The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Chèvre - My First Batch of Goat Cheese!

 

Would you look at that!?

Okay, it doesn't look all that special.  In fact, if you hadn't read the title of this post, you would be safe in assuming it's cream cheese, or maybe ricotta.

But it's not.

It's goat cheese.  My first batch of goat cheese.  And it's yummy.

Okay.

First thing you need to make goat cheese is the milk.  A gallon of  it.  From, of course, goats.  And you need to pasteurize the milk.

How does one do that?  Well, according to the directions I followed, in the booklet that came with my Goat Cheese Kit from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company (where I want to live, if this whole bedroom renovation project gets to be too much for me), you put your goat milk in a big stainless steel pot, heat it to 145 degrees F, and then keep it at that temperature for 30 minutes.

So I did.  Here's the milk in the pot, and you can see the metal probe of my thermometer over on the left.

 

This is probably the longest and, yes, least exciting part of the job.  The waiting.  And waiting.  You don't want it to heat too fast and scorch the bottom of the pot (so if you've got a nice heavy-duty pot that's what you'd want to use here).  So you stir and check the temp and stir and check the temp.  At least that's what I did. 

I know.  A watched pot of goat's milk never reaches 145 degrees F.  I tried to look away from time to time, but what if it all suddenly surged up to the boiling point and bubbled over the side of the pot and set my kitchen on fire????

This is the sort of thing you have to think about.  It's tough work.

Anyway, at last, my thermometer hit the 145 mark and then came the fun of keeping it at that temperature for half an hour.

I kept it at that temp, or slightly above at times, by constantly adjusting the flame under the pot.  And yes, I pretty much stayed glued to the pot and my thermometer for the whole half hour.  I didn't want to ruin a whole gallon of fresh goat's milk.

Actually, I have to correct that - it was half a gallon of fresh, and half a gallon I'd frozen from the week before.  Goat's milk freezes very nicely.

(And you can see a bit of the frozen chunk in the picture above, actually.  It's the part of the milk that looks textured all around where the light is hitting it.)

Okay, so you've brought your milk to temperature, and you're keeping it there.

While you do that, with your third arm (because one has the thermometer and the second arm is controlling the flame), reach over to your sink and fill it about half way with cold, cold, cold water. 

And get out your little packet of Direct Set Chevre culture.  It came with the kit.  I think I got four of them.  Plus culture to make my own starter, but that's for another post.  I haven't done it yet.  I'm waiting for our house to be free of sawdust and joint compound dust and paint.

So here's the little packet.

Now.  When your milk has been at 145 F for half an hour, plunge the pot (plunge is an action word!  it makes this post exciting!) into your sink of cold water, and stir, stir, stir the milk to bring the temperature down, now, to 86 degrees F. 

When you get the milk to 86, remove the pot from the cold water, add in your direct set culture, stir well, and then put the lid back on the pot.

And now?  Just leave it alone.  I know.  So anticlimactic, huh?  But that's what you do.  You leave it all there, inside the pot, covered, "for 12-20 hours or until firm."

You also need to keep the milk/cheese-to-be at a temperature of at LEAST 72 degrees F in order for the starter culture to work properly. 

I think part of the fun, for me, of making cheese is that it flies in the face of everything you're supposed to do to prevent bacterial growth. 

There's a part of me that feels rather rebelious, leaving that milk out at room temperature.  For 12 or more hours! 

You WANT that milk to change.  You don't want it to just sit there and remain milk.  You WANT that transformation to take place.

Or at least, I do. 

Anyway, even though it's June and it's way above freezing, even at night, I worried that my precious milk would get chilly.  So I bundled it up in a blanket and a towel before putting it to bed on the back of my stove.

I kissed it goodnight at about 8:30 pm, knowing I couldn't check on it until at least 8:30 the next morning.

Oh, the anticipation!

So the next morning I was up at my usual time of somewhere between 5 and 7...way too early to check on the milk/cheese-to-be...so I sipped my coffee and tried not to stare at the bundle on the stove.

As the unveiling approached, I started getting things ready for the next step.

I got some of the butter muslin that came with my kit (it's like cheesecloth, but has a tighter weave) and lined a collander with it, and set the collander over a pot to catch the whey.

And then, gently, gingerly, I removed the towel and the blanket from the pot.

And then I remembered I needed a big slotted spoon of some kind to ladle the curds out with, so I grabbed that and put it in the muslin-lined collander.  And then...

I removed the lid from the pot and peeked inside.

 

VICTORY IS MINE!!!!

Sorry.

But look!  Look around the edge of the pot - you can see that separation has occurred!  I have curds, and I have whey! 

(And with those baby spiders that were in my back yard recently, I really COULD be Little Miss Muffet at this point!)

Anyway, that's what I was waiting and hoping for.  For some reason I worry that I've done something wrong with the preparation...maybe I let the milk go a little TOO high over 145?  Dipped a degree lower than 86 before I put the culture in?  YOU JUST DON'T KNOW!!!  And the suspense was killing me.

But there was no need.  Everything set up just the way it was supposed to.  Hee hee!!!

So now it's time to ladle the curds into the collander.

I took a big scoop - left-handed, so I could take a picture at the same time.  Here it is:

Isn't it lovely?  At this point it reminded me of yogurt.  Kind of silky and smooth.  I scooped out what I could with the big spoon and then poured the rest of the whey through the muslin-lined collander to catch every little bit of curd.

And then I covered it again and let it drain for about an hour.

Just to get rid of the majority of the whey.  See?  It's thicker now.

Next, I took the corners of the muslin and tied them together....

Hung the muslin on a wooden spoon above the big pot I'd orignally cooked the milk in....

Sort of covered it again, and let it sit.  

For 12 hours.  Yep.  More waiting.

You can let it hang and rain for anywhere from 6 to 12 hours, depending on the consistency you want.  I wanted it rather dry and firm, so I left it for most of the day.

And then I untied the muslin and - at last - tasted a bit of it.

And you know what?  It tasted like goat cheese!

Now at this point you can add salt to it, if you'd like.  I sprinkled a little kosher salt over the top and mixed it in with a spoon.  Not too much salt - it really didn't need it, in my opinion.

Then I divided it into some ramekins, covered them with plastic, and stuck them in the fridge.

I also weighed the cheese, just to see if I'd matched the yield given in the recipe.

Now, the thing is, I also have a book, put out by Ricki Carrol, the Cheese Queen, who heads up the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company and gives workshops (which would be SO COOL to attend), and I was kind of referring to both the book AND the little pamphlet that came with the cheese kit.

Everything's the same, except that in the book the yield is a pound and a half of cheese, and in the pamphlet it says 2 pounds. 

I got a pound and a half, and I'm perfectly fine with that!  That's a lot of goat cheese, not that I'm complaining!

I gave some to my friend across the street - she loves goat cheese too, and I wanted her opinion on the taste.  I'll be bringing some more to a little family get together tonight, and that leaves the rest for us.

And then...sigh...I guess I'll just have to make it again!

And again.

And again.

And again.

In Addition to Everything Else

Besides trying to work on Julia's bedroom, plus Bill's project of patching the hardwood floor before we sand and poly the whole thing next week, and a T-ball game today, and a kid's birthday party to bring Alex and Julia to later this afternoon AND a family double birthday party to go to after that, and oh, yeah, return Alex's library books...

I am making goat cheese!

It's actually draining RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE!

And will continue to drain for hours - 6 to 12 of them in fact.

So the saga will not be finished until tonight, and my report on the whole thing will come some time as soon as possible after that.

But I am EXTREMELY excited about this current cheese project.

Stay tuned.

Or at least check back some time.

Brie III

Back at the beginning of December I did a post about brie, in which I spoke nostalgically of a restaurant in Camden, ME and then showed you how I made a rather odd-looking version of brie en croute.

It looked like this:

 

Kind of like I'd encased a dead bird in puff pastry.

It tasted great and all, but the appearance left something to be desired.

The very next day, I received an email from a Casey Ibbetson about this very post.  It read, in part:

I saw your creative use of brie in your 12/3 post and wanted to pass along some details about a new type of brie with a new innovative shape that might be easier to wrap dough around!? There are a few things that evoke feelings of celebration and luxury such as champagne, truffles and brie – and now there is a new element of convenience for busy hosts looking to add a touch of elegance to their event. Thanks to the long shape of the new Président Brie Log, serving this treat is much easier. Slices of the Brie Log fit perfectly on a cracker — and its thin edible rind only adds to its rich, creamy deliciousness.

Below I've included a few enticing recipes that are sure to spark creativity for any holiday menu. If you’re interested, I’d like to send you a sample of this new Brie Log – all I’d need is your mailing address and I can ship the brie to you priority overnight!

Attached to the email were roughly a thousand pictures of slices of this President Brie Log on a cracker with a variety of toppings, and the corresponding recipes, so I could make them in my very own home.

Casey Ibbetson, it turns out, works for SHIFT Communications, a PR agency that, I can only assume, counts Président Cheese as one of its clients.

At first I thought - my brie thing was so pathetic that someone associated with a brie distributor actually felt sorry for me and wrote to offer help.  "Your creative use of brie" was just a kind way of saying "that scary thing you actually showed to your readers."  I laughed and sobbed at the same time.  (Okay, not really about the sobbing part.)

After that moment had passed, and I had looked at some of the photos of brie slices on crackers, I thought - well hey, FREE CHEESE!  Why not?

And so I sent off my mailing address and looked forward to a log of brie in the near future.

Before that arrived, however, I felt, perhaps, the need to prove that I could make a brie look pretty all on my own.  So I bought a small wheel of brie and wrapped it up and from that came this post.

And this:

 

Much nicer than the dead bird en croute from the week before, right?

The next day, I received a large box with large splashes of tape on it that read "FRAGILE" (must be Italian!) and "PERISHABLE!"  Woo hoo!  My cheese had arrived!  And in such a large box!  How much cheese did they send???!!!

Salivating, I grabbed a utility knife and slashed through the packing tape. 

First, amid the bubble wrap, I encountered a handwritten note:

"Hi Jayne, 

Enclosed please find a President Brie Log and a little something extra for you to enjoy with it. 

Happy Holidays!

Kind regards,

Vicky"

I dug further, and found a small blue lunch bag sort of thing, which, when I unzipped it, contained a couple of ice packs and the much anticipated Brie Log.

 

Yay!!!

And then there was another container.  Red, kind of suede-ish, and zippered.

 

The "something extra!"  Christmas had come a couple of weeks early!

And so I unzipped it.

 

And lo - more goodies!

 

Carr's crackers!

 

Stonewall Kitchen Black Cherry Jam!

 

Little napkins!  A corkscrew/bottle opener thingy!  And a pair of plastic go-anywhere wine glasses!

Wow!

All I could think was "You forgot to send the bottle of wine, Vicky!"  I JEST!!!! 

I was thoroughly delighted.  So was my husband, but in a manly way, of course, not in the giggly, squealing girly way I was.  Okay, I'm not really giggly or squealy either.

I was, all kidding aside, very pleased and impressed.  I figured I'd just get a sample of the President Brie Log and that would be it - which was fine - like I've said - FREE CHEESE!  But no - they went that extra step and sent me the not only additional edibles to go with the cheese, but something lasting as well.  Now, okay, I know it's all part of marketing and all that.  But still - it's nice. 

So before I go any further, I want to thank Casey Ibbetson at SHIFT Communications and Vicky at Pollock Communications, and the folk at Président Cheese, and anyone else involved behind the scenes for this lovely package of goodies.  Thank you!

And now, onto what I wound up creating. 

First of all, I was a bit tired of the sweet + brie combo.  I wanted something purely savory.  So did Bill.  So I went with one of my favorite savory flavory things - caramelized onions.

I cut up a couple of onions, softened them in some butter, and let them cook a while.  I drizzled a little balsamic vinegar on them near the end of the cooking, once they were soft and brown and intoxicating.

 

I let them cool while I got the sheet of puff pastry dough ready...

 

And when the onions were room temperature, I spread them out on the dough in a layer...

 

placed the Président Brie Log at one end...

 

and carefully rolled it up, like you would with cinnamon buns or the like.

 

Ta-da!

 

Now, if I had been making this for a party or something, I'd have made it prettier.  I had actually imagined making little leaves and vines and flowers out of puff pastry dough, to twine over and around the log.  But since it was just for Bill and me, and I didn't actually have another sheet of puff pastry dough, I didn't go that route.  Next time.

But anyway.  I put the wrapped log in the fridge for about half an hour to chill the dough.  I preheated the oven to 425 degrees F, and then popped the log (on a parchment lined sheet pan) into the oven and baked it for about 25 minutes.

 

Also next time, when I'm in a mood to be fancy, I'll paint it with egg wash, which will give it more color and shine.

But anyway.  It smelled FABULOUS.  I held Bill off with one hand and sliced the lovely package open with one swift slash of my knife:

 

The brie didn't ooze out, it poured out.  Very hot and melty and surrounded by soft, sweet onions.

Bill grabbed the board with the brie away from me and raced down the stairs.  Laughing.

Okay, no, that didn't happen.  But I took just a few shots and then put my camera away, grabbed the box of Carr's crackers and that was the end of gazing longingly at melty cheese and crispy pastry.

It tasted very, very good.

I recommend the grilled onions/brie flavor combination, if you're looking for something without a fruit element.

And the Président Brie Log itself?  I think it's a lovely idea.  My only complaint would be the diameter.  It's maybe an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half in diameter, I think (I didn't measure it - sorry), and, greedy cheese-glutton that I am, I'd have liked a wider circle.  But that's greed and gluttony talking, so feel free to disregard.

One more time, thank you Casey, Vicky, and the folks at Président Cheese! 

 

 

 

 

 

Brie, Revisited

 

In my quest to shoot pretty pictures AND eat yummy stuff, I made another version of brie en croute last night.

This time I used a small circle of brie instead of a wedge.

 

And my topping mixture consisted of half a cup of almonds, chopped and toasted a bit to release the flavor, a third of a cup of orange marmalade, a sprinkling of cinnamon, and about half a tablespoon of butter.  I combined those ingredients in a small saucepan and cooked for a couple of minutes to thicken the mixture.

I poured it onto a plate and spread it out, stuck it in the fridge for about five minutes to cool, and then placed on top of the brie.

   

Then I moistened the edges of the puff pastry with a little water and pulled the four corners up to meet, pressing the dough together along the sides.

 

I tried to get fancy with the ends and the center, twisting each corner into a loop, and then twisting the center section, where all the corners met, into a curl. 

 

Now, of course, there are other ways of doing this.  You could also cut the puff pastry dough in a circle just big enough to encase the cheese and topping, then put the topping down first, place the brie on top, wrap the dough up around the cheese and flip the whole thing over to bake.  And with the extra dough you could cut out little leaves or other shapes and decorate the top with them. 

Or, if you've got the topping on the brie on the dough, you can gather up the edges into a ruffle on top and tie them together (carefully) with some butcher's twine and bake that way.

To give the whole thing a lovely shine, you can paint the dough with an egg wash right before it goes in the oven. 

I skipped the egg wash this time, fyi.

Anyway, I put the wrapped brie in the fridge for an hour or so this time, and then later (after the kids were in bed), I preheated the oven to 400 (instead of 375 like last time) for a good 20 minutes, and then baked the brie for 25 minutes.

And here's how it looked when I took it out:

 

Puffy and golden and lovely.

And it tasted even better than it looked.

I'm much happier with the way this one came out, visually.  Taste-wise, it's a tie.  The only real difference was dried cranberries in the topping the first time around, and none this time.  Both were yummy.

And it's really the taste that matters most, once you start slicing, right?

Brie Wedge Oddly Wrapped in Puff Pastry Dough

Years (and yeeears) ago, I lived in Maine, as did some friends of my sister's and mine.

And one time (and then more times after that), we took a trip to the lovely bayside town of Camden.

And while there, we dined at a place called Cappy's Chowder House.  Famous for their luscious and unforgettable White "chowda" served with homemade common crackers (the bigger, hardcore  version of an oyster cracker), they also served an appetizer called the Brie Rudder.  It was a wedge of brie topped with sliced almonds in a light brown sugary glaze served on a small wooden rudder and accompanied by a half a baguette, grapes and maybe other fresh fruit.

That may have been the start of my love affair with runny cheese.

I noticed that the Brie Rudder isn't listed on the menu right now, but maybe it's a seasonal item, saved for warm summer evenings when a breeze blows in from Penobscot Bay and time kicks off its shoes and cracks open a beer.  I hope so, anyway. 

Sigh....

Fast forward to a couple nights ago, and here's what I concocted...

 

I had a wedge of brie.

I had a frozen sheet of puff pastry dough.

And I had some other yummy ingredients that I thought might go nicely together.

While the dough thawed, I combined about a third of a cup of ground almonds, a quarter of a cup or so of orange marmalade, and a handful (okay, around a quarter cup) of dried cranberries, and a tablespoon of butter in a small saucepan and cooked them until I could smell the almonds toasting.  I poured the thickened mixture onto a plate to cool and rolled out my puff pastry dough.

I also set the oven to 375, but next time around I might bump it to 400.

I set the brie on the center of the dough.

 

I topped the brie with the cooled almond/marmalade/cranberry mixture.

 

And then...well, I created this monstrosity.

 

It sort of reminded me of something Andrew Zimmern might nosh on, after it had been skinned and roasted over an open flame.  Near a cave.  In a desert.

Yes, I had left out a crucial step:  PLAN the wrapping. 

It's funny - I do a great job wrapping presents.  Guess it's good I don't wrap gifts with dough....

Anyway, into the oven it went, and while it baked and puffed, I peeled a couple of clementines and rolled slices of prosciutto and put them in a couple of bowls.  I sliced up some sourdough bread and warmed it in the oven, wrapped in foil.

And then...ta-da!

 

Okay, now it looks like...dove en croute.  Or something. 

It did not, however, taste like anything other than yummy, earthy brie and warm, toasty autumn flavors, and tender, crispy pastry.

 

I think I need to make this one again. 

Because I did such a lousy job of wrapping this one, of course.  Not because I just want to make this again.  No, no.  Not at all. 

Purely for research.

Ricotta and Mozzarella: Practice Makes Perfect (Better Still, Practice Makes More Cheese)

I've gotten behind on my posts, so much so that I've done two more batches each of Ricotta and Mozzarella but haven't written about them yet. 

I'm not going to rehash the whole recipe and process every time.  If you want to see the original Ricotta-making post, go here.  And if you want to see the original Mozzarella-making post, go here.

I did, however, want to write about how things went with each successive batch.  In a nutshell, things improved.  But who wants a nutshell?  It's hardly satisfying.

Both times I've made cheeses again, I've made a double batch of mozzarella (if I'm going to make it, why not make plenty?) and a half batch of ricotta.

Second batch of mozzarella went so much smoother than the first chaotic experience.  I learned a lot from the first batch.  Things like...the milk will heat up to 55 degrees F pretty darn fast, so don't go reading ahead in the recipe or anything.  Just WAIT.  Which is what I did.  Added the citric acid right on time, temperature-wise.  I also made sure I had LOTS of bowls on hand, a couple of strainers, slotted spoons, and huge glass of ice water for myself, because it gets pretty hot standing there over a hot pot of milk curds.  Oh, yeah, and I was also making bread, too.  I'll post about that separately.  I made some baguettes to have with the cheeses. 

Anyway.  With this batch #2 of the mozzarella, I changed a few things.  I used half whole milk and half 1%.  I can't keep eating full fat mozzarella, and that's that.  I didn't notice a huge difference, either, though maybe I would if I did a taste test between a full fat and a part full, part low-fat batch.  Hmmmm....that sounds like a fun project, actually. 

I also added lipase to the batch.  Lipase an enzyme used to give Italian cheeses in particular to enhance the flavor.  It comes in powder form and keeps for ages in the freezer.  You only need a little - I think I used half a teaspoon for this batch.

I also upped the rennet a bit, because I'd read that if you add lipase, the cheese can have a softer consistency, and so if you add more rennet, that helps balance things back out.

Those, and the switch from all whole to half whole and half 1%, were the only changes I made.

Things went a LOT better.  For one thing, the way the curds formed after I added the rennet.  Well, wait, I'm getting ahead of myself.  I added the citric acid and the lipase (both are dissolved in cool water, and the lipase needs to sit for 20 minutes before using as well) at the 55 degrees F mark and stirred that in.  Right away, little tiny curds started to form.  You can see them there on the thermometer....

I kept the thermometer in the liquid and gave it a little stir occasionally, just to see how the curds were doing.  I was waiting for the temp to go up to 90, so I could add the rennet.  Once the rennet joined the party, the fun began.

Woohoo!  Curds and whey!  A lot of it!

Best of all, as time went on, the curds basically bunched together and tightened into one big mass and started pulling away from the sides of the pot. 

Pretty cool, huh?

I also learned another lesson.  In the book it says to add the rennet when the temp reaches 90, and then continue heating to between 100-105.  So I'm standing there sweating away (probably added additional flavor to the cheese...I'M ONLY KIDDING), holding the thermometer in the middle of the pot.  And waiting.  And waiting.  And waiting.  And the temperature wouldn't go above 90!  Maybe up to 91, but nothing more. 

I didn't mind so much - I was busy gazing lovingly at the giant mozzarella-to-be floating in the whey.  But I was also pretty hot and icky and sort of wanted to get things finished up.  I checked the temperature with another thermometer, thinking maybe the new one I'd bought wasn't any good.  But no, the other one registered 90 also.

And then some little voice whispered "check the temperature of the whey near the side of the pot!"  And so I did, and OH, okay.  Got it.  The curds apparently get to 90 and stop or something.  Or maybe they somehow insulate themselves from the heat.  Whatever it was, the whey was plenty hot enough.  I don't know the exact temperature- once I saw the temperature zipping past 100 and not slowing, I moved the pot off the burner and shut off the flame.

YAY!  Time to strain!

I'm still on the lookout for a really BIG slotted spoon, but this one I bought recently was an improvement over the strainer - it did a better job of draining out the whey as I scooped up the hot curds.

 

As you can see, there is still a lot of whey to be strained out of the curds, but it took less time because I had a better handle on what needed to be done.  I also didn't splash whey all over the counter, the floor, and myself.  Not a lot, anyway.

While I worked on pressing the curds together and pouring off the whey, I was also heating the pot of whey (with salt added) up to 175.  I made several balls of curds and set them aside.  It's sort of like forming snowballs...sometimes the snow isn't exACTLY the right consistency to retain it's ball shape.  Same deal with the curds.  They're still kind of wet, and crumbly at the same time.  So they'll stick together, but you have to do it carefully, otherwise they'll just break into pieces.

It is taking me 3-4 dips in the hot salted whey (okay, I'm not going in it, I mean dipping the ball of curds in the whey 3-4 times) to achieve the proper stretchy consistency.  After the first dunk, I mostly just squeeze out more whey and fold the curds (carefully) over and over a couple of times in my hands, give them another squeeze and then put the ball back into the whey.  After the second dip, I can start to see the strings forming.

See them?  Little stringy bits?  But you can also see it's still rather crumbly, too.  So I knead it in the bowl or in my hands, and this time around the ball starts to hold together better. 

Back into the whey again, and I start to fold it and stretch, fold it and stretch...

It's pretty close now - much stretchier. 

I can't tell you how cool this is.  Well, I guess I can.  It's really, really cool. 

 

And what did I do with this batch?  I'd made it a double batch so we could enjoy some that night and so I'd also have some for the next night, when Bill's brother and his girlfriend and his son and HIS girlfriend came over for dinner.  We did beer can chickens (Bill cooked those) and I made a pasta salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar instead of mayo...and two zucchini (from the garden)

and a beautiful little pattypan squash (from the garden)

grilled and then cut up into chunks and tossed into the pasta.  I also added some scallions (from our garden), and salt and pepper, and a sprinkling of my ricotta over the top.  (The second batch of ricotta went off without a hitch.)

 

I also made a salad of fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, and sliced organic hot-house tomatoes.  I drizzled the whole thing with olive oil and sprinkled it with freshly ground black pepper and some generous pinches of Mediterranean Sea Salt. 

In case you're wondering, after I'd done my two long rows of tomato/mozzarella/basil, I still had a bit of everything left over.  So I chopped it up, tossed it together and set it down the center.  I figured maybe some people would prefer the slices and others would prefer the chopped stuff.

And ALSO (will it never end???) I served a ball of ricotta in the center of one of my breads.  I'd made three baguettes and two circular loaves, both with holes in the center.  One looked like a giant bagel, and the other I'd braided and then joined the two ends.  I sliced that loaf - the braided one - one quarter at a time and set the whole sliced braided loaf in a pie plate where it fit perfectly.  I set the ball of ricotta in the center.

OH - I almost forgot - I'd ALSO made little mozzarella balls - bocconcini - and let them bathe in a blend of olive oil and chopped herbs from the garden.  Bill and I ate those the night before, spread on one of my baguettes. 

Okay, so all that was from my second batches of mozzarella and ricotta.

I made the third batch of each on Friday, July 4th, while Bill and Alex were out digging quahogs (actually most of them were little neck size) for chowder.  Julia was home with me, but there's not much I can let her do while I'm making mozzarella without her being in danger of getting burned.  She did, however, help me make pizza dough later in the day.

I'd finished the mozzarella and a small batch of ricotta before Bill and Alex returned from digging.  Alex learned how to use a clam rake and did his share of the work, thus earning his dinner.  They had 52 clams in all (not the "thousands" that Alex told me initially) - more than enough to make chowder. 

Since we had a surplus, we ate the smallest ones raw, on the half shell.  Yum.  Alex loved them, too.  Julia, not so much. 

Bill steamed clams and diced potatoes to make chowder and then shucked the rest of the clams and set them out with lemon wedges on a platter.

And what was I doing all this time?  Well, I had made pizza dough earlier, so I cut off enough for two pizzas, stretched out the dough on two cookie sheets, and gave them to the kids to work on.  I don't have pictures.  Julia topped hers with tomato sauce, sliced fresh mozzarella, sauteed mushrooms, and zucchini coins I'd sauteed earlier.  Alex spread a thin layer of sauce, then added mostly sliced pepperoni, some zucchini, and small pieces of cheddar.

I made another pizza (it was SO HOT in our house by this time, what with all the cheesemaking earlier in the day, and the pizzas baking, and the chowder cooking away on top of the stove) - oh, yeah, speaking of hot in the kitchen - I had also roasted 8 heads of garlic in the morning.  I squeezed all the garlic out and pureed it.  I'll freeze some and keep the rest handy.  I love the stuff. 

Where was I?  Oh, yes.  I made another pizza - pureed roasted garlic smeared on the dough first, topped with sauteed mushrooms (a blend of oyster, crimini and shitake) and ricotta, then drizzled with olive oil.  THAT one was pretty tasty, I have to say.

And I made one final pizza, but we were too full to eat it that night.

I'd bought garlic scapes at the Farmers' Market that morning, and I wanted to use them on a pizza.  I sauteed the garlic scapes in butter, salt and pepper earlier.  When I made the pizza, I topped dough with a nice smear of the roasted garlic puree, then "artistically arranged" several of the garlic scapes on top, arranged bits and pieces of fresh mozzarella here and there and added ricotta in and around the mozzarella.  Then I placed 7 of the raw little necks in the loops of the garlic scapes, drizzled it all with olive oil, and sprinkled with salt and pepper. 

It smelled really really good while it was baking but, like I said, we were just too stuffed to eat anything more. 

We saved it and had it last night (the 5th) for dinner after the kids were in bed.  It was fabulous.  The two "shades" of garlic - the roasted garlic puree and the sharper scapes...the soft, mild cheeses...and the occasional brine of the clams. 

 

Heavenly.

Lasagne of Homemade Components, Mostly

And that's a LOT shorter than the original title, which was "Lasagne of Homemade Ricotta, Homemade Mixed Greens Lasagne Noodles, and a Quick Homemade Tomato Sauce."  The "mostly" refers to the mozzarella string cheese I used (hadn't made my OWN mozzarella at this point) on top of the lasagne.

 

Okay, well, first off, I made the Ricotta cheese.  I love Ricotta, by the way.  In my post about making the ricotta, someone commented that I should not waste milk on making Ricotta, but I disagree - I could eat the whole batch of Ricotta ALL BY MYSELF WITH JUST A SPOON and would consider it a really good use of my time.  There's just something about it.  Yum. 

Okay, so the Ricotta was in the fridge, just waiting to be eaten (either by me with a big spoon, or in some other food form and shared with my family), so I made another batch of pasta dough.  This time, I wanted to make a green pasta, so I just went out to the garden and picked some things.  Really.  I don't have measurements - I just picked a couple of arugula leaves...a couple of swiss chard leaves...a mustard green leaf...a stalk of oregano...some chives...I think that was it.  I also thawed a some basil that had been frozen in olive oil, and I think I used a couple of garlic scallions.  I rinsed off everything from the garden, patted it dry, and then whirled it and three eggs in the food processor.

While the greens were drying (before I pureed them with the eggs), I poured the rest of the Semolina flour I had into my big white bowl (there was maybe half a cup) and added a couple of cups of flour and a sprinkling of salt.  I made a well, and then, after the greens and eggs were combined, poured that mixture into the well.

I stirred the flour into the liquid with a fork, and I added some water as needed to work the mess into a dough.  I think it was about half a cup or so of water.

And then I kneaded for about 10 minutes or so...

until it was a nice, smooth (well, except for the small bits of greens and garlic poking out here and there) ball of dough.

It smelled REALLY good... (I'd invite you to inhale deeply...but it wouldn't do any good...all you can do is look...)

And then I wrapped it in plastic and put it in the fridge.

And I left it in the fridge til the next day.  And oh, boy, did it smell even better when I unwrapped it that following afternoon.

I divided the dough into sixths or eighths, pressed and rolled each piece into a sort of rectangle thin enough to go into the pasta roller, and then I rolled each piece out into sheets.  I then cut each sheet into 3 or 4 pieces - VERY rustic -

and set them on cookie racks while I rolled out and cut up the rest of it. 

 

No - wait, I'm mistaken.  I didn't use all of it up - I used about 2/3.  I saved some to make into linguine later on.  And then there were also the scraps my kids claimed.

(that's a smiley face that Julia made)

Actually - Julia had helped roll out the sheets of dough - she's become a pro with the pasta roller - so much so that if I attempted to assist her in any way, say, by catching the sheet of dough as it came out the bottom, while she guided the dough into the top with one little hand and cranked the roller with the other, she gave me a LOOK and snapped "I can DO it!" in a tone that also distinctly said "So BACK OFF, Mommy!" 

I said fine and let her go to it.

Once I had enough sheets for the lasagne, I started throwing together a sauce.  I used a 28 oz can of whole plum tomatoes, some onion cut up, some garlic, about half a cup of red wine (what was left in the bottle), some water, and a can of fava beans.  I cooked the whole thing, added some salt and pepper, and used my immersion blender to liquify it all - mainly so the kids wouldn't be poking around looking for vegetables to avoid.  The beans added some thickness, too.

I heated a big pot of water while the sauce simmered, and started cooking the lasagne noodles in batches of 5 or 6 noodles at a time.  Because the pasta was fresh, they cooked very quickly - a couple of minutes and they were done.

I laid the cooked noodles out on dish towels on top of my cooling racks while I cooked the rest of them, and once all the noodles were cooked I assembled my lasagne.

The unmatched noodle shapes gave each layer a crazy quilt sort of look, but since each layer of noodles was covered with a layer of sauce and a layer of ricotta, it really didn't matter.  Actually, it didn't matter anyway.  Who cares?  This is home cooking, not a Food Network competition.

I also had seven noodles left over, once I'd built four or five layers of lasagne in the pan, so I rolled the remaining ricotta up in the noodles and covered that with the rest of the sauce.  Not manicotti, really.  I don't know what to call it, other than "for the freezer."

I baked both pans uncovered in a hot oven - 400 degrees F.  Since everything was already cooked, I just wanted to heat them through quickly.

And that was dinner that night.  And lunch the next day.

Fresh, HOMEMADE Mozzarella!

WOO HOOOO!  I DID IT!

I told my sister yesterday that when I was done and all the mozzarella balls were formed (or eaten), I felt this urge to cry...it was similar to after both my kids were born, only without the pain.  And, of course, not as wonderful and amazing as my children, flesh of my flesh, and so on. 

It was the aftermath of success, of having made something myself, by my own hands.  Tracey recently referenced a line from "Sunday in the Park with George" (yeah, I'm WAY off on a tangent), which, if you aren't familiar with it, is the fabulous musical by Stephen Sondheim revolving around a fictionalized version of the life of artist Georges Seurat, but also about the creative process and art and art vs profit and relationships and all sorts of stuff.  Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters starred in it and the music sometimes plays in my head for days.

Particularly the song "Finishing the Hat," which is Georges'...explanation?  description?...of, basically, what it's like to be an artist.  Relationships fall by the wayside, life continues to go on outside, because you "have to finish the hat."  And at the very end of the song, after all the pain and passion have subsided...he sings, softer......"Finishing the hat/Look, I made a hat!/....Where there never was a hat!"

And that's my incredibly long and way off topic (sort of) explanation of how I felt upon completion of my first batch of mozzarella.

Look - I made fresh cheese! 

But before the success came the work, and while not difficult work, it was new work, and at times my cheesemaking rivaled Lucy Ricardo's chocolate factory assembly line experiences.  Really.  Well, okay, not exactly, I wasn't stuffing curds down my blouse or anything.  But it was a bit of a comedy.

Okay, before I go and revisit my own ineptitude, I have to say, if you want to learn how to make cheese, your first stop should really be at the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company, owned and run and taught (yes, workshops and DVDs) by Ricki Carroll, aka "The Cheese Queen."  I read about Ricki in Barbara Kingsolver's book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," which I talked about a bit here, and I basically knew I had to give it all a try.  I ordered the "Ricotta and Mozzarella" kit, and in the meantime I made my first batch of ricotta.  I also bought Ricki Carroll's book "Home Cheesemaking" and have pretty much destroyed the pages with all my drooling.  I've asked Bill to build me a cheese press...all I'll need now are the cows and goats and sheep to milk and I'll be SET.

Again, I babble.

Okay, I got my kit and I got my book and I got whole, pasteurized, locally produced milk.  I had my stainless steel equipment and thermometer and a bowl.  I was ready.

And also, weirdly, I was sort of nervous.  I don't know why.  I usually attack this sort of thing fearlessly.  But for whatever reason, I was a little apprehensive.

And then I got annoyed with myself, squared my shoulders, tied on my apron, and got to work.

I used Ricki Carroll's "Thirty-Minute Mozzarella" recipe from her book, basically, but I didn't do it using the microwave (which is what makes it take only 30 minutes to make), because, I don't know, I felt like it was too easy that way. 

So here's what I did.

First, I got out everything I'd need (or so I thought). 

Following Ricki's recipe, here are the ingredients:

1  1/2 level teaspoons citric acid dissolved in 1/2 cup cool water

1 gallon pasteurized whole milk

1/8-1/4 teaspoon lipase powder (I didn't use any for this first batch)

1/4 teaspoon liquid rennet (or 1/4 rennet tablet) diluted in 1/4 cup cool, unchlorinated water

1 teaspoon cheese salt (optional) - (I didn't use this either - I ended up following the non-microwave directions, which included adding 1/4 cup cheese salt to the hot whey...but I'm getting ahead of myself.)

Okay, here we go...

1.  While stirring, add the citiric acid solution to the milk at 55 degrees F and mix thoroughly.  (If using lipase, add it now.)

I started off by immediately screwing up.  I put the milk in the pot and turned the heat on and walked away to read through the directions again.  Okay, fine, I was reviewing directions, HOWEVER, milk heats up rather quickly, and I should have stayed right where I was, thermometer in hand, to wait for the milk to quickly reach that 55 degrees. 

By the time the sluggish voice in my head woke up, rubbed its eyes, and remembered to remind me about that 55 degree temperature I was shooting for, the actual temperature of the milk was up to about 82 degrees.  Oh GREAT!  I've already ruined it!

I shut off the flame and moved the pot to a cold burner and started stirring like I was possessed, frantically trying to cool down the milk.  Of course, that wasn't working all that well.  Okay, think, Jayne...COLD WATER!  THAT'S WHAT I NEED!  I filled a big stainless steel bowl with cold water (our icemaker wasn't working, in case you were thinking, rightly, "icewater would be better") and set the pot down in it and continued to stir like a madwoman.  The pot was also near an open window.  I begged for strong breezes.  I checked the temperature.  Oooh, already down a whole degree.  I'll get down to 55 by the weekend, probably.  Damn the stupid not-working icemaker!  I need ice!  Stir stir stir stir.  Another tenth of a degree.

Hey!  I suddenly had a functioning brain again.  We have freezer pack things to put in coolers and lunch bags!  I can use them!  I dug out all the frozen plastic things we had and set them below and around the pot in the bowl of water.  Quite the assemblage, let me tell you.  I stirred and stirred, and hoooooey!  Eventually, like around two years later, I got down into the low seventies.  You know that saying about a watched pot never boiling?  Same thing applies to that pot never cooling.

This was taking way longer than thirty minutes.  In fact, just my dumbass mistake and the attempt to fix it had already brought me past the thirty minute mark.  I briefly thought of putting the pot in the fridge, but that would mean clearing space and that would take MORE time, and is it really, really, REALLY imperative that the dissolved citric acid go in at EXACTLY 55 degrees?  I mean, you keep heating it up anyway, right?  Check the temperature...ooh, it's 70 now.  FINE.  I'm just going to go ahead with it.  If I screw it all up, so be it.  Dammit.  Dumbass.

So after the stirring of the milk and the berating of myself was over, I dried off the bottom of the pot and set it back on the burner.  And, holding my breath, added the citric acid and stirred it in.  The milk exploded all over the kitchen.  Just kidding.  Nothing happened.  Nothing bad, anyway.  Instead, happily, the milk started to coagulate in little tiny, wispy shreds.  Exhale.  Okay, now what?

2.  Heat the milk to 90 degrees F over medium/low heat.  (The milk will start to curdle.)

I can manage that, I think.  Just don't walk away again!

3.  Gently stir in the diluted rennet with an up-and-down motion, while heating the milk to between 100-105 degrees F.  Turn off the heat.  The curds should be pulling away from the sides of the pot; they are ready to scoop out (approximately 3 to 5 minutes for this).

Ack!  What do I use to stir in an up and down motion?  I forgot this part!  I don't have the right equipment after all!  I ended up using a large serving spoon and kind of pressing the milk up and down with the bowl of the spoon.  I guess it worked - curds formed.  I've got CURDS!

4.  The curds will look like thick yogurt and have a bit of shine to them, and the whey will be clear.  If the whey is still milky white, wait a few more minutes.

My whey looked pretty clear to me, but I waited a few minutes anyway, just to be sure.

5.  Scoop out the curds with a slotted spoon and put into a 2-quart microwavable bowl.  Press the curds gently with your hands, pouring off as much whey as possible.  Reserve the whey.

Okay, I had looked in a couple of stores for a nice, wide, slotted stainless steel spoon or ladle that I could use for this part.  I should have looked harder, but I thought I could make due with a sort of mesh strainer with a handle.  It was flat, and looked basically like a spoon only with mesh instead of a solid or slotted bowl.  It did come in handy, but not at this particular moment.    I tried scooping out the curds with it, but since at this point there are big curds and small curds and tiny curds, the tiny ones clogged all the holes in the mesh and I ended up scooping lots of whey along with the curds.  So my 2-quart bowl had a nice pile of curds surrounded by a moat of whey.  Grrrr.  I grabbed a slotted serving spoon from the drawer under the counter and used that for my scooping.  It worked well, except it wasn't very big and all the scooping took me 4-EVAH. 

And then there was the matter of all the tiny curds.  I was bound and determined that I would harvest ALL the curds, every last one of them, in order to get the most mozzarella for my efforts.  So I switched back to the mesh spoon and caught the fleeing curds like fish in a net.  Only problem was, they got stuck in the mesh (yeah, like dolphins in a tuna net) and I had to bang the mesh spoon on my bowl to free them.  I didn't break the bowl, but this really wasn't the best option.

Now, one of the important things when making cheese is CLEANLINESS.  So with that uppermost in my fevered brain, I had laid out all my tools on clean paper towels prior to the start of my cheesefest.  I planned to ONLY use these.  Because I had washed and inspected them all and they were nice and clean. 

But then there I was, banging a metal spoon on a glass bowl, just daring the bowl not to break and spill all my hard-earned curds on the floor.  I glanced around the kitchen and AHA - I grabbed the bowl of my 6 quart KitchenAid mixer and a mesh strainer (deeper bowl than the spoon thing), set the strainer on the mixing bowl and yes, poured the pot of whey through the 5" diameter strainer to get those last stubborn little curds, dammit!  Got 'em!  And then I also strained the whey from the curds in my glass bowl.  Amazingly, that part went fine.

And then I had to pour the whey from the mixing bowl back into the pot so that later on I could heat that up to heat up the curds so they'd be stretchy...that part comes later.  So anyway, I've got the big 6 quart bowl of whey and I'm trying to pour the whey into the pot without spilling it.  I didn't want the whey to drip down the edge of the bowl and drip onto the stove...so I tried to hold the bowl so the lip would be at one side of the pot and the rest of the bowl would be completely over the pot and there would be no spillage.  I tilted the bowl and the whey rolled out in crashing waves, right over the side of the pot and into my mise en placed bowls of cheese salt, onto the counter, between the counter and the onto the floor.  Great going, Jayne!

But at least most of the whey went back into the pot.

Okay...where was I?

6.  Microwave the curds on high - No, wait, I'm not going that route.  I have to read the section little blurb in the box to the left on that page....

"No microwave?  If you don't have a microwave, you may want to put on heavy rubber gloves at this point.  Heat the reserved whey to at least 175 degrees F.  Add 1/4 cup of cheese salt to the whey.  Shape the curd into one or more balls, put them in a ladle or strainer, and dip them into the hot whey for several seconds.  Knead the curd with spoons between each dip and repeat this process several times until the curd is smooth and pliable."

Well, I don't have rubber gloves, but I do have "chef hands" - I can tolerate the heat a lot better than some people (like my husband, who was getting something off the stove the other day that was hot and I heard him hiss to himself "Ow...don't have chef hands!"), so I figured I could stand to handle the hot curds.  I started heating up the whey and while it was heating, I formed some small balls with the curds and put them in another bowl.  I had one pot of whey and three different glass bowls, a stainless steel mixing bowl, several spoons (slotted and non-slotted), two thermometers, two types of mesh strainers, and a ladle.  I looked SO in control of things.  But whatever.  I soldiered on.

The whey was nice and hot, and I took one ball of curds, put it in the ladle, and lowered it into the pot for a couple of seconds.  Then I poured the ball into an empty bowl and started to knead it.  Now, I've kneaded bread and pasta doughs, but I could slam them on a floured countertop and somehow I didn't think that was appropriate for curds.  So I just picked up the ball of warmed curds and started pressing it and smushing it in my hands.  I don't know how to describe it, but I guess it was a kind of mini-kneading.

8.  Knead quickly until it is smooth and elastic.  When the cheese stretches like taffy, it is done.  If the curds break instead of stretch, they are too cool and need to be reheated.

Still too curdy, so I put the ball back in the ladle, immersed it again, and worked it by hand again.  Hm...it was starting to hold together better, and I could actually see little cheesy strands starting to form. 

I WAS DOING IT!!  Back into the hot whey once more...and this time part of it stuck - in a gooey, cheesy way!!! - to the ladle when I tipped it back into the bowl.  This time, when I was kneading it, the whole cheese had been transformed from ricotta-like curds to elastic strands of - can it be??? - fresh mozzarella! 

9.  When the cheese is smooth and shiny, roll it into small balls and eat while warm.  Or place them in a bowl of ice water for 1/2 hour to bring the inside temperature down rapidly; this will produce a consistent smooth texture throughout the cheese.  Although best eaten fresh, if you must wait, cover and store in the refrigerator.

I continued to play with the stretchy, strandy, shiny, magical ball of mozzarella and hollered for my husband, who was practicing a self-arranged solo version of "Ave Maria" for a wedding he's playing this Saturday.  Normally I don't interrupt him when he's practicing, but this was IMPORTANT!!!  He didn't come a-running as quickly as I would have liked, but I guess he had to put the guitar down first so I wouldn't drip whey on it.

I tore that first ball in two and gave him half.  Okay, the smaller half, but hey, I actually MADE the cheese, so I figured I'd earned the slightly bigger piece.  And it was warm and soft and slightly chewy and slightly salty and definitely CHEESE.  Bill looked at me, nodding.  "It's the real deal."  He said.  "Good job."  (That's his version of jumping up and down and squealing "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!" about things.)

Bursting with a million emotions - joy and pride and, yeah, relief - I finished making the rest of my mozzarella balls - in various sizes. 

Julia came into the kitchen at some point and had part of a ball - LOVED IT - and wanted more.  We told her she had to wait til I was all done.  Alex, expectedly, didn't want any.  It's that white squishy cheese thing with him.  But that's okay, I knew that ahead of time.

Everything within a 4 foot radius of that pot of whey was splashed with little droplets of whey.  And later on, I noticed that tiny curds had stuck in and around and on my rings.  My glasses were splashed and smeared, too.  I was hot and sweaty and breathless and emotionally exhausted (okay, that's a slight exaggeration)...and I was exultant. 

I did it!

And the best part is, I can't wait to do it again.  This time, I'll know what I'm doing, and I'll be able to enjoy the process and maybe take more pictures.  I didn't plan to take pictures with this first batch - I had planned to focus completely on the task at hand.  Of course, that flew out the window when I heated my milk too fast at the very beginning, and I ended up taking a couple of pictures when I had a moment of down time.  But there were other points that I wanted to take pictures, to give you a more step by step feel for it.  So I'll do that when I make batch #2.

Yield:  3/4 - 1 pound

I couldn't get the exact yield of mine because the first two balls were eaten right away.  But there was another ball about the same size as the two that were gone, so I weighed what I had and ballparked the actual weight of the whole batch.  And it was half an ounce under a pound.  So - not bad at all, I say.

 

Above - on the left - a ball of curds.  On the right - two balls of mozzarella.  By my own hands.

I know I sound like a lunatic, but really - this was so cool.  I "get" the process now, the heating the curds so they are pliable, and working them until they become stretchy.  I really can't wait to make some more.  And then - so many possibilities!  Grilled pizzas...salads of fresh tomatoes and mozzarella and basil drizzled with olive oil...mozzarella sticks for Julia to eat most of and the leave the last nub somewhere on a piece of furniture in a room other than the dining room...FRIED mozzarella!!  Lasagne and manicotti and stuffed shells...and chicken or eggplant parmesan...or just - fresh cheese, still warm, eaten while standing by the stove.

You HAVE to try this, folks.  Really. It is SO worth it.

~~~~~~~~~~

And here - I just wanted to link again to this website - I'm not being paid to, but really, if you want to get started making cheese, go check it out.

New England Cheesemaking provides everything you need to make fresh, homemade cheese, they even have a 30 minute Mozzarella. From kits to recipes to books, store bought will never taste the same again.

Homemade Ricotta #1

YAY!  I MADE MY FIRST CHEESE!  WOO HOO!  NOW I'M GOING TO BUY A LARGER PIECE OF LAND AND RAISE COWS AND GOATS AND SHEEP AND MAKE LOTS AND LOTS OF CHEESE!

Okay, yeah, I'm getting carried away.  But still.  I've never made cheese before - well, okay, I made yogurt cheese but that's basically just straining the liquid out of plain yogurt - I didn't have to COOK anything.

So anyway, I'm on a cheese kick now, so consider yourself warned.  I've bought a book, I've ordered a kit, and next up will be fresh mozzarella, baby.  ALL.  SUMMER.  LONG.  And when the tomatoes start coming in?  And basil?  Layered with the FRESH MOZZARELLA THAT I WILL MAKE and drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with a bit of salt and pepper?  OH, you will wish you were my neighbor.

Okay, I've calmed down now. 

I've seen other food bloggers mention making their own ricotta and how easy it is, so I finally decided to pick out a recipe and go for it.  I used this recipe for this batch, and I'll probably try others here and there.

It was pretty easy, and cool, and fun, and if you're at all inclined, and interested, and if you like Ricotta cheese, then go make some. 

This version makes it using whole milk, but traditionally ricotta is made from the whey left over from making mozzarella.  I plan to try it that way, too, once I've actually MADE the mozzarella.

So anyway, to make this version, all you need are milk, non-iodized salt (that's kosher salt in the little bowl), and white vinegar.  (Please excuse the slight blur to that photo - I was trembling with excitement and the camera shook.)

The fresher the better, as far as the milk goes, and you want to make sure it's not ULTRA-pasteurized.  Pasteurized is fine, but not the ULTRA, because that stuff's been pasteurized at too high a temperature to successfully make cheese. 

Here we go.

My gallon of milk is in the pot - the recipe in the link tells you to rinse the pot with cold water before adding the milk, in order to prevent scorching - along with the salt, and a thermometer.  I'm heating it on medium to bring it to just before the boil - also called scalding - which, per this recipe, should be between 180-185.

Per my scribbled notes, this was begun at 12:13.  I stirred it every so often.

Once the milk reached the desired temperature, I took it off the heat, added the vinegar and stirred for "no more than a minute." 

While I was stirring, the acid in the vinegar was already causing the curds to separate from the whey.

It was pretty cool, actually. 

Then, I covered the pot with a dry dish towel, as instructed, and left it to its own devices.  This was at 12:40.

While the ricotta was forming, I made some pasta dough.

The recipe said to let the pot of ricotta-to-be sit for at least 2 hours.  I held out for an extra fifteen minutes.

At 2:55, I took the dish towel off for good and here's what I saw.

Nope, it doesn't look all that different from the picture above it.  But there's actually more of the curds than there were initially. 

Here's a lovely close-up shot.

And a closer one.

Next step is to strain the curds from the whey. 

I lined a collander with some cheesecloth and set it on one of the bowls to my mixer. 

Then I ladled the curds into the cheesecloth-lined collander.

And let them sit for another couple of hours.

And, TA-DA!  It's ricotta.

How simple, huh???????

From one gallon of milk, I got a little over 4 cups of cheese.

And THEN what did I do?

I covered the measuring cup above with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge.  I had to get back to the ravioli I was working on.  I could have used the ricotta in the ravioli instead of the goat cheese, yes, but I'd already planned on the goat cheese and had the flavor kind of working in my mind.  So I figured I'd make lasagna or manicotti in a day or two with the ricotta.

Which, of course, I did.  And I'll share that whole adventure with you next time.

For now, I've got to go make two pie crusts.  One of them is for a strawberry-rhubarb pie (strawberries from the Farmers' Market and rhubarb from our back yard), and the other is for a quiche my husband will be making tonight - on the grill!  So even though it's a quiche, if it's cooked on the grill, it's a manly food. 

That's it for the moment!  Now go make some ricotta!

Herb Layered Ravioli Filled with Goat Cheese, Garlic Scallions and Wilted Spinach

  

Those are thyme leaves (from the window box near my kitchen door).  I also used oregano, tarragon, and chives.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I've felt the urge to make fresh pasta lately, and I've seen, over the years, pasta with herb leaves pressed between the pasta layers.  So, in that fresh pasta mood, and with PLENTY of herbs (though not all are ready) to choose from, I set to work.

I'd picked up a box of Hodgson Mill Semolina Pasta Flour at the grocery store the other day, so I used that for this batch of dough, and I doubled the recipe on the back of the box because I figured I could freeze any extra ravioli or make spaghetti or something with the trimmings from the ravioli and dry that.

Which is exactly what I did.

I'd also picked up a package of goat cheese for the filling.  I planned to enhance that with some other greens, either herbs or vegetables or something. 

I don't always go into these things with an ingredient list and a recipe.  I just think - hey, goat cheese ravioli would be yummy, and wouldn't it be pretty with whole herb leaves in the pasta dough?  And then I do it.

 Like I said, I doubled the recipe on the back of the box.  Very simple - flour, eggs, olive oil, salt, and water.

I used a big bowl instead of the counter, partly because I'm not always perfect with the stirring in of the flour and occasionally the dam bursts and I get egg all over the counter.

Also - because I like to use this bowl for handmade things like pasta or bread.

It's big and plain white and made in Italy.  It's got some chips along the rim, but otherwise, it's in lovely shape.  I didn't buy it in Italy, but I feel more Italianish when I use it.

Okay, enough of the silly babbling. 

I mixed my flour and salt together in the bowl and set those aside for the moment. 

Then I cracked 4 eggs, and added the olive oil to that.

(And if you look closely in the olive oil, you can see a little upside-down and reversed image of me taking this picture, in my green checked apron.)

I made a well in the center of the flour/salt mixture and poured the eggs and olive oil in.  I also added most of the water called for in the recipe, saving some to add bit by bit, if needed. 

The amount of liquid needed in things like bread and pasta doughs will vary depending on the humidity.  It's been pleasantly cooler and less humid the last few days here, and I ended up adding a touch more water than called for.  Hey - that's what makes all this exciting! 

Anyway, you add the liquid to the center of the flour, and then with a fork (or two fingers), gradually stir in the flour, working from the center outward.  (If you're working directly on the counter, you want to make sure the walls of flour stay intact until you've got enough of the flour worked into the eggs to make it more batter-like than just runny and sticky.)

Once you've got the flour and liquids pretty well incorporated, you can turn this rather shaggy dough out onto your work surface for the kneading.

It won't look very pretty at this point, but all it needs (no pun intended) is a little pushing and pulling and it will evolve into a nice, slightly elastic pasta dough. 

The texture, if you're using semolina flour, will be kind of rough, like a medium-grade sandpaper.  That's fine - that's what it's supposed to feel like.

Anyway, form this blob of dough into a ball and start to knead.  You'll want to knead this for about ten minutes or so.  If anyone has irritated you lately and you're still simmering a bit, now's the time to think about that person and work out all your repressed aggression.  Don't worry, the dough can take it.

To knead, you basically grasp the edge of the dough farthest from you, then pull that up and toward you, then press it down with the heel of your hand and, still with the heel of your hand, gently but firmly shove the dough away from you.  Turn the dough around a quarter turn and repeat.  Again and again and again.

Just for kicks, I kneaded with my left hand so I could take pictures with my right hand, and I set the camera mode to "sports" so I could have that continuous burst of shots as I kneaded.  Here's kind of what kneading looks like (when you're awkwardly kneading with your non-dominant hand.)

And that's all there is to it.  I know, it's much cuter when Julia's doing the kneading, but she was playing outside and couldn't be bothered to pose for this photo shoot.

As you knead, the dough will change from the original loose, shaggy blob into a more cohesive, slightly elastic, smooth (for something made with scratchy semolina flour) blob.  At this point (should be around ten minutes or so) you wrap the dough in plastic and put it in the fridge for at least an hour.

While the dough is resting (and the liquid is permeating the semolina and all the ingredients are working as a team to become pasta dough and not just a blob of stuff), you can get your herb leaves ready and mix up the filling. 

Actually, I made two fillings.  The goat cheese one was the originally intended filling, but Alex doesn't like goat cheese, or pretty much any soft white cheese, so I had to create something for him. 

I had some sliced pepperoni and a few slices of swiss cheese, so I diced those up together and that was the filling for one little batch.

He was happy with that.

For the goat cheese filling, I sliced up an 8 oz log of goat cheese

and two garlic scallions

and put them in a bowl so the cheese could start to soften.

I rinsed off a few ounces of baby spinach leaves

(I don't really know the amount - it was what I had left from last week's Farmers' Market excursion) and put them in a pan with a little olive oil and salt.  I put a lid on the pan, set the flame to medium high until I could hear the snapping and popping of water droplets on oil, and then I shut off the heat and let it steam.

Next, I scraped the spinach leaves into a cheesecloth-lined mesh strainer set on a bowl so the liquid would drain off and the spinach could cool.

But you can't really get rid of a lot of liquid that way, so at some point you'll have to gather up the corners of the cheesecloth and twist them a bit to form a spinach-filled, cheesecloth-wrapped dripping ball. 

And then you squeeze.

(Looks like I'm milking the spinach, doesn't it.)

You'll have to squeeze and then kind of rearrange the little mass of spinach in your hand so you can squeeze again from a different angle - keep doing this until you've squeezed out as much liquid as you possibly can.  You don't want a watery filling.

Once you've squeezed every drop of juice out, you can unwrap the spinach and chop it up a bit.  If you've squeezed nice and hard like you should, you will be able to see the cheesecloth pattern on the mass of mushed up spinach, like this -

After you give it a rough chop, add the spinach to your goat cheese and garlic scallions,

Grind on some pepper and sprinkle on some salt, and then mash it all together with a fork.

And yes, you could just spread that on a cracker and it would be divine.  But be patient.  Ravioli is heavenly, too.  Set the goat cheese mixture aside along with the pepperoni mixture (if you have an Alex or similarly selective child) and get your work area ready to make pasta.

Now, when I made and posted about tortellini on this site, I rolled out the dough with a rolling pin.  I didn't do that this time.  No particular reason - I just felt like using the pasta roller this time. 

You'll need all-purpose flour to dust your work surface and keep your dough from sticking, a rolling pin to get the dough flattened enough to put into the roller (if you're using it), a pizza wheel to slice the dough, some water to cement the ravioli edges together, and something to let your ravioli sit while they dry - I used cookie racks - plenty of air flow all around.  You can also set them on a tea towel dusted with flour.  The idea is - you don't want the dough to start sticking to the surface it's sitting on, because then when you lift it up, the dough will tear, exposing the filling for all the world to see.  There will be pointing and laughing, and, of course, weeping.  You don't want that.

OH!  I forgot to talk about the herbs!  Depending on what you grow (if you do) or what you can buy, and also on your taste preferences, the choices for your herb layers are endless.  I used creeping thyme, tarragon, oregano, and chives, mainly because they're all growing prodigiously and because I thought they'd all go nicely with the filling, individually and as a group.

Rinse off your herbs and dry them, and then carefully pick off the leaves (unless it's chives, and they can just hang out and wait).  You don't want to do this too far in advance, because some of them (like the oregano) will start to discolor pretty quickly after being rinsed and manhandled (however gently).

Set the leaves aside on a dry surface and go get your dough out of the fridge.  It's easier to work in small batches, so I cut mine in half, and then cut each half into thirds as I went along.

Take your first third (or sixth, or whatever size you choose to work with) and, on a lightly floured work area, knead it briefly into a little ball and roll that into a small log.  Take your rolling pin and flatten that log out and roll it out lengthwise somewhat so it's thin enough to fit into the widest opening of your pasta roller. 

Set your pasta roller (which you've clamped tightly to your work table) on stun - just kidding - set it to the widest opening and hold the end of the dough just at the opening of the rollers with one hand and start cranking with the other.  Once the dough catches, you can set it down on top of the roller and "catch" it as it comes out the other end.

Keep repeating the process, only you want to set the roller on narrower and narrower settings.  I went to "4", which was not the thinnest setting ("6" is on mine), but since I was going to be putting leaves in, I figured I wouldn't be able to use the very very thinnest setting without the dough ripping apart in the process as the leaves would catch in the rollers.

(Or, if you're going to do it all with a rolling pin, then just keep rolling and rolling until you have a nice, thin-as-possible sheet of dough.)

Once you've rolled it through the #4 setting (or you've got it as thin as you can with the rolling pin), dust the work area with some flour and lay out the dough. 

Now, with the herbs, you can either do batches of one kind of herb at a time, or you can do them all with a mixture of leaves.  I did both - first I did a batch of each kind, and then I mixed up the remaining herbs for the fifth batch.  (I didn't have enough filling to use the sixth batch, but don't you worry, I made good use of it eventually.) 

My first batch was done with the thyme leaves, but you can use the same guidelines no matter what. 

Eyeball the midpoint of your length of dough (mark it lightly if you need to) and sprinkle or place your herb leaves on one half. 

I'm sorry, but I just have to say, isn't that pretty?  Let's take a closer look.

Sigh.

Okay, now once you're done admiring the little leaves (I'm loopy, I know), gently and carefully lift up the unadorned half of dough and fold it over on top of the leavy half.  Press down to mash the sides together a bit (be gentle) and then run this through the pasta roller - same setting, #4 - or roll it out with your rolling pin to flatten all the layers together.

Cool, huh?  Now, if you want to really impress yourself, lift it up so there's some light behind it and take a look.

Okay, now put that down on your work surface and get your filling out.

I used a small ball of filling - i'm guessing around a teaspoon or so - per ravioli, and set them down along one side of the length of dough, about an inch apart. 

By the way.

My edges are not perfect, my ravioli are not perfect (visually), and maybe yours won't be either, but who cares?  If you've never made ravioli before - keep going, you're almost done! 

Looks aren't everything! 

And besides, the pretty little leaves in the dough will distract anyone anal enough to peer at your ravioli edges anyway.

Okay, so once you've got a whole row of goat cheese balls (sounds vaguely icky, doesn't it?) along one half of the dough, it's on to the folding and sealing portion of our program.

For this you'll need the water and the pizza wheel I mentioned earlier.  If you don't have a pizza wheel, a sharp knife or even a bench scraper will do (like the one on the left next to the pasta roller).

First thing you want to do is dip your fingers (two is fine) in the water and paint lines along the length of the dough on the outside edge (next to the cheese balls) and on the other side.  And then you need to paint water lines cross-wise, between each cheese ball.  Remember, we're going to seal the dough, so you need cement on all sides.

 

Okay, now the next part is a little tricky, kind of.  You need to fold over the cheeseless half of the dough and press down to seal the cheese inside the dough.  You want to expell any air that may collect next to the cheese, because you don't want the air pocket to expand and burst while you're cooking the pasta.  It's not desirable.

Okay, now see?  See how these aren't perfect?  Don't worry about it.  The more often you make these, the better your technique will become.  I haven't made ravioli in a long time, and I'm out of practice.  But I'm not worrying about it, because hey - it's homemade ravioli!

Okay, next thing you'll need to do is get your pizza roller or knife and cut these into individual ravioli.  I trimmed the edges a bit as I went along, mainly so the cheeseless part of the dough wouln't be lopsided.

Set the ravioli on a rack or floured towel and repeat the process with your next bit of dough.

Here are a few shots from the rest of the process.  First up, the oregano leaves and the pepperoni/cheese filling for Alex....

Next up, the tarragon leaves...

And then the chives.  Now, I learned a little lesson from the chives.  Just because I wanted them to be as flat and thin as the other leaves didn't mean they would.  Next time around I would slice or shred the chives lengthwise before adding them to the dough and that would prevent the pulling and ripping of dough I experienced when I sent the whole mess through the pasta roller.  Ah well, live and learn.

See the wrinkles?  That's where the thickness of the chives was resisting the pasta roller, and the pulling/wrinkling resulted in some little rips in the dough, right along the chives.  But just press it back together and you should be fine.

Once the chive ravioli are formed, I think they look rather dramatic.

Okay, now all that's left is the cooking.

Let the ravioli rest for about an hour (if you can wait that long) and then bring a big pot of water to a boil.  Add a generous amount of salt to the water, and then slide the ravioli into the water.  There should be plenty of wiggle room for the ravioli to cook, so you may need to work in batches.  Not to worry - fresh pasta cooks up very quickly.

Alex was actually pretty hungry about midway through my ravioli-making process, so I cooked up a few of the pepperoni ones for him.

A little butter and some grated parmesan and he was all set.  I tried some (Julia wasn't as hungry as Alex was), and they were pretty yummy - especially when I bit into an oregano leaf.  A little tomato sauce.   on these and it would be like little bite-sized boiled pizzas.  Which, now that I type it out, doesn't sound all that appetizing.  But pizza-flavored ravioli sounds okay.

Anyway.  I froze about half of the goat cheese ravioli and cooked up the rest for dinner.  I served it with a piece of wild-caught Alaskan salmon that I topped with a mixture of herbs and lemon juice, honey, and olive oil and cooked quickly under the broiler.

And that was dinner.

So (will she never stop talking?), to close, I just want to encourage you to make some ravioli, especially if you've never done it before.  Work with some friends or your kids or your spouse/partner/significant other or whoever - you can talk and work at the same time and when you sit down to eat, you can toast yourselves on a job well done!

And then shoot me an email or leave a comment to let me know how it went!

Apple and Brie Quesadillas

From Food 2.0 by Charlie Ayers.

I knew I would like this one.  I love Brie, for one thing, and pretty much any form of quesadilla sounds good to me as well.  I also knew the contrasting flavors - the peppery arugula, the earthy brie, and the sweet/tart apple - would harmonize beautifully.

Best of all - I had everything on hand, although in smaller portions than the recipe calls for, including arugula growing in our garden.  I also didn't have whole wheat tortillas (as the recipe lists) - just the normal plain ol' white ones.  But hey - I had some.  So I ended up making 4 white quesadillas instead of 8 whole wheat ones, but otherwise I was all set.

So, without further delay... here is Mr. Ayers' recipe:

Apple and Brie Quesadillas

Makes 8///Prep Time:  20 minutes///Cook time:  About 24 minutes

2 Granny Smith apples

1 T fresh lemon juice

About 1/4 cup olive oil

8 cups arugula

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

8 oz (225g) just-ripe Brie cheese

8 soft whole wheat tortillas

Peel, core, and thinly slice the apples. 

Toss the apple slices with the lemon juice and 2 T water to prevent browning.

Heat 1 T of the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add a few handfuls of arugula,

sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper, and move around with tongs for a few seconds until the arugula is just wilted.  Transfer to a bowl.  Add a little more oil to the pan and continue to wilt the remaining arugula in the same way.  Set aside.

Drain the apple slices and pat dry on paper towels.  Divide the Brie into eight portions

and spread one portion onto a tortilla.  On one half of the tortilla, arrange a few slices of apple and some wilted arugula. 

Fold over the other half of the tortilla and press together.  Repeat with the remaining tortillas, Brie, apples, and arugula.

 

Heat a little olive oil in the cleaned skillet.  Put in a folded tortilla and cook over medium high heat, pressing down with a spatula, until the base is brown and crisp.

Turn over and brown the other side.  Transfer the quesadilla to a cutting board. 

Cut into three or four wedges and keep warm.  Repeat with the remaining quesadillas.  Serve warm.

You probably noticed I cooked all mine at once on a griddle rather than one at a time in the skillet I'd used for the arugula.  I prefer doing that with quesadillas because they tend to lose their crispness if they sit around for too long.  They still taste good, but they lose the crunch.

Anyway.  The first person to try one of these was my husband.  I think he liked them - he mumbled (mouth full of quesadilla) something that sounded like "vat stuck in wood" - though I don't think that's exactly it.  It sounded like that, though.  Anyway, he grabbed another one and went outside to hide from the children.

I tried one - and yep, just as I thought, I liked it.  Warm brie, slight crisp/soft bite to the apple, the peppery arugula, and the crisp tortilla.  And so easy!

Next up - my son, he of the super olefactory senses.  He came into the kitchen sniffing the air and asking what that was. 

Now, the original plan, particularly according to my husband, (maybe he said "hats, puck 'n' hood!" ?  no...that doesn't make any sense...) was to keep the rest of the quesadillas for us to eat later, just the two of us, after the kids went to bed.  Yes, we are most definitely selfish and greedy like that at times. 

But I couldn't turn Alex away.  I could have told him there was Brie in it - that would have sent him running.  But...I want them to try things.  So I said there were apples in it, and I gave him a wedge.

And.

He liked it!  Yes, just like Mikey of Life cereal fame!

He walked around the kitchen, chewing, his face thoughtful, nodding his approval.

I nearly fell over. 

Anyway, next up - Julia - who had apparently heard Alex chewing from two miles down the road (just kidding - she was somewhere in the house) and wanted to know what she was missing out on.

Rather than stand on ceremony, she took a wedge of quesadilla off of the cutting board and took a bite.

She liked it, too, but that didn't surprise me.  She likes just about anything that someone else is enjoying.

So overall I'd say these were a definite success in this house.  (Much to my husband's dismay.  Less for him.  (Maybe he said "mats duck'n could"...but I don't think so.)

There is, as I type this, three hours after I made them, only one of the original four quesadillas left.

They are cold, but will be just fine when I heat them up.

And run out to the garage with them so I can eat in peace.

Just kidding.

But you go ahead and make them - you'll understand.

Broccoli Rabe and Cauliflower Gratin

I believe I have mentioned that we have had a bumper crop of broccoli rabe this year.  The thing is, broccoli rabe is kind of an early vegetable, and Bill had planted a ton of rabe in spots that will eventually (soon) be taken over by the mid-season vegetables that make up the bulk of our garden.  Did that make sense?

Well anyway, with so much broccoli rabe, I thought I needed to branch out from my normal "saute it in olive oil with some garlic and maybe some pancetta and grate some cheese on top and that's all it needs" philophy of broccoli rabe.  So I started looking through a few cookbooks to see what other people liked to do.

And then, of course, I deviated from that path a bit.  I found a recipe for a Vegetable Gratin in the book Giada's Family Dinners by Giada De Laurentis.  Cauliflower and broccoli were the vegetables she used, and so I thought, why not use rabe instead of the broccoli florets?  And so that's what I did.  I also used different cheeses than she recommended, mainly because I already had some good-sized hunks of cheeses left over from Julia's birthday party, and I figured I should use them up.

And so I give you Broccoli Rabe and Cauliflower Gratin.

(Adapted from "Vegetable Gratin" in Giada De Laurentis' book Giada's Family Dinners.  Original recipe pg. 178.)

Ingredients:

3 T unsalted butter

salt

1 head of cauliflower, cut into large florets

about a dozen broccoli rabe plants, pulled from the garden, cleaned, and chopped (roots removed)

2 T all-purpose flour

1  1/4 cups heavy cream

1  1/4 cups 2% milk

3 oz mild cheddar cheese, shredded

3 oz edam cheese, diced (because i didn't freeze it first and so it was impossible to shred)

1/2 cup plus 2 T grated peccorino romano cheese

freshly ground black pepper

2 T dried bread crumbs plus a tablespoon of dried oregano

Ready, Get Set, Go:

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F.   Grease a 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking dish with 1 T of the butter.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat.  Add the cauliflower florets and cook for 2 minutes.  Using a slotted spoon, transfer the cauliflower to the prepared dish. 

Repeat with the rabe.

Meanwhile, melt the remaining 2 T of butter in a medium, heavy saucepan over medium heat.  Add the flour and whisk for 1 minute.  Whisk in the cream and milk.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.  Decrease the heat to medium and simmer until the sauce thickens slightly, whisking often, about 2 minutes.  Remove the saucepan from the heat.  Add the cheddar, edam, and 1/2 cup of the romano.  Stir until the cheeses have melted.  Season the sauce with salt and pepper.  Pour the sauce over the vegetables and toss to coat.

In a small bowl, stir the bread crumbs and oregano with the remaining 2 T of romano.  Sprinkle over the gratin. 

Bake uncovered until the topping is golden brown and the sauce is bubbly, about 15-20 minutes.

Pretty easy - and pretty yummy.  Alex didn't like it, but that was to be expected, as he's not fond of white sauces of any kind.  The rest of us, however, were pretty happy with it.

Herb Crust Pizza - One Crust, Many Toppings

I made a bunch of pizzas last night.  Just for fun, I added some dried herbs to the dough. 

Here's what I used for the dough:

5 tsp dried yeast, dissolved in

4 cups warm water in the bowl of my 6-quart stand mixer.

After the yeast softened and started to bubble, I added

10 cups all-purpose flour

5 tsp salt

1 heaping tsp each dried oregano, dried thyme, and dried basil

Mix at second-slowest speed for about 5 minutes.

(If the dough is still sticking to the sides of the bowl, add more flower, about a quarter cup at a time, til the dough comes away from the sides.)

Turn dough onto a lightly flowered surface and knead the dough into a ball.  Flatten slightly, and cut into 8 pieces.  Pour some olive oil into a large bowl.  Shape 8 pieces of dough into balls and place in bowl of oil, turning each ball to coat with the oil.  Pour a little more olive oil over them - you want them to be lightly covered with the oil.  Let sit for half an hour or so in the oil.

While the dough rests in the oil, preheat the oven and prepare the toppings.

Preheat the oven to between 450-500 degrees F. 

Toppings are entirely up to you. 

Here's what I did with mine.

Well, first of all, before I'd even made the dough, I started making a sauce, because I didn't have any canned in the pantry.  I used two small containers of roasted tomatoes from last summer and a 28 oz can of plum tomatoes and their juice.  I also used about half a cup of chianti (what was left in the bottle) and about a tablespoon of fresh oregano I'd frozen in olive oil last summer.  I'd also put in about 8 smashed cloves of garlic.  And some salt and pepper.  And I let that cook down for a while - til I'd made the dough.  Then I put the sauce mixture through a food mill and then back on the stove for a little while longer.  I skimmed some excess olive oil off the top and tasted it - just needed a bit more salt.

Alex and Julia each made their own pizza.

Alex's - as always - some sauce, just a little cheese and an even distribution of pepperoni.

For Julia, I'd sauteed some mushrooms and some minced shallots...

When she made her pizza, she spread out a generous layer of sauce...all of her alotment of cheese plus the cheese Alex didn't use, and poured her bowl of mushrooms right on the center of the pizza.  She topped the mushrooms with a bit of Alex's leftover sauce, and then ate the restspooned the rest of it into her mouth.

 

After the kids had made their pizzas, they left, and I got to play.

I'd bought a pound of fresh mozzarella, and I tore that apart while I was cooking the sauce...

I minced half a shallot and sauteed that with a big handful of baby arugula leaves...

...and then I stirred in about a quarter cup of pureed basil and olive oil (from last summer) that had been in the freezer.  And then I stirred in the last of a container of ricotta cheese - maybe 3/4 of a cup or so.  And then I was happy.

Next pizza - half of the arugula/basil/ricotta mixture topped with torn mozzarella.

 

And then...sauce, a whole lot of shredded (pre-packaged) mozzarella, and the rest of the mushrooms.

And then...sauce, a lot of shredded (pre-packaged) mozzarella, and plenty of pepperoni.

And then the other half of the arugula/basil/ricotta mixture, a little parmesan, and a generous sprinkling of red pepper flakes.

Last two...

First - simple one - just sauce and both the shredded (pre-packaged) AND the fresh mozzarellas.

And finally - my favorite of the bunch - pre-packaged mozzarella, then the last of the fresh mozzarella, a tablespoon of minced shallots, and a little can of smoked oysters.

   

Of course, 8 pizzas was far more than we needed for dinner last night, and that's the whole point of making that many.  Lunch the next day.  And a late night snack the day after that.  And lunches for everyone when Monday rolls back around.

So go - make some pizza.  Be creative.  Have fun!

Valentine's Day Ideas: Grilled Cheese Sandwich and Tomato Soup

I know, what's so special about a grilled cheese sandwich and some tomato soup?  Anyone can make that.  It's kid food.

Well, yeah.  Kid food, perhaps.  But it's comforting, isn't it?  Kid food?  Something your mom might have served up on a winter afternoon, after you spent the morning playing in the snow until your cheeks were red and your fingers were wet and numb inside your mittens after throwing snowballs at your friends, and you were cold to the core, but you still groaned when your mom called "Time for Lunch!"  because kids are hardy individuals, able to play happily in frigid cold and scorching sun.  And despite your reluctance to stop playing, there was something very warm and cozy about a melty sandwich and a bowl of soup, steam rising above the rim.  Warmed up your body and your soul at the same time, didn't it? 

Yeah, but okay, we're talking ostensibly about Valentine's Day here, and grilled cheese may be many things, but "romantic" doesn't leap to mind as one of them.  Okay, the tomato soup is red...but other than that...

To be honest, I'm not thinking of romance, per se, with these foods I'm writing about.  Not romance in the heart-shaped-box-of-chocolates and the dozen-long-stemmed-way-over-priced-roses way.  That's not really romantic to me; it's too...too enforced.

This is much simpler.  Much more basic.  And it's not just on Feb 14th - it's whenever.  It's an "I love you, by the way" for your spouse, your kids - even yourself.  It's a small gift.  But aren't big things supposed to come in small packages, or whatever that saying is?  So there can be a whole lotta love in a simple little meal.

So here, for your entertainment, is how I make a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup for my husband.  If the way to his heart is through his stomach...then my heart is a frying pan and a can opener.  Kind of.

Okay, here's what you do:

Assemble the sandwich ingredients:  white bread, American cheese slices, yellow mustard of some kind, and some butter.

And for the soup: 

- and an equal amount of milk.

Open the can of soup and place the contents of the can and an equal amount of milk (see?  I told you) in a pan on the stove.

Whisk them together and heat on medium low, so you don't scorch the pan.

Stir the soup periodically while you make the sandwich.

Meanwhile...melt a good chunk of butter in a nonstick frying pan:

While the butter melts, assemble your sandwich.

Place one slice of bread face-up on a plate. 

Add mustard.

(The mustard is optional.  So is the vaguely heart-shaped squiggle you see above.)

Next - the cheese.  Like I said - American cheese slices.  Two or three, to taste.

And finally, the top slice of bread.  (Additional mustard is optional.  I usually only apply one coating of mustard to Bill's sandwich.)  Note - it is EXTREMELY important that both slices of bread are "facing" the same way.  Aesthetics are important - remember, we eat with our eyes first.

By this time, your butter should be nicely melted in your pan.  If it cooked too long and burned, wipe the pan out and start over. 

Carefully lay the sandwich in the center of the pan and press down to help mush all the layers together a bit.  It will taste better if you do that.  Really.

Now let it cook there for a bit, with your heat on medium to medium-high (depending on how heartbreakingly hungry your loved one is).  After a couple of minutes, take a peek to see how the face-down side is doing.

Hmmm...getting there, but not ready just yet. 

Let it cook another minute or two and check again.  When that side is nice and golden brown, remove the sandwich from the pan and get another chunk of butter.

Toss that in the pan to melt and turn the heat down a little, as the pan is pretty darn hot at this point and you don't want to burn the butter.  Once the new application of butter has melted, flip the sandwich over - being careful to not let the layers slip apart in the process.  If they do, carefully and quickly slide everything back in place.  Be careful not to burn your fingers in the process. 

One technique I use for the second side is to drop the flame to low and put a lid over the sandwich.  This keeps the heat circulating all around the sandwich and keeps the other side from browning too quickly (or burning). 

When the other side of the sandwich has turned a lovely golden brown, and the cheese is melty, remove the sandwich from a pan and put it on a plate.

Now get a knife (the butter knife works fine for this, or you can get something sharper if you are more comfortable with that) and slice the sandwich as desired.  My husband likes his sandwiches cut on the diagonal, like so:

Be sure to cut all the way through the sandwich so there is no pulling and tearing of the bread.

Arrange the slices attractively on the plate.

By now the soup should be ready - bubbling gently around the edges and some motion in the center.  You don't want a full boil, because the milk can scorch. 

Ladle some soup into a bowl, and voila - a warm and cozy meal for someone you feel warm and cozy about.

Two Pizzas

I made two pizzas tonight.

Here's what I did:

Took two 16 oz packages of store-bought pizza dough out of the fridge about a couple hours before my projected dinner time.  Set them out on a counter - still in their packages - to come to room temperature.

Then I got the toppings ready...

First pizza -

Chopped about 3 strips of bacon into 3/4 inch square pieces (approximately).  Cooked them over high heat in a large saute pan until they had rendered most of their fat and were crisp.  Took them out of the pan and set them on a few layers of paper towel on a plate. 

Next - dumped in about, oh, 8 cups of sliced onions.  (I'm guessing - I just used up what I had, which was maybe 8 to 10 small to medium onions.)  Sprinkled a little salt over them and stirred them all around to coat the onions with the bacon fat.  Turned the heat down to medium low and let them go, stirring every now and then, until they just started to caramelize - roughly a half an hour.

While the onions were cooking, I combined about a third to a half of a cup of crumbled feta cheese with about the same amount of ricotta cheese.  Set that aside with the bacon.

Preheated the oven to 450 degrees F.

Then I started working on the topping for pizza number two.

I combined about a third of a cup of basil pureed with olive oil (this had been in the freezer all ready to go from when we harvested all the basil a few weeks ago) - with 3 big fat cloves of garlic, minced.  And about a tablespoon (all I had left) of grated parmesan.  Set that aside.

Assembly:

Pizza number one:  I spread the dough out on the baking sheet.  Rubbed a little olive oil over the surface.  Dotted the top with blobs of the ricotta/feta mixture.  Topped that with about half of the caramelized onions, and then sprinkled the bits of bacon over the top.

Pizza number two:  I drizzled olive oil over the pizza dough (already stretched out and ready to go).  Then smeared the basil mixture on top, and dotted (my word of the day) with ricotta cheese and sprinkled with salt and pepper.

They both took about 25 minutes to cook.  Alex liked the basil pizza.  Julia liked both.  So did Bill and I.  Bill's been sick, so he had tea.  Alex and Julia had juice, and I had some pinot grigio...hang on, let me see which one...Carsasa - estate bottled in Italy...it's actually a pinot grigio/pinot blanc blend (51%/49%)...and oddly enough, I couldn't see the year anywhere on the bottle...I'll look again later.  Maybe it was hiding.

Anyway - that's what we had for dinner tonight.

Oh!  Almost forgot - I've put the other half of the caramelized onions in the freezer.  I figured they'd be nice to have on hand.  If we were planning to have, oh, steak tomorrow, I'd have kept them in the fridge...and I would have bought mushrooms while I was at the store today, too....

Feta and Olive Dip

In a food processor combine the following:

One part kalamata olives (seeds removed)

Two parts feta cheese

some black pepper if you wish

Put the food processor lid on and turn the machine on and slowly drizzle in some olive oil until the mixture reaches a pleasing dippable consistency.

Put mixture in a bowl.

Serve.

Cheese Fondue

When Bill and I were just starting to date, the first meal I cooked for him in my apartment was a simple cheese fondue. He had never had it before, and apparently he was just amazed by it. Again - it's very, very simple.

This is the way I make it. My mother used to make it occasionally, and I'm not sure where she got the original recipe...she used to make it with crabmeat too, but most canned crabmeat doesn't have enough flavor to compete with the cheese and the wine.

Anyway, here it is. You will need:

half a stick of butter
1/4 cup of flour
1 cup of dry white wine (and drink the rest with dinner)
2 1/2 cups of shredded sharp cheddar
1 can of crabmeat (optional...if you have the urge to buy a live crab or two and cook them and pick out the meat, it would probably be a whole lot better)

a loaf of crusty bread - a baguette, a loaf of Italian bread, a sourdough boule (did I spell that right? I should check, but my ice cream is melting and I don't feel like taking the time...), whatever you like....

Wrap the bread in foil and put in a 350 degree oven to warm it up. My mother used to cut it into chunks, but there's something fun about ripping it apart at the table, too...

In a heavy-duty saucepan, melt the butter add the flour, whisking constantly to remove the lumps.
Cook for a minute or two, whisking all the while so it doesn't stick and burn.
Pour in the wine and continue whisking until the mixture is smooth and starts to thicken slightly.
Add the cheese, and stir until it all melts.

Pour the mixture into a fondue pot and follow your manufacturer's instructions about lighting the flame below.

Light candles, pour the rest of the wine, and, using the fondue forks or skewers or your fingers, dunk chunks of bread into the fondue and - (careful! cheese is hot and will burn the roof of your mouth, which kind of detracts from the romance of it all) - enjoy.

You can try other kinds of cheese, or a combination of other cheeses...cheddar isn't traditional, but I like the sharpness.

Anyway - it's long been a favorite of ours...thought I'd share...hope you try it...hope you like it!