Cheesemaking 101 - Mozzerella

Here's a post off the beaten path as this most definitely is not soup.  However it is fairly easy yet something that will make you feel accomplished in the end - much like soup.  DP and I hosted a classical music listening night at our house and picked Mozart for our first gathering.  When deciding upon snacks there were many puns including Mozart-ella sticks, Wolfgang Puck Amadeus pizza, Don Juan almonds and the like.  I saw the shining star as clearly being Mozart-ella so I took the opportunity to teach myself how to make this easy cheese.  It turned out really good despite my worry throughout the process that it wouldn't come together.  But come together it did and served with fresh basil and garlic, our best olive oil (from here), balsamic, and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes and it was a party hit.  It turns out that the adage used when making beer applies to making cheese as well - don't worry, have a homebrew cheeseball.

Even though this recipe might require a stop at a home brewing store the two off the wall supplies needed, rennet and citric acid, are cheap and easy to find.  Also you use so little of each ingredient in each batch that I'll be able to stretch the amounts I purchased for many more cheese making adventures.  Up next, goat cheese...or maybe feta!  A little aside about the whey too; I read from the recipe that the leftover whey can be used in place of water in any bread recipe for an enhanced flavor so I saved mine and will be whipping up a fresh batch of bread this weekend.  Cheese making yields many treats my friends.

Homemade Mozzerella
recipe from The Pioneer Woman

1 gallon of whole milk - preferably raw and unpasteurized if you can find it (I couldn't)
1 1/2 teaspoons of citric acid powder
1/4 teaspoon vegetable rennet
kosher salt to taste

Sprinkle the citric acid powder into a large non-reactive stockpot then add 1/4 cup of water and swirl to dissolve.  Pour the gallon of milk into the pot and stir to combine.  Put the pot over medium-low heat and attach a thermometer to the side of the pot and allow to heat to 90 degrees F.  You may notice a little curdling but this is a good thing.  While that heats up combine the vegetable rennet with 1 cup of water.

When the milk comes to temp remove from the burner and add the rennet/water mixture.  Very gently stir together for about 30 seconds.  Place a lid on the pot and walk leave it alone for exactly 5 minutes - don't touch it in the meantime! After 5 minutes the mixture should resemble a very soft custard.  A note on this - mine looked more like large curds and didn't congeal as much as the recipe pictures looked.  I think this is because I didn't use raw milk so if you don't either and it just looks like a bunch of large curds, don't worry it will still come together.  Return to the burner over medium heat and place the thermometer on once again and bring up to 105 degrees F.

Remove from heat and with a slotted spoon remove all of the curds from the whey (the watery looking part) and place in a colander.  Press down with a spoon or your clean hands to remove as much of the whey from the curds as possible. Place in a microwaveable bowl and microwave on high for 1 minute.  Without burning your hand press on the cheese to drain all of the whey off.  Microwave for 30 seconds a few more times to keep removing as much of the watery whey as possible.  I only did this two times total.  Then knead in salt to taste.  Stretch out the cheese curd to get any more whey that you can out of it.  Shape into a ball and place in a bowl of ice water until completely cool.  Afterwards eat as is or add herbs, seasonings and serve with a crusty baguette as we did.

The final product before it was devoured:


Video of the making:

Infallible Lemon Blueberry Muffins

Alright, people. I've been on hiatus, yet again, and during that time it seems I lost my ability to bake. And not just to bake well, but to bake the easiest thing of all, what some may call my specialty - the muffin. Luckily enough for me I managed to pick what would appear to be a recipe so good it's impossible to mess up. Because I tried, not once, but twice. You see, when a recipe tells you to cream the butter and sugar, don't forget the sugar until the last minute, when upon licking the beater it occurs to you that something is off. And certainly don't add the lemon juice in early instead of said sugar, making it nearly impossible to cream the butter. But if you do both of those things, most definitely do them with this recipe. Because despite all that drama I still managed to put forth muffins so lemony and crumbly that I couldn't eat less than two in one sitting. Six times in a row.

Alice’s Blueberry Muffins

From Sweet Savory Life

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons butter, softened

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 cup of sugar

zest and juice of 1 lemon

2 eggs

2 tsp. of vanilla extract

1/2 cup of sour cream

2 cups of AP Flour

2 tsp. of baking powder

1/2 tsp. of salt

1.5 cups of fresh or frozen blueberries

*optional 1/4 cup turbinado sugar/sugar crystals

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium mixing bowl, cream butter, oil, lemon zest, and sugar for 3 minutes until light in color and creamy. Add eggs, sour cream, lemon juice, and vanilla beating for an additional 2 minutes. Add salt, baking powder, and all-purpose flour gently mixing everything for an additional minute until everything is fully incorporated, approx. 2 minutes. Batter will be nice and thick. Gently fold in blueberries and pour batter into muffin tin lined with paper cups 3/4 cup full. Top each muffin with a sprinkle of turbinado sugar or sugar crystals.Bake for 30 minutes or until done. Makes 12 regular sized muffins.

Focaccia for Dinner

One of the facets of baking that I haven't explored much is bread. Bread using yeast to be more specific. There's a certain lore that accompanies bread making that might turn one off to it. Funny that I wasn't nearly as scared to try my hand at it than I was at making a pie crust. But I will admit that I still stand around the yeast bowl when it's activating asking, "Is it working? Did I do it right? Is it foaming enough?"

Focaccia is one of the easier breads to start with. You usually only have to let it rise once and it takes little to no kneading. To put it simply, if I've managed to pull it off, you'll have no problem. We made a batch for dinner recently adding some pizza-like toppings to make it more hearty. Serve it with a salad and you've got an easy dinner. We also had asparagus 'cause I can't seem to kick my farmer's market asparagus habit. It's just too good.

Hearty Dinner Focaccia
focaccia recipe courtesy Ezra Pound Cake
toppings free-styled

Focaccia Dough:
1 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees F)
1 package (1/4 oz) active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon honey
1/2 extra virgin olive oil, plus more for greasing
1 teaspoon sea salt
3 cups bread flour, plus more for dusting

Toppings:
1 yellow onion, carmelized (couple of teaspoons of oil and/or butter needed)
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped kalamata or green olives, or a mixture
feta cheese, sprinkled on to taste
4 cloves garlic, chopped
rosemary, fresh if you have it
coarsely ground black pepper
coarse sea salt

In a large bowl combine water, yeast and honey. Stir to dissolve and allow to activate until foamy, about 5 minutes. Add oil and salt to the yeast mixture. Gradually add the flour using a pastry cutter to gently incorporate. Once the dough begins to form and pull away from the sides of the bowl, dump out onto floured surface and knead the dough for 5 minutes. Form into a ball (dough should be smooth to touch) and place in a large lightly oiled bowl; turn to coat with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm area until doubled in volume, about an hour.

Meanwhile, start a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 tablespoon each of olive oil and butter. Chop onion into strips and place in skillet. Sprinkle some salt over onions and allow to slowly carmelize in the pan, stirring frequently, about 20 minutes. Onions should be golden brown and soft when finished. Chop tomatoes and olives in half. Mince garlic cloves.

Preheat the oven to 425F. Lightly grease a baking pan. I used a 9x13 pan to create a sturdier crust for the toppings. You can also use a 11x17 jelly roll pan for a thinner crust. Punch down the dough and spread into baking pan of choice. Dimple the surface with your fingertips and distribute toppings evenly over the surface. Lightly drizzle with olive oil and place in the oven for about 25 minutes.

Before


After

Yeah, this was pretty awesome. Mich thought it needed more salt. I wanted more olives. Jessie said, "mmmmmm. I'm drunk", then nodded off.

Please and Thank You

Being that I bought an entire pound of bittersweet chocolate to make a flourless chocolate cake while we were away in Bend last weekend, only to discover that I needed an electric mixer and had none, I decided that something was to be done with all that chocolate. It's been a while since I made some good ol' fashioned chocolate chip cookies. I came across the NY Times Jacques Torres' recipe via Nosh and Tell and decided to give it a go.

Jacques Torres' Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

1/2 cup sugar

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 egg

3/4 cup plus 1/2 tablespoon cake flour (I used regular flour)

3/4 cup bread flour

1/4 tablespoon salt (you can sprinkle coarse salt on top in lieu of this)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 tablespoon vanilla

1/2 pound or 8 oz best-quality semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used 1 bar of 4 oz bittersweet Ghirardelli chocolate and found them to be chocolate-y enough)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper and set aside.

In a large bowl cream together butter and sugars. Add egg and mix well. Add both flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and vanilla, mix well until combined. Fold in chocolate chunks.

*Instead of adding salt to the recipe, I sprinkled coarse salt on top of the cookies before baking. I've been seeing some food bloggers do this and since I'm such a fan of the coarse sugar/salt thing, I jumped right on that bandwagon.

Using a 4 ounce scoop for larger cookies or a tablespoon scoop for smaller cookies scoop cookie dough onto prepared cookie sheet placing about 2 inches apart. Bake until lightly browned, but still soft, about 20 minutes for larger cookies and 15 for smaller cookies. Cool slightly on baking sheets before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

My oven cooks a little high so I took these cookies out at about 11 minutes. I like to take cookies out a tad early and then let them finish cooking on the sheet before removing them. I find you get a better consistency that way.

These cookies were near perfect when cooled just a little but still warm. They hardened up more than I like after they completely cooled. Not a terrible recipe, and maybe it's the fact that I didn't use the fancy flour, but I like my cookies less crunchy. Back to my Joy of Cooking standby!

Sitting Pretty

And they all lived happily ever after.

Eat my muff.

I originally came across this recipe on Confections of a Foodie Bride via Tastespotting and knew immediately from the picture that I would be making these. I've always fancied myself more of a baker than a cook and muffins are one of my favorite things to make. Not only for the sheer versatility, such as sweet or savory options, but also because they are so easy. You rarely have to leave butter out to soften, they come together in a snap, and I can't recall ever messing muffins up. And don't even get me started on the portability of those suckers; I've spent many a morn grabbing a muffin and shoving it into my face on the drive down to work.

The end result was extremely tasty. I love the effect of coarse salt or sugar sprinkled on a muffin. My only complaint was that they ended up being a little dry. Next time I might try subbing yogurt for the butter and seeing if they moisten up any. Enjoy!

Scallion & Goat Cheese Muffins
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Coarsely ground black pepper, to taste
2 large eggs, room temp
1 cup buttermilk, room temp
6 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 bunch scallions, sliced thin
5.5 oz goat cheese, crumbled
Sea salt, for garnish

Preheat oven to 400F. Grease a 12-cup muffin pan or line with paper liners. Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and pepper into mixer bowl.

Lightly beat eggs and add to mixer bowl. Add buttermilk, melted butter, scallions, and goat cheese. Mix on medium speed until just combined - do not overmix.

Scoop the batter into the muffin pan. Sprinkle with sea salt. Bake for 20 minutes, until well risen, golden brown, and firm to the touch.

Let muffins cool 5 minutes in the pan before removing. Serve warm or cool completely and store covered for 3 days.

Yields: 12 muffins
Source: Adapted from 1 Mix, 100 Muffins

Pre-oven

Baked!