Ant's in the Kitchen

Danish Aebelskiver

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 19:47:00 +0000

Full Aebelskiver pan and sugar dish waiting to receive them.

A close childhood friend introduced me to one of the best breakfast foods ever. We would have Friday night sleepovers at his house and in the morning while we watched cartoons his mom would make, what I called, ball pancakes. I couldn't stop talking about them when I went home and persuaded my mom to get the recipe from his mom.

Well, unfortunately making this treat requires more than just the recipe. The pan is one of a kind. Heavy cast iron with seven hemi-sphere wells or cavities. Long story short my mom bought one and started making them. They eventually ended up becoming a Christmas time regular at our home. My mom gave me an Aebelskiver pan this year and so for Christmas Eve I have instituted the Aebelskiver brunch, which I plan to make a running tradition. The recipe is below, and as I studied the recipe more closely, my childhood description holds true they are basically fancy pancakes. I added a few other seasonings to spruce them up a bit.

Ingredients:

2 Cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 Cups buttermilk (can be milk w/ lemon juice)
3 Eggs - Separated
1 teaspoon Cardamom (optional)
1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon (optional)
1/2 cup Powdered Sugar or White Sugar (Depends on what you prefer)

Steps & Notes:

Mix dry ingredients: Put together the flour, salt, baking soda, and seasonings
Add buttermilk & Yolks: Mix these together well. Keep the Egg whites out for next step.
Beat egg whites: Beat the egg whites until fluffy
Add whites: Gently mix in the fluffy egg whites into the rest of the batter.
Cook one side: Grease the pan however you like, butter, oil, spray. Fill each cavity 3/4 or mostly full. Let cook for a minute or two over a medium to low heat.
(Optional): Add some filling. You can put fruit, jam, or other items in the middle before flipping it over. If you are putting something runny in the middle to should only half fill the cavity, add the filling, then finish filling the pan. This way it get's baked in and won't spill when you roll it over.
Cook second side:Roll over with fork or other utensil ( I use chop sticks) and let it cook another minute or two.
Add sugar topping: Remove and sprinkle with sugar.
Eat warm.

Good for all ages. My son really liked them, don't let the face fool you.

Result:

5 stars!
Fairly easy and straight forward recipe. Like pancakes, waffles, and eggs, this one is hard to really screw up.
My wife and I both prefer normal granulated sugar on the top over powdered sugar. And I would really recommend eating them warm.

Possible Improvements:

Try blending cream cheese and sugar together and use that for a filling. (That was my wife's idea, but I really like it)
Try a mix of other spices in the batter, could make it more seasonal with spices similar to what is used in pumpkin pie.

Cheese Dips

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 00:20:00 +0000

Garlic & Parsley

Before this post goes to far, I must confess that I have done one experimented with making Boursin again and not posted the results. I had roughly the same result as last time; the only improvement being the texture and flavor were a little better, primarily because I finally used cultured buttermilk.

With the fall season upon us and Halloween approaching my wife and I got the itch to experiment with a discovery from last fall, Pumpkin Butter. I will have to get my wife to post the recipe. It's good, and last year we made a really fun treat with it by simply adding cream cheese to make it creamier. We decided for our Halloween/Fall party it would be fun to add our Neufchatel instead of store bought cream cheese.

I got curious on what the difference between neufchatel (I also learned it is called farmers cheese) and normal cream cheese was, so I did some research. It appears that cream cheese, surprise, has more cream added to it. I decided to try adding some cream to the neufchatel recipe to see what kind of a difference it would make, the result was pleasing.

Ingredients:
Milk:

Quantity: 1/2 Gallon
Brand: Kirtland Whole Milk
Notes: It says it's pasteurized, I don't know if it was ultra pasteurized. Grade A, Homogenized.

Buttermilk:

Quantity: 1/8 cup - 1/4 cup or more
Brand: Meijer (Regional Store) generic.
Other attributes: Cultured, Lowfat (1%), Grade A

Whipping Cream(You should probably use heavy cream):

Quantity: 1/2 cup
Brand: Dean's: Since 1925
Other Attributes: Grade A, Ultra-Pasteurized

Other Ingredients:

1/8 tsp. (4-6 drops) Organic Vegetable Rennet. Double Strength Plus, Gluten Free, Non-GMO
1/8 C. water
1/2 tsp. salt
2/3 c. pumpkin butter (added to pumpkin butter batch)
1 tsp. garlic powder (added to garlic batch)
1/2 tsp. dried parsley (Added to garlic batch)

Steps & Notes:

Buttermilk: Using cultured buttermilk has proven to make a huge difference. In the past I tried substituting it for milk + lemon juice and it just didn't work.
Mix Buttermilk w/ Milk: I wasn't very strict on my measurements this time around. I started with 1/8th of a cup of buttermilk, but I added another 1-8 to 1/4 Cup. I don't remember the exact amount because I was just eyeballing it.
Mixed in Cream: All the recipes I read said to use heavy cream. All we had in the fridge was whipping cream. I decided to try it out, just to see what happened. I kind of just winged the measurement. I don't remember the exact measurement, but it was 1/4-1/2 cup of whipping cream.
Warm milk: Warmed milk to 65° F
Add Rennet: I added 1/8 tsp. of rennet (Which was pre-mixed into 1/8c. of cold water).
Let Sit: I let it sit for about 20 hours covered and mostly undisturbed at room temperature (I can't really confirm that because it was on the stove and my wife did do a lot of cooking while I was at work).
Cut Curd: I thought because I let it sit for so long the curd would be nice and firm. It wasn't. It was very delicate and didn't keep it's form at all. I was able to cut it into 1/2 inch curds, but I couldn't ladle them out without them disintegrating.
Strain/Drain Whey: I poured the whole pot into a handkerchief and and let it strain for about 2 days. I probably should have left it another day because I wasn't able to get rid of a lot of the whey before putting it in the cheese cloth it was still very moist. My wife liked the consistency that resulted though. I believe this is where the difference between the final product being spreadable vs. dip-able was made.
Add Salt: I added about 1/2 tsp. of salt into the cheese
Mixed in flavoring: As I mentioned at this point I have been splitting the cheese into different container and trying different flavoring.

In the first container I added some of my wife's pumpkin butter to one. The end result was a sweet, creamy dip with a slight pumpkin spice flavor. A surprisingly good dip for pretzels and I would imagine good on toast.
In the second container I went the boursin route with garlic powder, a little more salt, and dried parsley. I still got the garlic a little strong, but still tasted good. It was a great pretzel/chip dip.
With the leftover I just left it plain.

Results:

Taste: Good. The garlic batch was still slightly too garlic-y, but overall people liked the flavor. The Pumpkin was excellent.
Texture: It was a very smooth and consistent texture. Smooth and creamy like a vegetable dip, but a bit thicker. It reminded me of some cheese I used in Brazil called, requeijão. The pumpkin butter batch was a little more liquid because the pumpkin butter diluted the thick creamy texture a bit.
I would give it an overall rating of about 5 stars.

Pumpkin Butter

Possible Improvements:

Use less garlic.
Work out the exact measurement of cream, buttermilk.
Figure out how to get a more solid curd.

Neufchatel

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 00:30:00 +0000

A little more spreadable and creamy, but still too salty

After my attempt at making Boursin I decided to start at square one, which was to get a comfortable with neufchatel. I took another stab at it this weekend with some better results.

Ingredients:
Milk:

Quantity: 1/2 Gallon
Brand: Cub 2% Reduced Fat Milk.
Notes: It says it's pasteurized, I don't know if it was ultra pasteurized. Grade A, Homogenized.

Other Ingredients:

1/8 tsp. Organic Vegetable Rennet. Double Strength Plus, Gluten Free, Non-GMO
1/8 C. milk
1/8 Tbsp. of lemon juice
1/2 tsp. salt

Steps & Notes:

Buttermilk: I still don't have buttermilk so, again, I mixed 1/8 Tbsp of lemon juice with 1/8 C. of milk. This seemed to be the general substitute for buttermilk I could find on the internet.
Mix Buttermilk w/ Milk: I added the 1/8c. of 'Buttermilk' to the 1/2 Gal. of milk
Warm milk: Warmed milk to 65° F
Add Rennet: I added 1/8 tsp. of rennet (Which was pre-mixed into 1/8c. of cold water).
Let Sit: I let it sit for 12 hours covered and undisturbed at room temperature. The curd was a little harder this time around, but still seemed a little soft. I don't know if having real cultured buttermilk will make the difference on this one or not.
Cut Curd: into 1/2 inch curds.
Strained Curd: I put the curd in a handkerchief and and let it strain overnight, because the curd still wasn't very hard, the whey was hard to separate out and it still seemed pretty moist.
Add Salt: I added about 1/2 tsp. of salt into the cheese
Whipped cheese: The cheese still seemed a little curd-y and not very smooth, so I decided to experiment and whip it up a little to see if it smoothed out.
Let dry some more: I let it hang in the fridge a few more hours to get a little more of the whey out.

Results:

Taste: Salty still. 1/2 tsp. was still a little too much for the 1/2 Gal. recipe.
Texture: It is a little more smooth and spreadable like a cream cheese.
Overall the flavor and texture reminds me more of a fine curd cottage cheese. I think that's because I'm not using buttermilk. I read a few cottage cheese recipes where they use lemon juice to acidify the milk, but I haven't seen that in an neufchatel recipes.
My wife likes it, except for how salty it is, so that is a good sign.
I would give it an overall rating of about 3.5 stars.

Possible Improvements:

Use less salt.
Use real cultured buttermilk. I think you might really need the buttermilk cultures, not just the acidity, so a imitation like adding lemon juice to milk doesn't help you much.
I also had the idea of using the steamer pot that has a strainer that fits nicely into a majority of the pot. I can cut the curd, then lift the curd out and let the whey drain off more easily than trying to scoop out the already delicate curds.

Lavash Flatbread Chips

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 23:43:00 +0000

This isn't a very gourmet post, but I just had a short lived infatuation with some Flatbread chips I picked up on an impulse buy at Costco, they always get me with their free samples.

I think it is Costco's generic Kirkland brand Lavash Flatbread Chips made with some olive oil, flax seed, and rosemary. My excuse for buying them was for something to keep me awake on a recent road trip. They were great for that, and I didn't feel like I had to eat a ton of them to fill up, just a few handfuls and I was good.

I found a few other uses for them.

They made some killer nachos. Cheese on rosemary flavored chips, I don't know how you can go wrong.
Crushed up and used to top soup and chilli.
Crushed up and used as topping to casserole or to bread anything (I actually didn't test this one, but I think it would be really good.)

They certainly won't be a staple food that will always be found in the cupboard, but we got some good mileage out of them.

Ultimate Mozzarella Failure: Can't rush a good Cheese

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 22:43:00 +0000

This failure was worse than the last failure. Both were
grainy, but this time I ended up working with it until
is completely disintegrated in my hands.

Don't have to add much more to this post. My wife asked me to make some mozzarella for a pasta salad she she made for the same picnic for which I was attempting to make Boursin.

I tried making it very quickly while at the same time making the Boursin; possibly another reason the boursin didn't work out. I was trying to finish the mozzarella as my wife and son were walking out the door.

A few of the things that I think went wrong:

I didn't steralize the pot. (We don't have a lot of pots and pans right now, so I reuse the same pot everytime I make cheese)
The milk was too hot when I added the rennet. I don't really know what effect this has on the cheese making processes, but the milk was quite a bit warmer than it should have been and didn't take the time to let it cool.
Didn't let the the curd setup as long as I usually do, which I think was the ultimate demise of the cheese.
Didn't get enough whey out before I tried to knead and pull the mozzarella.

The end result was a grainy curd, that wouldn't hold together. When I strained it the curd started to break up. I tried heating it in the microwave to no avail. As I pulled the cheese it wouldn't start streeching, instead it got grainier and started to disintegrate. As the ball got smaller and smaller I couldn't help feeling frustrated and in the end I washed it all down the sink so I could catch up with my wife, who at this point was already down the hall on her way out.

The lesson learned, don't try and rush a good cheese.

Attempted Boursin from Neufchatel

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 20:59:00 +0000

My sister-in-law pulled out some Boursin at her husbands birthday party we had on the 4th of July. It was delicious and inspiring. I left with my mind already decided to try and make some for our get together the next day.

After looking around on the internet, I decided to go with a neufchatel base, with added herbs. Many of the recipes I saw used cream cheese as a base then added butter, herbs, and spices. I decided to just try neufchatel because I couldn't find a good homemade cream cheese recipe. I didn't want to add extra butter, so I just left it out.

It was doomed from the start since I had never made neufchatel or boursin before and was in a hurry. The recipe I used is from Dr. Fankhauser and the details of what I did are below with more on the results at the end.

Ingredients:
Milk:

Quantity: 1/2 Gallon
Brand: Cub 2% Reduced Fat Milk.
Notes: It says it's pasteurized, I don't know if it was ultra pasteurized. Grade A, Homogenized.

Other Ingredients:

1/8 tsp. Organic Vegetable Rennet. Double Strength Plus, Gluten Free, Non-GMO
1/8 C. milk
1/8 Tbsp. of lemon juice
3 cloves of Garlic
3-4 Chives
A few slices of Onion
1/4 cup Parsley ( I think)

Steps & Notes:

Buttermilk: I didn't have buttermilk so I mixed 1/8 Tbsp of lemon juice with 1/8 C. of milk. This seemed to be the general substitute for buttermilk I could find on the internet.
Mix Buttermilk w/ Milk: I added the 1/8c. of 'Buttermilk' to the 1/2 Gal. of milk
Warm milk: Warmed milk to 65° F
Add Rennet: I added 1/8 tsp. of rennet (Which was pre-mixed into 1/8c. of cold water).
Let Sit: I let it sit for 4 hours covered and undisturbed at room temperature. The curd was a little soft, but proceeded anyway because I was short on time.
Cut Curd: I 1/2 inch curds.
Strained Curd: I put the curd in a handkerchief and and let it strain for a few hours. I tried to speed the process up by squeezing it at several points.
Prepared Herbs: I mixed the garlic, onion, chives, and parsley in a cuisine-art. Measurements are estimates, I didn't really keep track of how much I put in.
Add Salt: I added about 1/2 to 1 tsp. of salt into cheese
Mixed Cheese & Herbs: I mixed part of the herb mix with a majority of the cheese. I left some out to see what the normal neufchatel would taste like.
Let sit: I let it all sit together for a few hours while more whey strained out.

Results:

Plain Neufchatel Taste: It was really salty. The salt was over powering
Herb 'Boursin' Taste: I put way to much garlic. I also over did it on the parsley not to mention I shouldn't have put in onion, the chives would have been enough..
Texture: Somewhat moist, but more grainy and dry than creamy. It wasn't spreadable, it just kind of crumbled apart. I think partly due to trying to speed up the whey draining and also due to too much garlic, salt, etc...
The people I shared it with at our picnic generally had good things to say, but curiously no one ate much more after their first try. A little 9 year old really liked it, he loved how garlicky it was.
I would give it an overall rating of about 3 stars.

Possible Improvements:

Don't add as much salt.
Don't use as much garlic.
Leave out onions.
Give myself more time so I can (1) let the curd setup more (2) let the whey drain off at a slower pace, hopefully making a smoother consistency
Use real cultured buttermilk. I think you might really need the buttermilk cultures, not just the acidity, so a imitation like adding lemon juice to milk doesn't help you much.
Try adding some butter to the neufchatel to achieve a richer Boursin imitation.

Mozzarella - 3rd Times the Charm

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 23 May 2011 02:06:00 +0000

I thought my third attempt was going to bomb as well, but it ended up coming out pretty well. Again, I used the Ricki's 30 Minute Mozzarella recipe from 'CheeseMaking.com'.

Ingredients:
Milk:

Quantity: 1/2 Gallon
Brand: Cub 2% Reduced Fat Milk.
Notes: It says it's pasteurized, I don't know if it was ultra pasteurized. Grade A, Homogenized.

Other Ingredients:

1/8 tsp. Organic Vegetable Rennet. Double Strength Plus, Gluten Free, Non-GMO
3/4 tsp. Citric Acid (Dissolved in 1/2cup cool water)

Steps & Notes:

Mix in Citric Acid: Added the diluted Citric Acid to the milk.
Heat Milk: It is supposed to be heated to 90°F. I think it went a little over that, but I was really close. I could tell at this step that things were going better. The pH must have been right because it was already looking curdled.
Add Rennet: Added rennet that was mixed in about 1/8c. cool water. I mixed it well and after a about 20-30 seconds I could already tell it was starting to set up, so I stopped mixing.
Let sit: It is recommended that it sits for 5 minutes. I think this time 5-10 minutes would have actually worked okay, where in my other attempts the curd didn't seem very solid. I actually left and went for a walk with my wife for an hour and a half or so.
Cut the Curd: Cut the curd in 1 inch squares. I was a little worried because, while the curd seemed strong, it didn't look smooth. I think from trying to mix it to much when first adding the rennet.
Cook a little Longer: Reheated the cut curd to 105°F while slowly stirring.
Strained the Whey: Scooped the large curds out of the whey, then poured the whey through a strainer. I let it sit for a few minutes and then kneaded it a bit. I was worried because it wasn't very 'strechy' and seemed pretty grainy and curdy. While kneading I squeezed a bunch of whey out of the curds and it started to condense nicely.
Microwaved curd: I microwaved the curd to get a little more whey out. Not much came out, unlike the first time I made it and a lot came out. However, the heating of the curds made them 'melt' together a little more. I microwaved it twice more for about 20 sec. but whey wasn't coming out and it seemed to be cooking the cheese , so I stopped.

It's pretty fun once you get the stretchy taffy consistency

Kneaded Curds: It was painful, but while it was really hot I kept kneading and it started to turn into that taffy kind of consistency and smoothed out. I pulled and stretched it for about 5 minutes.
Added Salt: I tired to add the salt too late in the process. It was more of an after thought after the cheese was all stretchy and smooth, once it started cooling it was hard to knead in.
Formed the Cheese: Made the cheese ball as it cooled. I put it in cool water to cool off.

Results:

Taste: A little bland because I didn't add the salt at the right time and I need to work out how much salt to use. It has a good fresh taste
Look: It looks like mozzarella! It is smooth and a solid consistency.
Texture: Fairly Moist, squishy, and a little chewy. It is also a little stringy, like string cheese.
I would give it an overall rating of about 4 stars.

Possible Improvements:

Add salt sooner, and in a larger quantity.
Try and get a more moist consistency
I don't think I want to microwave it as long or more than once if no whey is coming out. I think it would turn out a little more moist.

Yogurt Cheese Brownies

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 22 May 2011 02:45:00 +0000

We had a bunch of yogurt cheese (I still need to post about this) that was getting near the end and decided to experiment with using it as a substitute for cream cheese.

In high school there was an awesome cheesecake brownie recipe that I used to use all the time. I decided to try and use the yogurt cheese as a substitute in a similar recipe. I couldn't find my masterpiece from the past so I went with the 'Cream Cheese Brownies' recipe in the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book: Limited Edition, pg. 210. The closest recipe I could find on their website were these Cream Cheese Marbled Brownies.

Oven Temperature: 350° F
Bake Time: 45 Minutes
Equipment/Materials:13x9x2-inch Pan

Ingredients:
Brownies:

8 ounces Ghirardelli semisweet chocolate chips. All natural premium baking chips. (I don't really endorse any specific brand, but I really like Ghriardelli Chocolate).
3 Tblspoons butter
3 Eggs (It called for 4, but I like fudgie brownies and left one out)
1 1/4 Cups sugar
1/3 cup water
2 tsp. Vanilla
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

Cheesecake (Yogurt Cheesecake)

3/4 Cups homemade yogurt cheese
2/3 Cups Sugar
1/4 Cup Milk ( I added this, the original recipe didn't require it)

Steps & Notes

Prepare Chocolate: Melted butter and Chocolate chips in a sauce pan over low heat on stovetop. Removed and let cool while preparing the base.
Mix Base:

Mixed 2 eggs with electric mixer until foamy.
Added: Sugar, water, & just 1 tsp. of vanilla. Beat until mixture was thick and lemon-colored.
Added Chocolate: Beat in the chocolate mixture prepared earlier.
Stirred in flour, baking powder, and salt

Created cheesecake mix:

Mixed Yogurt Cheese with Sugar
Added milk & 1 tsp. Vanilla and mixed well
Added 1 egg, mixed well.

Pour into pan:

Put 1/2 of chocolate base in pan
Layered on Cheesecake mix
drizzled remaining chocolate mix on top of Cheesecake.
Swirled top chocolate layer with cheesecake layer using a knife.

Bake: 45 minutes at 350° F

I think they taste best after they have cooled for at least 20 minutes, you get the best taste of the chocolate and everything while it is a little warm. However, my wife loves brownies when they are hot out of the oven. The recipe recommends letting them sit an hour or two.

Result:

Taste: Great. You could tell it wasn't real cream cheese. There was a little tart yogurt flavor, but the fact that they are much lower in fat than real cream cheese kind of makes up for it.
Ranking: 4. They are good brownies, but this batch at least wasn't anything amazing.
Our son was pretty excited about them. He would have eaten the whole pan if we had let him.

Things to improve:

While looking back over the recipe I mentioned I noticed there were quite a few things I did not do as the recipe recommended.Many of them very minor. There were a few things I think might have made a difference.

Add 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice to the Cheesecake part. I think the acid might help setup the cheese better.
Use fresher Yogurt Cheese. This was near the end of it's life and I think you can really taste the tart yogurt flavor, perhaps the lemon juice would have helped here, but I don't think so.

Mozzarella Failure

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 22 May 2011 01:54:00 +0000

My second attempt at making Mozzarella was a complete failure.

I'm not going to go through the whole process I went through to make it, I used all the same ingredients, measurements, and steps from my first attmept. I will share where I think things went wrong.

The pot seemed a little dirty and I didn't wash it or 'sanitize' it before I used it. Something might have contaminated it, disrupted the pH, or intoduced foreign bacteria or other organisms that might have messed up the processes.
The first time I made it I didn't pre-mix the citric acid in water. I did do it this time, but I might have used too much water.
Again the milk was heated too high the first time around, I let it get over 100° F. Unlike last time I didn't wait for it to cool off before adding the rennet.
I might have put in too little rennet.
I let the milk sit with the rennet for over 5 minutes, but might have done several things wrong here.

I disturbed it pretty badly early in the process
I probably should have given it more time, especially if I didn't get the right amount of rennet

While reheating after cutting the curd I stirred a little too quickly. The curd completely disintegrated into the whey turning into a yellow creamy and slightly curdly mixture. I let it sit for an hour or so after, and it kind of set again, but it was still really delicate. This is why I think I might not have had enough rennet, mixed it poorly, or had the milk too hot.
I still tried to strain and knead what curd I could, but as you can tell from the picture above, I didn't have much luck getting anything going.

It turned out to be kind of like a...umm...ricotta cheese or something. I kept it and will try to find a way to use it.

First Attempt Mozzarella

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 15 May 2011 01:31:00 +0000

The first attempt at Mozzarella happened this afternoon. At first I looked at the directions on Dr. Fankhauser's Cheese Page, but the recipe I used was almost the exact same, Ricki's 30 Minute Mozzarella from 'CheeseMaking.com'.

My first Mozzarella. It kind of worked out.
Tastes alright, but the texture isn't right.

Ingredients:
Milk:

Quantity: 1/2 Gallon
Brand: Cub 2% Reduced Fat Milk.
Notes: It says it's pasteurized, I don't know if it was ultra pasteurized. Grade A, Homogenized.

Other Ingredients:

1/8 tsp. Organic Vegetable Rennet. Double Strength Plus, Gluten Free, Non-GMO
3/4 tsp. Citric Acid

Steps & Notes:

Mix in Citric Acid: Added to Milk.
Heat Milk: It is supposed to be heated to 90°F, however, I wasn't paying attention and it was heated to over 100°.
Add Rennet: Added rennet that was mixed in about 1/8c. water before I started heating the milk.
Let sit: It is recommended that it sits for 5 minutes. I let it sit longer because it didn't seem to have set up yet. I think I should have let it sit longer though. It wasn't as firm as the picture.
Cut the Curd: Cut the curd in 1 inch squares.
Cook a little Longer: Reheated the cut curd to 106°F while slowly stirring.
Strained the Whey: Scooped the curds out of the whey
Microwaved curd: I microwaved the curd to get a little more whey out. This is where I knew it wasn't going so well. The curd was grainy and not as smooth.
Kneaded Curds: The best I could, I kneaded the curd a bit, then microwaved it again.
Microwaved curd: I microwaved again, but I think I did it a little long. It was really hot and blob-like melted cheese, but not the 'taffy' texture the directions described. When pulled on or 'stretched' it would break, a clean break, nothing stretchy. It was really sticky, but could be wiped up easily.
Added Salt: Added salt to taste.
Formed the Cheese: Made the cheese ball as it cooled.

Results:

Taste: Okay. It has a good fresh taste, but it isn't anything amazing. I need to work out how much salt to add.
Look: It looks okay. It isn't shiny and wet looking like in pictures I've seen and descriptions I've read.
Texture: Dryish. It also seems a little grainy. I think it should be wetter tasting.

Possible Improvements:

Watch the temperature more closely on the initial warming of the milk.
Prepare Rennet right before adding it to the milk, instead of before I start warming the milk. A difference of maybe 15 or 20 minutes.
Let the milk set longer after adding the rennet.
Be more careful when stirring curds while heating.
When reheating in the microwave, do shorter times and use different bowls. I feel like it might have overheated it/cooked it too much.

Singing Hills Goat Dairy

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 09 May 2011 00:13:00 +0000

We went to the Mill City Museum Farmers Market yesterday. It was great fun. I liked all the foods they had there; chocolate, bread, jam, and honey. There were even a few cheese vendors I was able to talk too. It helps me realize how much of an amateur I am and how little I still know about all of this cheese business. We got some herb feta from Lynne Reeck and Kate Wall of 'Singing Hills Goat Dairy'. It was delicious.

Lynne Reeck and Kate Well. I borrowed this
photo from the blog Sweet and Savory Kitchens

Our first Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 02 May 2011 00:46:00 +0000

Hydrangea - One of Sharon's

Favorite Flowers

We always talk about how much we want a garden in our future home. This year we decided we should start learning on a smaller scale so we are further along the learning curve when we have a place to do a larger gardening project.

As we pulled up to the gardening store I suddenly felt extremely unprepared. All we had thought about was what we thought we could grow. I had no idea what we needed, if we should start with seeds or with something that was already growing, how big the pots should be, what could grow in a pot, etc...

Herbs: Rosemary, Cilantro, and Basil

We were blessed to run into a cheerful lady that held our hands through some of the bigger decisions. We're starting simple. We're trying a tomato plant and some herbs and we got stuff so we can hang them all on our porch when it gets warmer. It's the first year and I hope we can keep at least one plant alive through the summer.

Wish us luck.

We are trying the 'Topsy Turvey' Tomato planter where you

hang it upside down. We didn't want any of our plants to be

in Ira's reach.

Preparing for Rennet Cheese

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 01 May 2011 23:09:00 +0000

I'm starting to feel comfortable with yogurt, despite the fact that I haven't gotten to a point where I can replicate good results consistently. I'm feeling ready to move on to the next stage, soft fresh cheeses. That means I will need some more supplies, so last night I looked around online and ordered some rennet from Cheesemaking.com. I wanted to get the tablets since we will probably me moving a couple times in the next year and they are supposedly better in various conditions and lasts longer if frozen. However, the store was out, so I went with the Organic, No HMO, vegitable liquid rennet. It appears it doesn't matter if you use animal derived and plant derived, especially on fresh cheeses. From what I've read the hard cheeses that age for over 6 months do better with animal vs. Vegetable rennet.

I'm looking forward to starting on these simple cheeses. It looks like Neufchatel and Mozzarella will be first up, stay posted for more.

5th Batch - Slower Cooker and Powdered Milk

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 03:06:00 +0000

For our fifth batch, my wife and I tried the recipe in the slow cooker video we posted, and which can also be found at Every Day Food Storage. My wife grew up eating mostly yogurt made from powdered milk so she was pretty excited to try this out. I prefer using 'real' milk (I still haven't tried raw) because it tastes better(to me). I feel in past days powdered milk was the poor mans way of having milk, but now a days it seems it can be just as expensive as 'normal' milk and in some cases more expensive. At any rate, we do keep some powdered milk for a food reserve and we are always keen on finding recipes that will help rotate our supply. The details for the batch are below.
Ingredients:
Milk:

Amount: 2 quarts
Brand: Stop-n-Shop Instant Nonfat Powdered Milk (We aren't 100% sure, I took my detailed notes after the trash went out).
Notes: We used the measurements from the website to make 2 quarts, which is 3 cups of mix for 2 quarts of water. Additionally we added 2 and 2/3 cups additional mix. In total that is 5 2/3 cups of powder mix to make 2 quarts of milk. (This was significantly more than what the box recommended)

Yogurt Starter:

Amount: 1/2 Cup
Brand: Old Home All Natural Plain Yogurt (Local MN yogurt)
Ingredients: Cultured pasteurized grade A milk & Nonfat milk
Other Facts: Live & Active cultures (Acidophilus & Bifidus)

Incubator Used:

We used a slow cooker or Crock-Pot

Steps & Notes:

Again, we followed the directions on the Food Storage Yogurt from Everyday Food Storage:

Mix Milk: We mixed our powdered milk using the measurements recommended on the website. This might have been a mistake as the ratio of powder to milk was significantly higher than what the packaging recommended. In retrospect it might have been wiser to go with the ratio on the box.
Heat Milk: After mixing the milk and pouring it into the slow cooker, we set the slow cooker onto 'Low' heat and left if for 2.5 hours. 'Low' on our slow cooker got the milk to about 188 degrees. The milk got frothy and there was some 'light browning' around the edge of the pot.
Cool Milk: After 2.5 hours we turned the cooker off and let it sit for 3 hours. This allowed the milk to cool to about 125 degrees. We had a thin 'film' form on the top of the yogurt that we scooped off before mixing in the starter.
Stir in Starter: We stirred in 1/2 cup of starter and mixed it well.
Incubate: We put the lid on and wrapped towels all around the cooker and left it to incubate.
Timing: We let it sit out for 7 hours.

Results:

Mixed reviews, I think it's okay, my wife doesn't like it.
Taste: It doesn't really taste that great. I don't think it has that good tart yogurt taste, it's bearable though and as I will talk about below, the texture and consistency help it. My wife feels like it tastes too salty. She was also hoping it wouldn't taste like powdered milk, but to her it tastes like "super condensed powdered milk".
Consistency: It is very thick and firm, as seen in the video and pictures we took. I'm one of those people who when they taste foods is swayed a lot by the texture of the food. For some reason the fact that this yogurt is so firm and smooth it helps the flavor and is the one redeeming quality.
Overall Rating: 2 out of 5
Other observations:

My wife really liked this approach to making the yogurt because, for her, it is low maintenance and easy; meaning you don't have to worry about watching the temperature of the milk over the stove. You just have to have the time and a regime to wait 2 hours for it to warm remember to turn it off, wait 3 hours to cool, then remember again to come back to it, then have time to let it sit and incubate for 6-8 hours. For me that would be more work.
I didn't like that it took so long, and the yogurt wasn't that good. Since I usually make yogurt in the evening after coming home from work, I like that I can heat the milk up relatively quickly, cool it quickly (putting the pot in some water helps, as long as you don't let it cool too much), and then let it incubate overnight while I sleep.

Possible Improvements:

Use less Instant Powdered Milk in the original mix.
Try part 'real' milk and part Powdered Milk. If we could get a similar consistency using milk that would be the best of both worlds.

Yogurt 3rd & 4th Attempts

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 02:15:00 +0000

I made a batch of yogurt before leaving for a week to my brothers wedding and I made a batch when we got home, both batches came out about the same. I've noticed that the more I make it and the more I've read the less precise I feel I have to be on the temperatures and times. It is also less 'stressful' and feels effortless to heat up the milk, cool it, and set it out to incubate.

Ingredients:
Milk:

Amount: 1/2 Gallon
Brand: Costco's Kirtland whole milk.
Other facts: Homogenized, no rBST, Pasteurized, with Vitamin D3 added

Yogurt Starter:

Amount: 1/2 Cup
Brand: Old Home All Natural Plain Yogurt (Local MN yogurt)
Ingredients: Cultured pasteurized grade A milk & Nonfat milk
Other Facts: Live & Active cultures (Acidophilus & Bifidus)

Incubator Used:

I use a small cooler filled with Warm Water

Steps & Notes:

I followed the same directions as the first time:

Heat Milk:

Since my 2nd batch I've been using lower and lower temperatures when heating the milk, I've been turning the heat off around 180 degrees.
Cool Milk: I only cooled it to 125 degrees, Still on the hot side.
Stir in Starter: I stirred 1/2 cup of starter from the last batch into a separate bowl with a smaller portion of milk to try and get a more even dissolution, I then mixed it in with the rest of the milk.

Pour into containers

I usually put a majority in an old yogurt container and then
put some in smaller glad ware containers. I want to try all glass to see
if it makes a difference. I tried putting cinnamon sugar in the bottom of one container and it didn't seem to have a negative affect on the final product.

Incubate: I used the cooler with hot water, I'm learning of a lot of different methods for this and should do a post on the different methods.
Timing: I left these batches in for a little longer. I usually make yogurt in the evening after work and leave it to incubate overnight. It ends up being 8 to 10 hours depending on how early in the evening I start.

Results:

Thumbs up.
Taste: Not too tart, and almost sweet tasting.
Consistency: It is usually more on the delicate side, although the last two seem to have firmed up well. I want to try and get it a little thicker and I've read and heard mixing powdered milk in at the beginning helps.
Rating: 4 out of 5

Possible Improvements:

Mix in some powdered milk w/milk before heating. This is supposed to thicken the consistency more.
Use cooler temperatures to see what is different.
Try using a slow cooker for incubation.

Yogurt Making in a slow cooker

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:01:00 +0000

As I've been reading around and discovering more I've found there are sooo many ways to incubate the yogurt. Here is a video my sister sent me about making yogurt in a slow cooker or crock-pot. There are also some great ideas on what you can use your yogurt in. I personally really like the yogurt cheese (the lady calls it cream cheese).

Enjoy.

Yogurt 2nd Attempt

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 02:28:00 +0000

My second attempt at yogurt:

Ingredients:
Milk:

Amount: 1/2 Gallon
Brand: Costco's Kirtland whole milk.
Other facts: Homogenized, no rBST, Pasteurized, with Vitamin D3 added

Yogurt Starter:

Amount: 1/2 Cup

Brand: Home made from the last batch

Incubator Used:

Cooler

Steps & Notes:

I followed the same directions as the first time:

Heat Milk: I warmed the milk to ~ 195 degrees Fahrenheit. This was a little hotter than the first time.

Cool Milk: I only cooled it to 130 degrees, which is on the hot side. I've read people going as cool as 100 degrees.

Stir in Starter: I stirred 1/2 cup of starter from the last batch into a separate bowl with a smaller portion of milk to try and get a more even dissolution, I then mixed it in with the rest of the milk.

Pour into containers: One container had cinnamon sugar on the bottom when I poured the milk in, it turned out pretty well.

Incubate: I used the cooler with hot water again, the water was a little warmer than last time too, I think around 130 degrees. We tried different sized containers and continued to experiment with putting some in the water and some above.

Timing: I've been reading about timing for incubation. I guess it only needs to sit until the yogurt 'gels'. The added time apparently changes the flavor more than the consistency. If I remember correctly, the longer it sits the tangier it tastes. I left this one out a while and it was pretty tangy.

Results:

Mixed outcome, I think I did everything a little too hot and must have killed some of the starter. It seems the yogurt that was submerged continued to be very liquid and never really gelled. It also tasted fairly sour. The yogurt that was above the water or part in the water kind of worked.

Taste: Not tart, more sour and tangy

Consistency: Some turned out really liquid and never gelled. Some gelled and set up okay, but was still tangy.

Rating: 2 start out of 5

Possible Improvements:

Don't incubate with such hot water

Don't heat the milk too hot and let it cool off more.

Mix in some powdered milk w/milk before heating. This is supposed to thicken the consistency more

Try a different incubator method.

Yogurt 1st Attempt

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 02:10:00 +0000

Small Container Results

I tried making my own yogurt for the first time this past weekend. Below is my log on the endeavor:

Ingredients:
Milk:

Amount: 1/2 Gallon
Brand: Costco's Kirtland whole milk.
Other facts: Homogenized, no rBST, Pasteurized, with Vitamin D3 added

Yogurt Starter:

Amount: 1/2 Cup
Brand: Old Home All Natural Plain Yogurt (Local MN yogurt)
Ingredients: Cultured pasteurized grade A milk & Nonfat milk
Other Facts: Live & Active cultures (Acidophilus & Bifidus)

Equipment:

Digital Thermometer
Plastic Gladware (sterilized the best I could) I used one large 7 cup container and five 1/2 cup containers.
Stainless steel pots

Incubator Used:

Cooler. There are many options I've learned, of which I can write about later. For this round I kept it simple.

Steps & Notes:

I followed the directions of Professor David B. Fankhauser, Ph.D. My measurements and temperatures went something like this.

Heat Milk: I warmed the milk to ~ 188 degrees Fahrenheit. I did this very slowly. I have an electric stove top and I set it to about 5 out of 10. I didn't want to burn the milk or boil it. This gave me time to think and prepare as it warmed up. It did take a little while, maybe 20 minutes.
Cool Milk: You want the temperature to come down to ~ 128 degrees Fahrenheit. I removed my milk from the heat right after it reached 188 degrees and let it cool standing alone. This was going too slow, so I filled up the sink with cold water and dipped the pot in the water. This cooled it off a little too much so I had to re-heat a bit.
Stir in Starter: I stirred in my 1/2 cup of starter right into the pot when the temperature was at ~130 degrees Fahrenheit, probably on the hot side. Some people recommend mixing it into a smaller portion of milk, then adding it to the overall batch. I stirred it in pretty well, but when I poured it out, there seemed to be a lot of undissolved yogurt starter still.
Pour into containers: Not much to note here. Some yogurt starter didn't seem to be mixed in all the way. It might have been from some burning, as there seemed to be a little milk sticking to the bottom of the pot.
Incubate: As mentioned I used a cooler with Hot water. It is recommended to fill with water to just below the rim of the containers. I had different sized containers and did some experimenting. The large 7 cup container had water to just below the lid. I put one small container in the water, I think it was floating/submerged. The other four were not in water at all, just sitting on top of the larger container.
Timing note: The time you are to let the yogurt sit varies. From the different recipes I've read appears to be a function of how warm the environment is and the ratio of yogurt starter to milk. Dr. Fankhauser suggests 3 hours for this ratio and incubation method. I finished around 8:30pm and wasn't awake at 11:30pm so it ended up sitting until about 3:30am. I'm not sure what difference the time makes.

Results:

Large Container Results

It worked! The yogurt 'gelled' pretty well.
Taste: Mild tartness
Consistency: Delicate. A little fragile. It wasn't as smooth as I would like and you could describe parts as somewhat curdlely (not in a bad way).
Rating: 3 1/2 start out of 5

Possible Improvements:

Try using glass containers that seal better. (Most people recommend these, I still haven't found any yet)
Mix in some powdered milk w/milk before heating. This is supposed to thicken the consistency more
Try a different incubator method.
Mix starter better
Try just 3 hours.

Yogurt To Cheese

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 00:48:00 +0000

I love eating cheese. Until recently I knew almost nothing else about cheese except that it was produced from Milk. I don't know much about different types of cheeses or flavors. I've decided to change that and have embarked on a great journey to learn more about cheese.
I have a friend from college that used to make cheese. I dropped her a message to get some advice on where to start. She recommended I start with Yogurt. I thought that was odd, but I looked around and several people recommend this, so that is where I've started Yogurt.
My preliminary reading and information on cheese and now yogurt have come from the website of David B. Fankhauser, Ph.D., Professor of Biology and Chemistry University of Cincinnati Clermont College. He has a very wide variety of interests, but I've primarily been reading his 'Cheese Page' which could be generalized to Dairy since he also covers yogurt, ice cream, and some other dairy products. I find it extremely fun that this Professor has essential created a class syllabus that anyone can follow to learn the steps to making cheese. The first course is yogurt so that is where I will begin.

And So It Begins

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 02:47:00 +0000

You might wonder what this blog is about and so this first post comes into existence to explain to all the unsuspecting visitors what it is they have found. This is what could be called a culinary log. A record of tinkerings in the kitchen. It is a public log so that those who visit and know a thing or two more on a subject can give feedback and insight on the endeavor. Those who are in the same situation as the author can learn and feel comforted in the fact that we all have to begin somewhere and it's okay to fail and not have a perfect result the first time.The hope is that some good recipes, information, entertainment, and development will be experienced for all involved.

There will be obvious trends as interests wax and wane and skills develop or falter. You will probably notice a high volume of dairy related posts at the beginning as this is the latest fascination that has brought about the urge to start a blog. Readers are welcome to suggest other areas to explore.

And so it begins...