Making Mozzarella

Ever since a brief mention in our now-abandoned first blog, I've been fascinated with mozzarella cheese.  On our tour of Italy we had lunch at a farm south of Naples where they served food primarily produced on the farm itself - tomatoes, basil, salami, cheeses, fruit, limoncello, and wine are mostly what I remember now!  (We consumed rather a lot of limoncello since it was soooo good.)  Behind the restaurant there were two women stirring giant stock pots on gas burners, making mozzarella and a by-product, ricotta.  So when I saw this easy recipe for mozzarella online I was keen to try it.

I wasn't sure how to find rennet tablets, but discovered some in the clearance section of our supermarket for 99c, that were good until 2014. :o)  I found that kosher salt can be a good substitute for cheese salt, and I had some in my pantry. I borrowed a candy thermometer from a friend and I was good to go! The photos and instructions in the link are far better than mine, so I won't go into the process here.  My one 'hiccup' was that the "8-10 minutes" for the curd to set was more like 3 hours, so my 30 minute mozzarella took more like 7 hours as I worked around dinner prep and bedtimes!  Here's my finished mozzarella:

 I gave some to my friend who had lent me the thermometer, and there was still plenty for a couple of meals.
We had some on our favourite artisan pizza (corn and garlic 'sauce' on a homemade base with tomato, mozzarella and basil on top).

 It didn't seem to melt as well as commercial mozza, but it sure tasted good.

Then I grated much of what was left and sprinkled it over seasoned tomato slices, grilled (broiled) them and served it over pasta tossed in olive oil, garlic, roasted yellow peppers and lemon.  The boys loved the pasta and cheese but left the tomato.  The grown ups loved it all.

The day after the marathon mozza session I followed the directions in the rennet tablet pamphlet and made ricotta with the whey and curds I had strained off during the mozzarella making.

I made about a 3/4 cup of ricotta,

 which then was substituted for most of the yoghurt in my favourite lemon cake.  (Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the finished cake!)

By the way, my friend has 'made over' the lemon cake recipe and I'm looking forward to trying it out soon!

On a side note, I'm not the only  member of the family currently obsessed with dairy.  N is know for his late night habit of being "cheese hungry" and I caught C eating the butter I'd accidentally left out after lunch - straight!  I reckon he got about a tablespoon's worth before I caught him.  Blech!  No adverse effects immediately apparent, though some hard arteries may be on the cards if he keeps this up.

Sunrise Marmalade

Along with the family fun we had in February I also had fun in the kitchen making some marmalade from blood oranges that were part of our co-op basket one week.

The basic recipe (below) comes from my Grandma Heath.  She makes the most fabulous lime marmalade (for all those who love lime or can't have grapefruit) and when I asked for her recipe she said she just substitutes the limes for any other citrus in a recipe!  So I dug out her grapefruit recipe and went to town on my blood oranges.  It only calls for a small amount of fruit so it is perfect for my small batch preserving capacity. :o)

Beautiful fruit - the whole lot diced, flesh, rind and pith.

 Water added and simmered until tender

 Measured.

 Same volume of sugar added - yikes that's a lot!

 SLOWLY heated until sugar dissolves.  (Learned my lesson last time when I ended up with glace' peel rather than marmalade because I heated the sugar too fast!) Then boil until desired setting point is reached.

Pour into sterilised jars to within an quarter inch of the top.  Clean rims of jars if needed.

 Screw on sterilised lids.

Wait for them to seal.  Then open just one jar and enjoy the beautiful blush glow on your morning toast!

Grandma Heath's Marmalade

Mince no more than 1.5 lb grapefruit/lemons/oranges/limes.
Add 3 lb water per pound of fruit. (Yes, weigh both fruit and water.)
Stand overnight then cook until tender, about 30 minutes.
Add 1 c sugar per cup of fruit.
Boil approximately 1 hour until setting point is reached.  (If necessary, add the juice of a greenish lemon to help set.)

Mr Castle would be proud

For Christmas J was sent a book (complete with CD) of Margaret Mahy stories which included one of my favourites, Jam.

Source: amazon.com

It tells of Mr Castle, an extremely competent house-husband, who decides to make jam from the plums falling from their backyard tree.  The problem is that he refuses to waste a single plum and,consequently, every receptacle in the house is used to hold the jam.  They cheer when they can reclaim the teapot for tea, to go with their "scones, pancakes, roly polies and sponge cakes." And so they go on eating the jam.  I won't spoil the ending for you.

I have been enjoying reading and listening to the stories over the past month, especially Mahy's Kiwi accent! The excesses of Mr Castle's jam-making always seem to come to mind when I am midway through preserving a big batch of produce.  I'm sure the fruit multiplies when I am cleaning, trimming and chopping it; so it is gratifying to finally have it in jars, sitting in my pantry at the end (when it has usually returned to its former proportions)  Nevertheless, it is satisfying on many levels to consume.

My most recent session was making jam from nine pounds of strawberries (closer to 8.5 after we snacked on some.)  I ordered the fruit from our produce co-op and invited a friend to come over and help the next day.  We prepped 5 lbs of strawberries that afternoon, made 2 batches of jam, and I mixed up some to macerate in the fridge overnight.  Over the past week I made that lot up, and made two more batches with the remaining strawberries.  Phew!

I used the following recipes, with varying degrees of success, but they all taste great. I didn't buy new jars, just reused ones with rubber seals in the lids.  On the whole, my attempt to reuse baby food jars was NOT successful. So much for saving so many.  I'll be hunting on Pinterest for some other projects I think.

Plain Ol' Strawberry Jam: I did a half batch and then a whole batch.  I didn't bother processing the jam (Shock, horror! Call the food police!) but just cooked it until it was a soft setting consistency.  The total yield was 4 large [18oz?] jars.  Even the large jar that was still 2 inches below full had enough residual heat to create a vacuum and seal. Yay!

Strawberry and Ginger Jam:  A search for a recipe was prompted by a friend mentioning her German mother-in-law's amazing jam.  This yielded 1 large jar and 1 baby food jar.  The latter refused to seal so we have been sampling it.  I'll make it again.

The entire yield from 8.5lbs, minus 3 baby food jars consumed already.

Strawberry Basil Jam: I had bought some basil for another recipe and decided to use it up when I saw this mentioned.  As an experiment in water-bath canning I tried processing baby food jars in my largest pot, and this was my big fat failure!  Two jars came open while they were in the water bath, two made that satisfying 'pop' sound as the seals depressed but sadly they weren't sealed when I checked them the next morning.  Because they were being processed I didn't cook the fruit as long so the jam is more syrup than spreading consistency.  All 7 little Xs below are this yield and are now in our fridge.  The downside: I didn't have a deep enough pot to process a large jar so I only used the baby food jars.  The upside: strawberry basil syrup tastes great on pancakes!  I'll try this one again but cook until setting point is reached.

Strawberry, Ginger, Bay, Black Pepper and Lemon Jam: I made a half recipe with the last 2 lbs of strawberries. I didn't have quite enough black pepper (despite raiding our collection of little sachets that come with plastic cutlery on airplanes and the like) and I doubled the lemon zest.  This yielded 1 large jar and 1.5 baby food jars. Again the baby food jars didn't seal.  I think I'd like to make this again with more pepper.

 

All in all, a mountain of strawberries now in jars of deliciousness.  Mr Castle would be proud!

Advent 2012: Week 3

Well, Christmas has arrived, but here's our update on Advent activities.  They have helped me focus more on the season of preparation this year.  I felt surprisingly calm and organised - I hope it lasts!  Here's what we got up to in Week 3...

December 15: Due to a short ban on DVDs for a young man, we postponed watching a Christmas movie until a few days later!  Instead we opened our piggy banks and helped him divvy up some money to give to the Salvation Army bell-ringer at Walmart.  He has been fascinated with the bell each time we shop there, so he was keen to give - even if it was more for the bell than the need we explained to him simply.  Near disaster - the bell-ringer wasn't in place as we entered the shop but (phew!) was cheerily ringing as we exited.

December 16: We lit the third candle on our Advent wreath.  J can now tell me as I light each candle during breakfast, "That's the hope candle. That's peace. That's joy!"  He likes trying to blow them out too.

December 17: This morning we hosted our playgroup friends.  Only a couple of families were able to make it but we still expended some energy!  We watched "Jacob's Gift" as our Christmas movie and some relaxation in the afternoon.  It is based on a book by Max Lucado of the same name, telling the Christmas story from the perspective of a carpenter's apprentice whose family runs the inn by the infamous stable.  It has a wonderful message about gift giving.  We have watched and read the book MULTIPLE times during the week since.

Source: Amazon.com

December 18: We bundled the boys up in pyjamas and drove over to Highland Park (a swanky Dallas suburb) to see the Christmas light displays.  Many have been installed by professionals and they can be spectacular. (Not that you can tell from my evidence!  The blurry photos don't do the displays justice.  Props to anyone who can identify what is shown in the third photo.)  J could identify snowmen, Santa Claus, trees and houses that looked like "gingerbread house[s]".  I was disappointed that (here in the Bible Belt) there were hardly any nativity scenes.  I think I only saw one in half an hour's driving!

December 19: We made an early start and made Peanut Butter Squares before we went to the local library's story time and shared Christmas stories and cookies.  This is one of the recipes my mum makes around Christmas time, and is the reason I love Reese's Peanut Butter Cups so much!  Apart from the essence, they are pretty alike.  The boys helped crush the graham crackers to smithereens (since wine biscuits are hard to come by here) and I was amazed they didn't even attempt to hit each other. :o)  I think the recipe was originally from an Alison Holst cookbook but I can't be sure.

December 20: Today we made gift tags for presents.  I traced some shapes onto paper (stars for J and circles for C) and wrote in the to/from details.  The boys went crazy with the crayons and I doctored them up afterward and cut them out.

December 21: The boys helped me wrap the presents they are giving to each other and Dad.  We made sure to stick on the gift tags. At the moment the presents are stashed away because little prying fingers have no mercy and I don't have shares in wrapping paper companies.  They'll come out under the tree closer to Christmas Day.

Advent 2012: Week 2

This has been an unusual week.  A few days before this picture was taken we were still wearing shorts and getting too hot outside.  When we woke up on this day snow had fallen!  It's Texan snow, so it didn't stick around for long - but here's the proof it existed. :o)

We continued to enjoy our Advent activities this week.

December 8: We couldn't find any books about St Nicholas at the library so we watched a series of short clips on Youtube instead.  I'm not sure J understood it, but he sure listened.

December 9: We lit the second candle in our Advent wreath.

December 10: We made gingerbread men.  We didn't ice them, but J loved cutting out the smallest ones (about an inch tall) and C thought they tasted the best!  (He was only really interested in eating that size.)

December 11:  We made paper snowflakes since the overnight snow wasn't going to stick around.  At first I tried sticking them to the window with just water, but as they dried they peeled off, so eventually I used tape.  You can see them in the window in this picture.

December 12: We made 'gingerbread' houses out of graham crackers, some Halloween candy I had stashed, and some mints I bought last week (for their authenticity factor in gingerbread decorating).

They came together well.

J soon worked out he could eat more sweets than he stuck on!

It was cute hearing him count them as he stuck them on.

And here's C's one (well, that's what I'm telling J because he stripped his of its candy within 5 minutes of finishing!)

December 13: We had a cleaning day, to beautify the house for Christmas.  Now there is less dust, the nativity is out, Daddy's desk is orderly and some furniture has been moved.


December 14: We made some 'Chex mix'.  I ended up adapting the recipe on the back of the generic cereal I bought (see below).  It was dubbed our "treat snack mix" and doled out in small quantities.

The boys loved it, but it sure was 'melt on your face not in your hand'.

(Yes, for some reason J wanted to sit on the book to eat.  It wasn't worth a fight!)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chex Mix

1/4 c butter or margarine
1/4 c peanut butter
1 c chocolate chips

3 c corn Chex (or corn squares cereal)

1 c Cheerios (we had multigrain)

1/2 c icing sugar
1/2 c mini marshmallows

Melt the butter, peanut butter and chocolate in the microwave 30 seconds.  Stir and continue to zap and stir in 10 second increments until melted.  Add the cereals.  (I also had the end of a bag of sliced almonds which I threw in too.)  Stir until evenly coated with the chocolate mixture.  Spread in a single layer on a lined tray and refrigerate 20 minutes or until set.  Break into small chunks and place in a sealable bag with the icing sugar.  Shake to evenly coat the cereal.  Add marshmallows (or any other treats - M&Ms would add colour) and shake to distribute.  Store in the fridge in the bag.

Advent 2012: Week 1

So far the Advent season hasn't overwhelmed us!  My ambitious plans for an activity a day has actually come to fruition so far. :o)

Here's the lowdown:

December 1: We decorated the tree and started our bedtime stories from The Jesus Storybook Bible (continuing).

 It took me a couple of days to string the popcorn and cranberries.

The bottom of the tree is a bit bare because some-two keep rearranging the ornaments and I didn't bother threading more popcorn and cranberries when I found the boys eating the lowest strand halfway down the tree!

 We also started our Advent calendar.

J likes taking out the pieces from the pockets at the bottom and identifying each item.  The conversation goes something like this: J - "What's this?" Me - "An angel." J - "What's this?" Me - "Three Wise Men" J What's this?" Me - "I don't know.  What is it?" J - "It's a candy cane!  What's this?".... You get the picture.

December 2: We lit the first candle on the Advent Wreath.

December 3: We played all our Christmas CDs.  Some are better than others!

December 4: We sent some of our Christmas cards.  Some are still waiting for me to address the envelopes with the correct postcodes.  (Note to self: get on to that!)

December 5: We coloured a printable nativity set.

 J's is on his room.

 And C's (with a little help from Mum) is by the Advent calendar.

 Guess which one is still intact!

December 6: We made a treat for the birds.

 A wedge of apple strung on dental floss, covered with peanut butter, and then popcorn and sesame seeds.

 We hung it out for the birds.

 But the only nibbles I saw here were from this flightless "chick"!

It was hung around the other side of the apartment near J's window later that day!

December 7:  We made our Christmas cake.  For each stir J helped me ask God to bless someone we love!

I doubled the recipe (and cooked it longer - about 2 1/4 hours) and the fruit I used was raisins, currants and glace cherries.  Other times I've used chopped apricots, cranberries, dates... use your imagination.  It turned out very well!

Mum's Boiled Fruit Cake

Boil and cool: 1 lb dried fruit (chopped, if necessary)

                      1 - 2 tsp lemon zest

                      8 oz butter (2 sticks)

                      1 c water

Beat together: 3 eggs

                      1 c sugar

Add to eggs:  1 tsp vanilla essence

                     1/2 tsp orange essence

Sift and add:  2 - 2 1/2 c flour

                     1 tsp baking powder

Stir in cooled fruit.

Bake 1 1/4 - 2 hours at 275*F/150*C (until skewer comes out clean).  Cool in tin.