dear friends, do you like cheese?  i like cheese.  i think cheese is knees of the bees, the meow of the cat, as well as its pajamas and other accessories.  it is top dog straight from this filly’s mouth.

anyway, i’ve always thought that making cheese was kind of off-limits for me.  i mean, every time you see people making cheese on tv it’s like this big production with vats and thermometers and curing/drying places and wooden shelves and cows and sawdust smell and well, YIKES.  soooOOooo, when deb over at smitten kitchen was writing about making ricotta in her tiny city sardine can kitchen, it was like i caught on fire.  cheese?  real cheese?  IN MY MOUTH KITCHEN RIGHT NOW??

LET’S DO THIS. 

i made plans.  i’m gonna do this right–good dairy, cheesecloth, and, and….. and?

well, that was about it aside from some lemon juice.  seriously?  and all i have to do is wait for an hour for it to separate and turn into creamy goodness?  yea?  really?  really.  really??  FOR REAL.

huh.  well, color me surprised, but lawsie if it isn’t tasty (and probably heart-stopping–in a completely good way!  …maybe.  no.  probably not).  but to be completely honest, i think the next time i make it i’ll probably leave out the cream–is it possible that it’s too rich??–i mean, i guess it’s taboo to use anything but milk anyway, so alrighty.  there will definitely be other tries.

and you end up with whey!  that liquid that comes out of the cheesecloth to make the cheese?  whey!  it’s full of proteins and good stuff.  i put it in my blueberries ’cause apparently acid-loving plants like it (it hasn’t killed them so far!).

in any case, it was right tasty on pizza (dough du foode) with local summer squash and thyme and tomatoes from my garden.  mmmm thyme.  thymey-wimey-thyme-thyme.

or pasta with some wine and more squash, more tomatoes and leftover pork loin.

huzzah carbs!  and huzzah new, usable, and trash-free things!

FRIENDS.  the weather has heated up.  thankfully, it’s not the blistering soul-sucking heat of last year, but it’s pretty warm nonetheless.

I DIGRESS.

the real reason i’m writing and bringing up the humdrum topic of weather is this: it’s a magical excuse to make all kinds of fun drinks.  i mean, sure, i guess you could say the same of cold weather as well…. DIGRESSION.

the other day i was reading david lebovitz write about horchata and obviously needed to make it.  obviously.  what is horchata you ask?  well, i’d heard of it before and besides knowing that it was a cold, white drink, i wasn’t sure myself.  horchata is a spanish or latin america beverage made of rice or nuts or barley blended with milk sometimes, usually always some kind of spices–it kind of varies, as these things do, along regions.  so, the one we’re talking about here (the one david lebovitz is talking about, let’s be honest) is the mexican variety made of rice, milk, and cinnamon.  hooray!  i like all of those things.  and it’s actually super easy to make as well.  DOUBLE HOORAY!

so, you start with some rice,

which you blend up til it’s fine like coarse polenta.  let me tell you this takes some time, like at least a good five minute go.  also, i definitely recommend a blender over a food processor, some reason the blender has a more focused rice-soul-ear-crushing force.

then, you soak it over night with a cinnamon stick so the rice and the cinnamon make nice friends with the water.  all of it (sans cinnamon stick) goes into the blender til pale and frothy.  give it a strain to remove the solids then, THEN, you get out these things:

on the left, we have rice milk–sweet, clean, earthy rice milk.  on the right, simple syrup–easy, applicable, liquid goodness.  introduce these to friends with your rice blend and get yoself a glass ’cause you’re done!  ice, horchata, and a healthy dousing of cinnamon.  BOOM–sweet, refreshing goodness for your tummy.

up next: homemade ricotta!

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mexican horchata a la david lebovitz

makes about 6 cups!

• 2/3 cup rice
• 3 cups warm water
• One 2-inch cinnamon stick
• 1/2 cup (or more to taste) simple syrup*
• 2 cups rice milk or regular milk
• Ground cinnamon, for serving

1. buckle down that blender, ’cause we’re taking it for a spin!  put the rice (i used long grain and m. lebovitz used short grain with success, so feel free to use what you got) in the blender and go forth until it’s like coarse sand
2. when it’s good an ready, put it in a bowl with the cinnamon stick and the warm water, cover and let it set 8 hours or overnight
3. pick out the cinnamon stick when you’re rice is all soaked and pruny, and take it through another spin in the blender til it’s nice and frothy and smooth (well, as smooth as can be, don’t stress yourself over it).  strain it through a sieve, preferably with some cheesecloth if you have it on hand (nothing like running into a chunky piece of rice in your drinky times)
4. get a pitcher, and let the rice blend be friends with whatever milk of your choosing and some simple syrup.  now, i used rice milk that’s a bit sweeter than regular milk and i don’t like stuff too sweet, so you might be inclined to add more.  DO IT.
5. you’re done!  get ye some ice and drink up!

*simple syrup is too easy to make for words.  just take equal parts of sugar and water and put in a sauce pan on med-high until it turns clear.  remove it from the heat and voila!  simple syrup.  you can flavor it, too if you like, or just put it in everything cold and needed sweet–booze, tea, coffee, booze, more booze.  the sky’s the limit, friends!

FRIENDS, GUESS WHAT?

IT’S SPRING!

hey, friends, GUESS WHO HAS A FRIEND WITH CHICKENS???  that’s right–it’s me. i had no idea kathy had chickens roosting in her backyard until she showed up with a paper bag of eggs for me at youth group last night.

“i have a present for you! a fragile one”  ”oh?  what’s the occasion?”  ”no reason, mostly ’cause i think you’d like them”  ”aw, that’s so sweet! [peers into bag] OMG!! [in the squeaky high voice] EGGS!!” lots of grinning on both sides ensues.

aren’t they gorgeous?  that fantastic green patina color or light cappuccino.

 

ah, eggs.  eggs. and fresh ones!  there’s also something so completely marvelous about not only getting them local, but knowing personally who they’re from.  LOVE IT!

i had one this morning and LAWSIE was it tasty–bright orange yolk, perky whites and so so smooth.  i didn’t even season it–totally not even necessary!  i’ll make to take pictures when i crack another open yum yum!

SO FRIENDS.  i was at lunch with my friend cynthia and a friend of hers from out of town and she kindly reminded me that it’s been some time since i’ve fiddled with ye olde blog.  now, i’m not one for pulling the ‘OMGSOSORRYIT’SBEENSOLONG’ stint, but the last time i posted there was ice and cranky roads with cranky drivers and today, well, today was close to 80 degrees and green things are starting to wake up from the very much unfrozen ground.

yes, spring is nigh and my mind keeps wandering to growing things and produce and just when i’m getting bored with dense food, i get to look forward to the quickly-approaching spring vegetation!  BUT, not quickly enough, in my opinion.

so, tonight i roasted up some broccoli!  i’d loaded up at lunch for a dinner shift at FOODE that never happened, so i wanted something light–broccoli dressed in a sesame vinaigrette that i picked up off of epicurious.

now, it’s my very genuine opinion that putting anything in the oven for any given length of time makes them at least twice as tasty.  so a little turn in the oven at 400 for twenty minutes and these little florets (that i might’ve four-finger discounted from meredith) were all dolled up with somewhere to go (answer: my tummy).

a little spot of sparkle (i.e. excellent dipping sauce as well), some toasted sesame seeds and a glass of wine and that’s that.

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roasted sesame broccoli salad (adapted from epicurious)

makes: a dinner portion or a couple sides

• couple heads of broccoli
• canola/veggie oil
• 1 tbsp + some dark sesame oil (there’s really no replacing this–sorry, it’s just it’s own deal)
• 1 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar (you could swap out white if you don’t have rice wine, BUT you will be missing out.  AND i might be a little disappointed it’s not in your pantry)
• 1 tbsp honey
• sriracha (optional)
• 2 tbsp white sesame seeds

1. preheat yo’ oven!  to 400, please.  cut up the broccoli into florets–the bigger they are, the longer they’ll take.  toss them in just enough canola oil to coat (seriously, like 2 tbsp tops), a sprinkling of salt, pepper, and a drizzle of sesame oil.  dump unceremoniously onto a tray and pop that greasy pig into the oven!  make sure to give ‘em a look-see every ten minutes or so and flip ‘em around so’s they don’t burn.
2. while they’re on their way, heat up a pan (a pan that isn’t non-stick works better for this) on medium and when it’s well-heated, toast the seeds til california tan.  make sure you toss ‘em around every few minutes or they’ll burn like a white kid at the beach without any spf.
3. whisk the soy sauce, vinegar, and honey together, then drizzle the oil in slowly while whisking (emulsify!) to make the dressing.  if you like it with a kick, add in as much sriracha as you’d like.  add as much seeds as you like.
4. when the broccoli’s done, put ‘em in a bowl and pour as much dressing to your fancy and dig in!

 

friends, i’ve figured out that i don’t transition well.  i never prepare properly for changes, probably because i’m so tunnel-visioned.  i mean, it has its merits, tunnel-vision–good, hard dedication and probably perfectionism to a slight but unsevere fault.  there’s a certain rhythm that comes with it, a well oiled machine chugging along and making sense.

the only problem is the change.  it always comes.  especially seasons.

what?  you thought you were gonna get some life exposition?  sorry.  or… you’re welcome?  i suppose it depends on what you were looking forward to.

in any case.  it seems unlikely, but i always find myself in cooking ruts in between seasons–y’know when the produce reaches from two different places. (‘molly, it’s… december in like two days.’  uh, duh, didn’t you plan and cook tons of food for thanksgiving?  geez.  priorities.)  for instance, there’s end of season tomatoes and zucchini rubbing elbows with winter squash and brussel sprouts.  awesome, right??  it’s like this twilight zone of things to make.  but i can’t make heads or tails of it.  it totally stumps me.  ’what do you mean there’re new vegetables?  but i got so good at making stir-fries and piling the right things together with a vinegarette… i have to figure these things out now too?’

that’s when i start pacing the kitchen, half an apple in one hand and a last-chance peach in the other muttering about crumbles and how i can’t make a decent pie.  sigh.  i stumble around for a week or so burning things or adding too much vinegar until i get grumpy and sulk on the couch like the end of a bad ‘for better or worse’ strip until it dawns on me–soup.

YES. soup.  liquid achievement.  and something new.  new tunnel goooood.

now, i’ll be honest.  i can’t say i’ve heard of or seen a white sweet potato before this season when i overheard a lady at the farmers’ market ask one of the stand ladies when they were coming in.  I KNOW.  i can’t know everything, people.  REALLY NOW.

so of course when they came in, mom and i bought some up and gave them a good roast.  the internet tells me that they’ve been around as long as their orange-american cousins, indigenous to south america, but that us amuricans like to call them yams as differentiation when in truth, they’re hardly related to the yam, indigenous to africa and parts of asia.   lol, for sure.

in any case, mom and i both think they’re sweeter than tan orange sweet potatoes.  they’re definitely firmer, not too unlike a soft-ish russet.  i think that’s something i like so very much about winter vegetables–for all that things look alike or sound alike, they taste so exceptionally different.  like squashes?  butternut is soooo different from delicata or spaghetti.  ok, well maybe summer vegetation does it to–i suppose pitted fruit can be that way–maybe i just don’t eat enough variations (or maybe we’ve run them out?).

no soapbox today, i promise.

maybe.

to get to the point, when i tasted how sweet these softies are, i immediately thought of how good they’d be as soup.  but not blended, like i’d imagine orange ones, but like potatoes.  how surprising would it be to bite into a soup thinking that little white chunk is a starchy blah potato only to realize that it’s sweet!?  RIGHT??  i thought so, too.

so, the recipe on which i based this soup is from gourmet’s random SURPRISE! issue or quick favorites or something or other, for curried squash and red-lentil soup.  well, when i made it, it completely flopped, probably due to my own shortcomings for using the wrong squash (see above about how crazy different they are) and for their slight oversight of using water instead of stock as the base for it.  i mean, maybe i just had crappy curry.  I DON’T KNOW.

ANYWAY.  while that was all kinds of wrong, i thought with a little adaptation, white sweet potato green-lentil soup sounded splendid!

well, i made a whole ton of it, but it’s pretty tasty, so i’m not too rumpled.  especially if it’ll keep me on track until we hit spring…

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white sweet potato and green-lentil soup (adapted from gourmet magazine)

• 3 tbsp oil
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 1/2 lb white sweet potatoes; peeled, diced into 1/4″-1/2″ cubes
• 1 lg onion (4″ diameter); diced
• 1 lg-ish carrot; diced
• 2 celery ribs; chopped
• 2 garlic cloves; minced
• 1/2-1 tsp minced fresh ginger
• 1 tsp herbs de provence
• 1/2 tsp white pepper
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 cup green lentils
• 1 quart of vegetable or chicken stock
• 1 quart water
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• extra virgin olive oil

1. get yo’self a pot.  a good sturdy one that can hold a goodly amount of liquid.  yes, ma’am.  heat the butter and oil on medium until the foam settles down then cook the potatoes, onion, carrot, celery, garlic, ginger, and 1 tsp of salt until they get to know each other and start getting a tan like they’ve been in the sun a bit too long.
2. toss those seasonings into the party and mix ‘em around til they get friendly with the vegetables.
3. add in the lentils and the liquids (no party without the liquids, right?) and simmer (that is little bubbles popping the surface pretty frequently, not giant currents in the surface.  we want bog of eternal stench bubbles not the kraken rising from the depths bubbles) COVERED (so probably on medium-low to low) 25-40 minutes.
4. when the lentils are good and tender, add the lemon juice (everything needs a little acid!), season with some salt and/or pepper (whatever floats your boat) and stir in the olive oil to make it slightly luscious.

and there you have it!  it does make an awful lot–probably 8-10 one cup servings, just for your judgement.  i mean, it’s a lot for me, ’cause it’ll be just me and mom eating it (grumble grumble boys don’t eat mah veggies), but maybe for you it’ll last just the day.  ONLY TIME WILL TELL.

<3

hey, friends.  so i might’ve totaled the boat on the bridge yesterday.

[insert picture of the grill ripped open, the hood bent, the brake fluid leaking, the airbags puffed out, and the dash misplaced]

nnnnn.  not one of my better days.  HOWEVER.  you should know that no one was hurt, it’s already been all cleared up, and it didn’t clog up the bridge because it was already down to one lane for construction!  yes.  it was an already cruddy day made even worse by my stupid habit of sneaking glances at the river.  i’m grateful the damage was only mechanical, but i am pretty guilty seeing as it wasn’t my car to wreck.  sorry, mom and dad.  i really don’t deserve how awesome they are.  they let me live at home, eat their food, drive their cars, flounder around trying to figure out things while they kindly (probably) stifle eye rolls, and i go and give the boat a broken nose.  what a schmuck am i.

anyway, i won’t bother you with my wallowing.  i thought it necessary in short form, but i do have some food things on which to write!  after i got home and got done drowning my pillow, i very much wanted comfort food, e.g. onion-flavored potatoes.  i think the potatoes are self-explanatory.  the onions could be personal tastes?  onions are delicious, friends.

so, i decided to try my hand at perogie pie again.  and not that there was anything wrong with the first version, but for some reason i decided to do it completely different this time around.  in retrospect, i really should’ve just made something else.  you’re probably thinking that’s a bit dramatic.  ok, maybe it is.  but potatoes are misleading.  ever have a potato dish completely flop?  didn’t meet your expectations?  yea, you were probably using the wrong kind of potato.  don’t laugh!  this is serious business–not all potatoes are made the same!  red ones are waxy, which are awesome for roasting and salads ’cause they keep their shape.  but i wouldn’t use them for mashing ’cause they don’t get all creamy like dreamy yukon golds, which are fine roasted, but don’t have the reds’ sweetness, aiding their roasting superiority.  GUESS WHICH ONES I HAD.  very good!  red ones.

so instead of mashing them, i decided to slice them thinly because that seemed logical–red does not equal mash.  but i layered them all to hell far, far away from the bottom where they would get soft from the heat.  it also meant the garlic got thrown in willy-nilly and was kind of awkward.  there also wasn’t enough sauce.   emoemoemo…

but i wanted to cook and the onions were already halfway to the party and i was on an angsty comfort train that couldn’t be stopped.  sigh.  it tasted fine.  but comfort is hardly ever about taste and almost always about texture, for me anyway.  the noodles were there, but there was no creamy, pudding-like potato-ness and not enough onions AT ALL.  SIGH. you’ll also notice that i neglected to take pictures.  the angsty comfort train has no time for pictures.

SO.  as not to leave you in my melancholy, i thought i’d share the successes of today.  have you ever been to eileen’s?  it’s a*m*a*z*i*n*g.  i’ve never regretted eating anything there.  ever. one of my favorite things of all time to nosh on there is their sweet potato salad.

it is so choice–vinegar-spiked roasted sweet potato hunks, red onion, pecans, dried cranberries, and a shock of fresh parsley.  yes, ma’am. it’s so simple and well-matched with a chicken curry salad sandwich, it just pleases me to have tastebuds.  and that’s basically what i did for mine pictured above (if you want more details, check the recipe below) with some roasted pumpkin seeds thrown in, oh, and sans parsley because i don’t really have any [insert sad face].

(just one last thing!  i took this photo using a technique called freelensing, where you remove the lens from an slr and hold it place, tilting it to make extreme focus.  what do you think?  for some reason, sometimes when i upload pictures the lose some of their color.  this photo was a lot less ‘blah’ when i edited it!)

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roasted sweet potato salad (adapted from eileen’s); makes 2 servings

• 2 sweet potatoes
• apple cider vinegar (or what have you.  i’d use a clearer vinegar though; i think balsamic would be too sweet and not have the same effect)
• 1/4 softball-sized red onion
• handful of pecans, toasted (oven at 250F for 5-10 mins or in a pan over medium heat–keep your eyes on ‘em)
• 1/4-1/3 c dried cranberries
• chopped parsley if you’ve got it
• roasted pumpkin seeds if you want (oven at 400F for 7-10 mins)
• salt, pepper, olive oil

ok, so disclaimer:  like any salad, it’s really not about measuring and more about eyeballing it.  take some liberties to taste, but i’d be ginger with the vinegar seeing as it might ruin everything.  BUT don’t omit it, ’cause it makes things tasty.

1. peel the sweet potatoes.  the cut them up into cubes of your desired width and height.  (i just sliced them in half lengthwise, then in half again both vertically and horizontally, then perpendicularly to make cubes)
2. toss them in a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper and pop those babies in a 400F oven for 25-30 mins.  go ahead and check ‘em about 12 mins in and push ‘em around.
3. while they’re roasting, dice up the onion and the parsley and toast the nuts.
4. just before you take out the taters, whisk about 2 tsp of vinegar with 2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil.  toss the HOT potatoes with the vinegarette.  pleasepleasplease do it when they’re hot.  they absorb everything instead of being coated so the vinegar’s all subtle and lovely and the potatoes are oily.  mmm. OH.  and be gentle.  you don’t want mashed potatoes.
5. throw in the cranberries when they’re hot, too for good measure–they’ll absorb some of that goodness and get a little plumper.  and toss in everything else.
6. check for seasoning–maybe some more vinegar, a dash of salt, a grind of pepper, maybe something spicier like nutmeg or cayenne.  just don’t overdo it!