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Seattle SD Popovers, SD bread, Mabel Mabel Set the Table

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Seattle SD Popovers, SD bread, Mabel Mabel Set the Table

We finally got some time off to visit our SIL and daughter In their new Seattle home over the Memorial Day weekend and meet Mabel for the first time too.  We had a really nice time over the 5 days and got to see the city up close.  Mabel is cute as a button….. and smart as a whip unlike other baking apprentices who are bred to be stupid.

 

Our SIL was only there one day since the USS Nimitz, CVN-68 just got out of dry dock after a years’ worth of refit and has started its first of many weeks of sea trials.  We got to see it leave port from the roof of their apartment that is a block away from the Space Needle and has one of the best 360 degree views of the city from the 41st floor.

There is the Nimitz leaving port for the first time in a year on a typica cloudy day in Seattle.

Here is what it looks like on a non cloudy day

The only thing not wildly overpriced at Pike’s Market are the flowers,  We got a beautiful, huge bouquet for $20 but it is still fun to see them throwing the fish you just bought for a fortune being thrown around all over the place!  Three Girls Bakery is there and we got 2 bagels with a schmear and lox or $24 – yikes!  But, they were 3 guys there for some reason.

They had some nice looking bread in the window but, by the time we got the bagels eaten, the huge pile of people were there for the holiday weekend and I couldn’t get close enough to get a picture of the display window,  It was wall to wall peeps for the rest of the morning.  We did buy some fresh prawns, diver scallops and hot links for gumbo my daughter said I had to make while there so she could get a refresher course on how to make it just so and get a batch of creole seasoning.

Mt Rainier is the white covered peak in he middle - 60 miles away from where the picture was taken.

The one night My SIL was there, he smoked the sausages and chicken thighs for the gumbo and some Spanish, not Mexican, Chorizo that was already smoked for a breakfast omelet the next morning. It is always better to smoke sausages again if they come smoked because they do such a horrible job of smoking them in the first place.

The Chorizo came from Metropolitan Market along with several aged cheddar and gouda cheeses.  This is a great grocery store that is not nearly as good as Central Market in or even HEB in Texas but as good as AJ’s in Scottsdale or Whole Foods - but more expensive than all of them.  Everything in Seattle is expensive.

We went to Molly’s to get 4 ice cream cones and a jar of

udge toping and the bill came to $35 – Jeeze!   The ice cream was good but not that good – no ice cream is!   You have to be really rich to live there for sure and I’m wondering how all the homeless people can do so?  They moved most of them out of downtown and out to an I-5 Camp so it isn’t as bad as it was not long ago.

Still, it is a lovely place so different from Phoenix and a great place to visit for sure.  The COSCO in Kirkland had great prices on Washington red wines, highly rated 4.4 to 4.5 on Vinino’s label photo app, for $17 to $24.  Now you know where their private label ‘Kirkland’ comes from.  They had good prices in salmon too, compared to Pike’s Market so we got some

Shrimp Pasta with cherry tomatoes and smoked susage.

We took Mabel to Discovery Park for a walk and found the Indian Cultural Canter there too.  Weed is legal there but this takes stoned Indians to a new level?  We went to the locks to see the boats going up and down after going to 8 OZ for great bacon, cheese burgers, truffle fries, beer and wine for happy hour one night – the only other time we went out to eat while there.  Didn’t get to any winery’s or breweries this trip but, the local beer our SIL had in the beer fridge was nice too.

Mabel is worth the trip on her own.  She is the sweetest thing, never barks or growls and loves to play with toys, other dogs or humans. I posted 3 videos of her, playing soccer with a ball in her mouth, playing with herself in a mirror and with other doggies at puppy school.

3 of the movies would not upload and I couldn't figure out how to do it.

I made a SD bread for the folks that take care of my teeth.  I had an appointment yesterday but couldn’t get the bread done soon enough to get it too them during my appointment so I ran it up for lunch today.  They are so nice and really love my bread.  This is my wife’s favorite white Sourdough but made into a squat batard slashed twice.

It is 20% whole grain, red and white wheat with rye and 10% sprouted spelt and Khorasan.  The rest was half AP and bread flour at 78% hydration overall and 2% Pink Himalayan sea salt.  The bran levain was made with 15g of NMNF Rye starter stored for weeks in the fridge at 100% hydration using all the whole  flour to get it to 20% pre-fermented flour.  This is larger than normal but we only planned a 15 hour shaped retard.One it doubled it went I nto the fridge overnight.

Since all the bran is in the levain, I stopped doing an autolyse and just mix all the dough flour, water and  levain together with a few slap and folds and sprinkle the salt on top and just let it sit for 40 minutes.  It is so much easier to mix the levain into the eater and then into the dough flour to get everything evenly incorporated.  The whole grain flour is still sitting at 100% hydration and acid for 24 hours so it will be plenty soft enough – at least Lucy says so and she is First Class now after being a 2nd and 3rd class loser for 15 years.

150, 75 and 25 slap and fold sessions followed and then 3 sets of stretch and folds from the compass points finished out the dough manipulations – all on the 30 minute intervals.  Then we let the dough sit for 2 hours to bulk up before shaping and retarding for 15 hours.  The kitchen was 84 F.  IF wee were going for a longer cold proof we would have cut the 2 hour bulk on the counter for an hour or less for sure if a 40 hour retard was planned.  We baked it in a CC our usual way – no spritzing this time.

This came out perfectly sour, medium open, moist on the inside and crunchy on the outside and plain delicious.  We got it to the dental office just in time for lunch and also took them some of the cherry tomatoes we picked this morning.  They wanted the whole thing sliced up fairly and we all got a taste right away – just delicious.  The bread was great but the star of this post besides Mabel was my SIL’s sourdough popovers using the NMNF starter Lucy gave him the last time he was in Phoenix.

Killer Spanish Chorizo Omelet to go with the SD popover.

He made a counter overnight levain of 50 g each of flour and milk with 15 g of NNF starter.  Then the next morning he added 120 g of AP flour, 225 g of milk, 3 eggs and 2% salt.  He mixed it up and let it sit as the oven came up to 450 F.  The muffin tins were sprayed with Pam.  You want to make sue the levain is very active for sure.  I’m not sure where the recipe came from but it is similar to KA Flour one.  It turned out terrific and made for a fantastic breakfast.

My wife kept saying Mable Mable set the table and my daughter and SIL just couldn’t put 2 and 2 together on their dog setting the table.   They are young and didn’t know the history if Mabel in the my wife’s family when she was growing up in St Louis….. 55 years ago.  Mable was the family, maid, house keeper and nanny and my MIL used to say – Mabel Mabel set the table every night?  Now everyone says it to our new Mabel!

Since Lucy got promoted she spends most of her time like this.  She be tired and sleeping soundly.  Sweet Dreams!

Comments

Elsie_iu's picture
Elsie_iu

but with only jumbo shrimps, no sausages or scallops... Stop telling me how good home-smoked meats are! I've been watching Diners, Drive-ins and Dives a lot recently, which gets me a serious craving for all kinds of smoked proteins. I definitely don't need another lure for smoking food myself. You'll get me into real trouble if this happens :) That pasta contains four of my favorite ingredients on earth: shrimps, smoked sausages, cherry tomatoes and of course pasta. Honestly, my mouth is watering so badly when I'm looking at it! Fresh cherry tomatoes are something I can eat every day in my life. They're indeed nature's candies. Both Mexican and Spanish chorizo are flavor bombs yet I always prefer the latter. There's more chew to dry cured sausages and the flavor gets intensified as well. The omelette is cool but then when isn't it?   

 

Those popovers seem to have the crumb I like: having evenly distributed holes instead of a huge hole in the middle. I strayed away from homemade popovers as most recipes appear to produce empty-centered popovers. Why would I spend time and effort to make air? There's plenty available and it's free of charge... :) Yours are obviously different. They remind me of Hong Kong's famous street food 雞蛋仔, which we used to buy often and was shared among my younger cousins. It's too sweet for my taste buds now. Making a SD version with reduced sugar sounds like the way to go! 

 

What lucky people they are to receive such a tasty bread! I'm sure they enjoyed it a lot. You might get free dental care services from now on. Sounds like you had a great time in Seattle despite the high food price. It's always fun to shop at unfamiliar food markets. I guess Lucy didn't get to meet Mabel, did she? Your son-in-law should know how he can please his mother-in-law now. By the time you and your wife visit him and your daughter next time, Mabel should have learnt how to set the table :) 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

I was on my out of the fish market with the shrimp and scallops heading to the sausage place and I spotted this nice piece of monkfish and I'm a sucker for monkfish being a near monk myself:-) My SIL is having lft over gumbo for breakfast right now.  This gumbo was special because it had scallops and monkfish and cost 4 times more than usual due to Pike's Market pricing and all the add ins!

The popovers were great with large holes.  If you slice them they look like really pen English muffins on the inside but we tear them apart by hand to get at the onside faster.  Marion berry jam and butter is all they need but some fool put omelet in there too.

We love Seattle and a great place to for sure but my house here transplanted to Seattle, no where near the water, would be over $2 million there easy.  No wonder Amazon is trying to get out of there because their employees can't find houses they can afford even when they make $150,000 a year.  Amazon is building a huge new office skyscraper right next door to my daughters place and they have said they won't occupy it at all when it is done and will just open a place in Austin Texas instead.  The new building would have been Amazons 41st in Seattle.  There best one is the Spheres completed in 2016 which is an urban botanical garden workspace for their employees.  It is 3 geodesic domes smashed together. 

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/want-to-check-out-amazons-spheres-heres-how-to-get-in/

The girls dropped me off at Metropolitan Market for me to spend a whole afternoon there just to look around have some lunch, try the samples etc. I had a grilled smoked ham and 26 month, ancient gouda cheese sandwich for lunch on sourdough that was killer and only $8 - a deal for sure.  Sadly they don't have a wine bar there like Central Market so it has a ways to go to get to the really great level for grocery stores.

Mabel would be too much for Lucy and Lucy would probably attack her for being over spunked!  She is smart for sure.  It is a shame I can't post videos from the iPhone here.  She is a cutie!

Glad you liked the post and HBE

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

your elbows off the table."     How about  ...take your paws, please, off the table?"  

 

Jump Rope Rhyme

Mabel, Mabel, strong and able,
Take your elbows off the table.
We've told you once,
We've told you twice,
We'll never tell you thrice.

 

Great write up.  You never fail to make me hungry even just after a meal!  Can Mable skip rope yet?

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

not setting records for it like these dogs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy96TGlOq28 

she might even learn to walk a tight rope too 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lkurNZ0CQk

We love the Rhyme!  My daughter wanted to know if I said it as a child and I said I was a boy and pulled little girls pigtails as they jumped rope instead!

Seems like no one ever starves around here.....even though I should try it at least once a week:-)  That would cut my calorie intake by almost 15%

Glad you like the post and happy baking Mini!

Yippee's picture
Yippee

Sounds like you had a great time, Dab! It's important to relax and recharge so that we have the energy to deal with the never-ending challenges in our lives! Mable is lovely!  Who took care of Lucy while you were away? 

Looking forward to your next write-up! Happy Baking!

Yippee

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

sits hour house and takes care of Lucy when we are out of town.  Lucy loves Becky and she was the one who took the picture of Lucy asleep on the back of the sofa and sent it to us while we were in Settle.  She is the greatest.  When we were out of town for months last year, Becky did everything - she watered the plants and the grass, keep the pool clean and probably would have done anything we asked, short of remodeling work:-)  We haven't been anywhere in a year and getting out of town for even 5 days was a blessing.  Seattle was the perfect place to go too.  So different from here and even we can afford it if we stay with the kids and stay less than a week:-)

Your the best Yippee!  Happy baking!

not.a.crumb.left's picture
not.a.crumb.left

although looking totally amazing...but..... I loooooove the dog photos and Lucy and Mabel are just the cutest!!!! Sorry could not resist...as Barney is same breed as Mabel and tell your daughter to get ready for bathtime and cutting that fur.....and to prepare mentally  for that'really' look from Mabel...and the guilt...when it is haircut time...ha.ha..

What a lovely time you must have had.......looks all wonderful... Kat

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Mabel went on her first hike today to a lake where she got to fetch a stick from the water.  She loved it from the videos they sent us.  She would need a after that but he gets one once a week whether she like it or not.  The brushing, grooming and hair cuts would be too much for me but the young ones don't seem to care all that much.  Lucy hates water, baths and is not fond of the groomer either but she doesn't require anything like Mabel or Barney does.  We had a great time for sure.  Now it is time to make another  since we tool a 1/4 loaf of the last one to Seattle  loaf of bread for my wife!  Barney has to be as Salty as you too!  Gad you liked the post!

Happy baking NaCl

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

are both adorable! What a great trip and the food looks scrumptious as does the bread! Now I am starving from looking at those pictures! 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

The bread was exceptionally nice.  The food was grand and the Table Setting Mabel better learn how to cook and bake!  Seattle is a great place to visit.  Plenty of culinary nonsense.  
happy baking Danni

Isand66's picture
Isand66

What an adorable puppy that Mabel!  Max and Lexi wish she lived closer so they can romp around with her.  Lexi loves the water too, but Max not so much, he's more like Lucy :).

It looks like you had a great trip.  I've never been to Seattle myself but was very impressed with it when Top Chef was filmed there a few seasons ago.  I know the food scene is supposed to be excellent.  Hopefully your next visit you will get a chance to sample some more places.

Your food looks great as always, and you reminded me I have been dying to make some SD pop-overs myself.  My wife makes a non SD version that is based on BLT Steak-house's version which always come out awesome, but I really do want to try a SD version.

Give Queen Lucy a nice belly rub from me and her East Coast buddies.

Since I've been "off" from work I have finally almost caught up with my gardening.  Still have some projects to do but at least everything is planted for the most part including the veggies.

Best Regards,
Ian

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

to the snow line after swimming in that lake - Now that has to be cold swimming for sure!  She is 17 weeks old today.  The black ones would love hiking with Mabel for sue and she would like hiking with them!

Glad you got the gardening done!  We are picking cherry tomatoes like crazy but it is getting hot with a couple of days in the 100's scheduled for this week so they will burn up soon enough:-)

The trip was great and food there is very good.  Next time we want to go to Lunchbox Laboratories for their Scientific Hamburgers - Saw them on the food channel yesterday.  The pork and duck burger looked really good as does the American version of the Kobe.  Not bad for under $16.  Plus you can order double bacon too! 

Make the KA SD popovers but make sure to do the overnight Levain version to get them - sour.

Glad you like Mabel - she is so sweet.  Lucy and her send their best to the Black Ones.  Mabel looks a little ragged after her swim:-)

Happy baking Ian 

 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

She looks like we should all kneel before her :)!!

She is too damned cute for words.....

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman
Anne-Marie B's picture
Anne-Marie B

Lucy recovering after a long, lone baking session while her assistant is living it up northside?

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

and SIL in the Seattle damp and dreary instead of the AZ hot and sunny with Lucy.  Lucy may be a First Class Baking Assistant now but she isn't getting a assistant any time soon until she learns how not to burn the Pizza on the grill like she did the Sicilian Pan Pizza last night!  It wasn't burned so bad we couldn't eat it but still....

Happy Baking A-MB