Coming next to my kitchen, Low budget Sous-vide

Time to get back into the micro controller world. I plan on blending micro-controllers with temperature sensors, heaters and pumps to COOK!

Sous-vide

French for under vacuum. The process basically consists of vacuum packing food in a plastic bag and immersing it in water bath at a constant temperature (typically the temperature of the food when it's considered "done") for a long enough period of time to let it reach that heat all the way through and kill any possible pathogens in the food.

Most food, when cooked sous-vide requires "finishing" or a quick trip into the frying pan or under the broiler to give it the appearance of having been cooked by that method.

Two of the biggest benefits of sous-vide are that the food is extremely moist since all of the moisture is trapped in the bag with the food and the food can rest at the "done" temperature for many hours without becoming overdone, allowing for wide flexibility in serving times.

There will be much more to come on this topic.

Cinnamon Rolls - Feb 21 is National Sticky Bun Day!

Ingredients

Dough:

• 4 large egg yolks, room temperature
• 1 large whole egg, room temperature
• 2 ounces sugar, approximately 1/4 cup
• 3 ounces unsalted butter, melted, approximately 6 tablespoons
• 6 ounces buttermilk, room temperature
• 20 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 4 cups, plus additional for dusting
• 1 package instant dry yeast, approximately 2 1/4 teaspoons
• 1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
• Vegetable oil

Filling:

• 8 ounces light brown sugar, approximately 1 cup packed
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger (Shhh... Don't tell anyone)
• Pinch salt
• 3/4-ounce unsalted butter, melted, approximately 1 1/2 tablespoons

Icing:

• 2 1/2 ounces cream cheese, softened, approximately 1/4 cup
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 5 1/2 ounces powdered sugar, approximately 1 1/2 cups

Making The Dough:

The wet stuff:

I used leftover whey (4 oz) from the ricotta I made earlier today and heavy cream (2 oz) instead of buttermilk, 4 yolks, 1 whole egg and 6 Tbsp of melted butter

Dry Stuff:

Yeast and salt

20 oz flour (by weight) & 2 oz sugar

Eggs, butter, sugar and dairy before:

Eggs, butter, sugar and dairy after:

Added the dry goods:

About half the flour, the salt and the yeast. Whipped into a batter

Mixed in the balance of the flour and ready to rise:

The Filling:

Filling:

mixed the light brown-sugar with the cinnamon, salt and ginger using a fork.

Rolling out the dough:

Ready to roll:

Rolling out:

Roughly 18" x 24"

Buttering:

Adding the filling:

Rolled up:

Cut:

Ready to chill:

Baking:

Put the rolls into the oven for 30 minutes to proof. Place them on the top rack and place a pan filled with boiling water on the rack below. This makes a bit of a sauna for the yeast to wake up and enjoy. We should treat them nicely like this since were about to murder them.

Looking a bit puffy from the second rise:

Placed in the middle of a 350F oven for 30 minutes:

The Icing:

A simple matter of whisking together 2.5 oz of softened cream-cheese, 5.5 oz of sifted powdered sugar and 3 tablespoons of milk until it looks like icing.

Moved the kegerator controller to it's own space

Two things today:

1. Moved the kegerator controller to its own blog
   
2. Started a GitHub repository for my source code.
   

The Kegerator

I'm starting something mildly ambitious for my first real Arduino project. I'll be making a temperature controller for a chest freezer. The net effect will be to be able to switch the freezer on and off based on a "Set temp."

The controller will consist of the following:

• A temp probe
• An LCD to show the current and set temperatures
• Up and Down buttons to set the temp
• A massive 5vdc/400ma driven 240V/30A relay
• An Arduino boot-loaded AVR ATMega328

Eventually, I intend to add a lid switch to detect an open lid, an alarm to tell you when the temp is X degrees too high and another temp sensor in the tower to switch on a fan to keep the lines cool when the tower gets too warm.

Pictures and code can be found here:
http://kegeratorcontroller.blogspot.com/