Weezl and friends Phase 3 - sitting pretty with Kitty

hornetgirl

Allegra wrote: »

I have done it on the front page as soon as it was live today, HG - it links from the "We are now also testing Christmas recipes" - is it not obvious enough that it's a linkie ? Should I change the text to "please click to view Christmas recipes we are now testing" or something similar ?

Apologies Allegra - not sure how I managed to miss it! Exactly the kind of thing I had in mind though

We had the smoked salmon pasta tonight, and the verdict is - delicious. You'd never guess that this was a budget meal, it was so scrummy. To anyone else thinking of trying it, make sure you taste before adding any seasoning, we found the salmon made it plenty salty enough without the need to add anymore.
The only change I made was to use Elmlea instead of double cream, as it was the cheapest option available when I shopped (Sains). It worked fine.
I used the full amount of spaghetti (well half cos 2 of us) and we found that to be really filling without needing the bread as well.

Sian_the_Green

Hey all,
I did reply to the message about e-mails but then it turned 3pm and MSE kicked me off and I lost what I had written. So, I have the CBAs about writing it again.
The queries come in a few categories. Simple ones like "Why is there no garlic on the shopping list?" which I can answer, practical ones like "can you explain to me the portion size of the Hummus?" and lifestyle ones like "This is what I do at present, what do you suggest for me?". Now I could copy them all onto here but I dont know if that might be a little bit rude to those people without their permission. I wouldnt like to think that an e-mail I had sent someone was posted on a public forum verbatim. So, what do you suggest? I can send an imbetween e-mail in response to say that their query has been received and we will get back to them but I dont want Weezl to have to answer every individual query herself.

What if more people had the e-mail log on and when I feel there is a question I cannot answer I ask someone to log on and reply to it, so for example "Allegra, an e-mail for you to respond to about the fine points of making the risi e bisi". Then one person doesnt have to answer everything all the time. There are still some which I think Weezl would be best to answer, and there are others I think we should ask the person if we can share with the team here. Any opinions on that?

weezl74

Sian_the_Green wrote: »

So, what do you suggest? I can send an imbetween e-mail in response to say that their query has been received and we will get back to them but I dont want Weezl to have to answer every individual query herself.

sian i really like the sound of that.

If you had a friendly template saying thank you and your message has been forwarded, that always really helps the sender, so that sounds great.

I emailed BBC good food magazine a while back with a nutrition question, a genuine one, but also wanted to see what the gold standard is in response times to these things. I had an automated response immediately, and then 10 working days later a response.

It sounds like it would be useful for me to put up a FAQ's page which addresses things like the seasonings?

errr I have more thoughts, back in a min....

Sian_the_Green

So I had 3 emails to respond one, one I e-mailed straight back to and told them the answer, one I replied to and said thank you for the queries and said I would look into the answer, the last one I have sent to your e-mail Weezl so you can see what I mean about the awkwardness of handling a big list of questions or a scenario where you are asked to show how the plan could help in their situation. If anyone would be willing to respond to e-mails which come in or to be the one to feed them onto the Skype discussions (I am not often in at the times you have the chats) please PM me and I will tell you the log on information, then if there is a query I think you could help with I can PM you a little info and you can log on and help?
I think the more people who arrive at the site the more this needs to be a planned thing, for example if you were promoted through the press and suddenly 100 e-mails come in with different questions then it may get a little overwhelming to reply as individuals, at the moment that is not the case but I see no reason why CFR shouldn't be massive. The other thing to ponder is whether we have some sort of disclaimer signature for e-mails, so people don't think we are suddenly experts on everything in the world, I have no legal experience at all but I would hate to think we were putting ourselves at risk of getting into trouble. Was there anything like that on the Good Food e-mail.

As a side issue I love the good food website as I like being able to see the reviews recipes get, I tend only to make recipes if they have over 4 stars because then I know they are tried and tested. I like the reviews we have on the recipes and think we could also add the comments from e-mailers if we reply to ask if we can use them. What do you think?

nat21luv

hi, i baked my own bread for the first time yesterday and it wasnt great! it was really 'doughy'! what did i do wrong? i left the yeast to activate for nearly 30mins in the warm water, warmed the flour, followed the recipe to the T but it still went wrong. i didnt use all the water because it got quite sticky, i couldnt even touch it because it stuck to everything! think i used just under 2pts including the yeast water. i used the whole 1.5kg bag of strong white flour....im at a loss! what did i do wrong?! i left the bread in tins in a warm place before cooking for nearly 2 hours! they still didnt rise much help!

Allegra

Hi Nat,

I'm afraid I'm not sure what you mean by "doughy" - do you mean quite dense and not as airy as shop-bought ? Or different to normal hand-baked ? If either of those, I'm afraid that it really is quite different - a bit spongy and dense, lots of large air holes in it ? A bit like a dense ciabatta ?

As for stickiness, yes, it is. It doesn't rise all that much, either - after 40 mins of rising bung it in the oven even if it looks a little bit flat, it should still do the trick.

If you really can't get on with it (and it's okay if you can't, even I still only use it only about every other time I bake bread) try either the instant cereal fortified bread (the ginger loaf batch from planner 2) or use the same amount of flour/salt/yeast, but only just under 1.5 pts of warm water, you can then knead the bread and achieve a different texture loaf (divide, prove and bake the same length of time).

nat21luv

it was a bit like crumpet consistency! couldnt be used for sandwiches, as like you said, large air holes and because it didnt taste great. because the loaf was quite flat, i'd have to use 4 slices just to have a sandwich round for my son-one slice was about half the size of normal bread. i forgot to mention i only had 2 loaf tins so i kept the rest of the mixture aside in the mixing bowl until the first 2 had risen and cooked (about 4 hours!) then cooked the mixture. this rose to almost twice the size of the tin! slightly better consistency too but still didnt taste great. think i'll try using less water as you say and knead the bread. thanks for your help

Allegra

nat21luv wrote: »

it was a bit like crumpet consistency! couldnt be used for sandwiches, as like you said, large air holes and because it didnt taste great. because the loaf was quite flat, i'd have to use 4 slices just to have a sandwich round for my son-one slice was about half the size of normal bread. i forgot to mention i only had 2 loaf tins so i kept the rest of the mixture aside in the mixing bowl until the first 2 had risen and cooked (about 4 hours!) then cooked the mixture. this rose to almost twice the size of the tin! slightly better consistency too but still didnt taste great. think i'll try using less water as you say and knead the bread. thanks for your help

Yes ! Crumpets ! That's exactly it. It does not slice very well at first, but no HM bread does - it needs to stand at least an hour, preferably overnight; it's also better once frozen and defrosted. Quite flat, yes, and it does take 4 slices for a sandwich round. Appearances can be deceptive, though - it is very filling; and as the planner has been built around this bread to a great extent, the expense and filling-ness have not been underestimated

So basically you haven't done anything wrong.... But this bread might just not be the right one for you, which is fine Hope you like the kneaded result a bit better !

Sian, unless someone else has already volunteered, I am happy to be Skype liaison, so if you want to PM me whenever help is needed, or PM me the login details or however you want to work this, just go for it

weezl74

dear all, I'd be most grateful if people could help me work out what the FAQs page needs to contain to help with the questions that we often get asked. So far I have seasonings, bread issues... any more?:cool:


i could also do with a brownies tester at pretty short notice, ie over the weekend, to test my optimistic theory that swapping 1 block of dark for milk choc will result in it needing less sweetening. If anyone is willing PLEASE do shout up I'll give you a big kiss/promise not to if you're shanks

when crimbo is linked would people like it to link from planners page, home page or somewhere else?

weezl74

if anyone is willing to test JUST the stuffing part of the pork shoulder dinner perhaps as part of a roast meal this weekend, please do!, We realise it does not readily roll into balls so a couple of tests that it's fine in a mini roasting dish would be fab.

Shanks/arty it contains dried fruit, so don't bother;)