Dear Dairy...

How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways....  OK, not really, but I really love dairy.  I mean, is there anything nicer than a tall glass of ice cold milk?  I drink one as often as I can (not very grown up, but hey... it goes well with cookies) and of course I've used milk in desserts and in savoury dishes.  Dairy is in a remarkable number of things, in a variety of forms!  I believe I've mentioned my love of cheese before   :-)  After let's be serious here for a moment, there are few things that can't be improved by adding cheese, in some form or another.  Hell, they even made an entire cake devoted to cheese!  OK, they don't just plonk a pound of cheddar into a cake tin, but what you need to remember is that cheese doesn't need to be in an orangey coloured block.  OK, it comes in a creamy colour too. But you know what I mean.  Cream cheese, cottage cheese, mozzarella, ricotta... they're all cheese.  And they're used to enhance thousands of dishes.  So... I decided to try a skill that my Gran definitely had and recycle some milk into some ricotta cheese.

*Crash*

Hold on... I just need to pick up what's left of a wine glass.  Apparently Miss Twinset was totally unaware that you could make your own cheese!  No, it doesn't just "poof" into existence in the supermarket.  How did you think it got there?  The Amish?  You thought the Amish made all the cheese in the world?  Oh Saints preserve us...

OK.  I'm back with you.  I've given her a plastic beaker (in case) and filled it to the brim with wine and that should keep her busy for a while.  Where was I?  Oh yes, my Gran and the milk.  Yes, our ancestors were the ultimate in recyclers.  Where you and I would open a bottle of milk and - upon whiff of sour - dump it, they saw the opportunity to turn it into something else.  I remember that she would have muslin / cheese cloth handy and sour milk would miraculously go into the cloth and be hung above the sink off of the tap... and then "voila".  I was quite young at the time, so I'm a little vague on the details, but I remember thinking it was magic.

And in a way... it is!

So a week ago, I came across a simple recipe for making your own home-made ricotta cheese.  It sounded simple, idiot proof and like something that I could manage as a first foray into making my own cheese (and yes, I intend to try other kinds of cheese!).  It was so simple that it only needed 4 ingredients and 5 steps.  Trust me... this stuff is DELICIOUS and once you've done this, you won't buy ricotta in a store again!

This recipe makes about 1.5 - 2 cups of ricotta, so just adjust it as you need OK?

Ingredients:

1 litre of full cream milk
250ml of cream
1/2 teaspoon of salt flakes
75ml of lemon juice

Method

• Put the milk, cream and salt into a pot and heat.  Remember to stir continuously so that the milk doesn't burn on the bottom of the pot.  Don't be in too much of a hurry, as the higher the temperature, the more likely you are to burn the milk.
• As soon as the milk comes to the boil, add the lemon juice and turn the heat right down.
• Simmer gently for about 2 minutes and then remove the pot from the heat.

• Leave the mix to sit for about 20 - 30 minutes and then pour it into the muslin / cheese cloth lined sieve (or colander).
• Leave the mix to drain for about an hour and then store in a Tupperware in the fridge. Use within 2 - 3 days.

Before you panic... when you add the lemon juice it WILL look like vomit.  You haven't done anything wrong.  It's supposed to look like that.  Yes - it's not pretty... but it will all work out in the end :-)  I swear.

I had mine with honey on a cracker and it was delicious.  Soft, creamy and decadent.  In fairness, I could've used a little more salt in mine, but it's to taste and this was great.  It was really empowering to know that the next time my milk is starting to turn... I don't need to waste it.  Even though this recipe artificially sours the milk... you get the general idea :-)

I didn't tell the Other One that I made this myself and she raved about it.  She had hers with a bit of salmon, spring onion and just a touch of black pepper on itty bitty slices of toast and was absolutely stunned when I told her that I made it.  Yes, the cheese, not just the toast.  She knocked back her vodka and for a moment I thought she'd be mad (heaven knows she loves anything made by a famous chef and she eats for free in my kitchen often enough, but she assumes that I buy everything I combine and prepare), but she was surprisingly calm.  Asked for a refill and then asked if there was any more.  High praise indeed!

So... I have taken the first step towards "cheese maker".  Next step a goat... just kidding!!

Until next time...

May You Live in Pinteresting Times

The Lament of the Blogger

I used to be a blogger,

'til Pinterest stole my life.

Thank heavens I'm not a girlfriend,

a Mother or a Wife!

For though it's bad to neglect you,

I'm sure you'll understand.

But if I had a family,

This would be quite out of hand!

So for now I will amuse you,

With this pic I found today.

 And work on blogging tomorrow,

When I have far more to say!

If I were a Thin Girl...

I will never be a thin girl.  I should know... I've tried.  Well... I have!  I know my limits, so there've been no Atkins or South Beach diets in this house.  Although, I did seriously consider the chocolate diet in my teens.  Come now, you remember this one?  It was a glorious time when fad diets and eating plans reigned supreme.  In this particular case, the idea was to eat 200g of chocolate each day, but ONLY this.  Yes, you'd lose weight, but the first slice of bread or scrap of potato was guaranteed to balloon you back to your pre-fad weight as your body rejoiced in the sight of real food.  Other variants included eating only 6 apples a day and 1 that was only oranges.  They didn't stand a chance around me.

You see - if you haven't figured it out by now - I LOVE food.  Not all food, 'cos I'm not really fond of fish amongst other things, but essentially, I love food! However, while fad or restrictive diets weren't going to fare well around me, there was a certain logic to adopting a healthier eating plan.  "This isn't a diet," I told my brain.  "It's not?" it questioned.  "No," I replied, "it's simply a way for me to ensure that I get all my food groups in."  Neither my brain or my body was fooled.  After all, no-one stops eating bread, rice, potato and pasta simply to eat "better".  After all, cake is a food group and so is toast... right? 

So the first time I tried this, it was highly restrictive and hard to do and made me totally miserable.  Needless to say, I didn't stick with it for as long as I should've.  It worked, but if I so much as looked at a forbidden food I seemed to gain weight.  Sigh.  Fast forward a few years and countless baking projects later and - well, you get the idea :-) So now we're giving this another go.  Just as healthy, but not as restrictive.  Still no bread, but at least there's some pasta and potato :-)  (Trust me, it's the small things in life)  The aim is to get healthy, but also to lose weight.  And this is where the realisation has hit that I will most likely never be a thin girl... After all, what would it say to you if your body actively rebelled against the new plan?

In fairness, some of this fat has been with me for more than 20 years and it was unlikely to just "give up and move out".  I mean, I've managed to shift some, but I think it just moved around my body in search of better scenery :-)  However, for all the fact that I appear to be stuck with the weight, at least the food is a bit more exciting.  Proof that eating correctly doesn't have to be boring as hell :-)

Take this as an example....  One of my meal options is pork and veg and I decided to try it as mince.  This is what I came up with.

Ingredients

180g Pork Mince
2 courgettes
1/2 medium onion or 1 small onion
8 - 10 mushrooms finely diced
seasoning (salt, pepper, soya sauce, garlic, etc - to your taste)
1 egg
1/4 cup cornflake crumbs
Tomato sauce (to taste)

Method

Finely dice the onion and mushrooms and grate the courgette.  Then add the mince, crumbs, seasoning, tomato sauce and about 1/2 the egg (beaten).  This is where it's going to get a bit sticky and dirty... you need to mix this with your hands!  Yes - with your hands!  You'll know when it's right 'cos it'll all be evenly mixed.

Now at this point, you can do a few things with the mix.  You can either make meat balls or like me, you can make it as a 'loaf'.  This is actually a single serving on the eating plan (I know, right?)  I press it into a small disposable dish and pour the remaining beaten egg over the top.  Then bake uncovered at 180 deg C for about an hour or until it's done the way you want it :-)

This is such a yummy way to get your meat and veg in in one go :-)  It would also be a great way to get kids to eat their veg - and yes, I know that it's wrong to hide them from your kids, but it's far more important that they eat them!

The Tipsy Tarts say that I'm no fun at the moment, but I think that's because I'm not baking at the moment, which means that there are no fun carbs for them to "pooh-pooh" at and secretly eat.  It could also be because I'm not up for a boozy lunch which starts at dawn and ends when one of them passes out.  Usually sometime close to dawn the next day lol.  I'm trying to figure out what the big deal is. After all, Miss Twinset still eats whatever she wants and I caught her lounging - yes lounging - on her new chaise with a box of bonbons the other day.  She tried to hide them behind her back when I stuck my head around her door, but her fear of dropping them and messing up her carpets overrode her desire to have the box behind her back.  I patiently explained that this is for me and that she can do what she wants.  After all, she actually - gulp - exercises.  The Other One seems to exist on food scents and pure alcohol as I've never really seen her over-indulge in anything that can physically be eaten.  You couldn't get her to eat a peanut butter cup, but you could get her to drink a 20 000 calorie peanut butter smoothie if you added some booze!

At any rate, it's time to go and make another cup of coffee to combat the desire to inhale chocolate.

Until next time...