if you are concerned about the first couple of roti sticking to the pan. The use of oil is optional.

This cooks quickly, so as soon as one side puffs up. Turn the roti over with a spatula and fry the other side.

TheFoodening Blog - Sweet potato roti cooking in a nonstick skillet