Stirring the Curd...

Why is it that the more prepackaged and readily available food becomes, the more I want to go back to pioneer days and create my own?

Read This: Curd Mentality.

The Strait of Gibraltar

I have three fundamental beliefs about marriage. The first is that the couple who cooks together stays together. Every once in a while we become so low on groceries that it becomes a challenge to see if we can actually make a meal with what we have. This was one of those weeks. We had culinary masterpieces such as tuna salad with dinner rolls (out of bread), waffles and scrambled eggs (out of meat), and a surprisingly good casserole made of potatoes, leftover cheese, a few slices of bacon, and some half & half. So, after this kind of week, we decided to step it up for Friday and make the Paella that we've been planning to make for about a week. It was really nice to redeem our faith in America's Test Kitchens after last weeks pesto failure, as they provided an excellent paella recipe. The only things we changed from the recipe was the omission of mussels (the process of debearding and scrubbing kinda freaks us out) and 1/4 teaspoon of saffron threads - because we have no idea what those are. Since we had spent some time cleaning up earlier, one of the best things about the paella was that it all cooks in one skillet so you can enjoy your dinner in a clean kitchen (to me this is an automatic plus for a dish - minimal dishes :). Needless to say, after a week of weak dishes, it was nice to put a win in the books.


The paella was delicious and actually made it into the book. We decided to pair it with a new Chianti, Villa Vitale. We usually don't drink Chianti, but I felt like this was a great introduction as it was not too dry and tart. It was a good pair for the spicy paella and overall was quite enjoyable. The fact that it was $7 at World Market is also notable.

The rest of the evening brings me to my second fundamental belief about marriage: you and your spouse should share several similar embarrassing interests. Ross and I record Jeopardy AND Wheel of Fortune every single day. This week we have been busy (I now officially have graduate hours), so we actually spent our Friday night watching two recorded hours of game shows. Our Jeopardy skills vary based on how many categories deal with War and history versus how many deal with medicine and pop culture. On the other hand, my Wheel skills are directly related to how many glasses of wine I've had -- so much so that Ross decided if I ever go on Wheel of Fortune, he will make certain that I have at least half a bottle of wine first. After my two large glasses of Chianti, I was able to guess "The Strait of Gibraltar" with only the r's and t's. Needless to say, I do not have these skills when I've been drinking diet coke. My third fundamental belief is that if you're in a happy marriage you can be happy not going out and doing something, and sometimes prefer to watch game shows in your jammies and go to bed before midnight.

A First Time for Everything

After a week of shopping, baking, and general merriment with my sister-in-law Julia, we decided to end the wonderful week with a huge, blow-out meal on Friday. The plan started with making homemade pasta, since we haven't used our new-to-us pasta maker yet. After poring through my primary sources (America's Test Kitchens and Jamie Oliver) I decided on a ricotta and pine nut ravioli a la The Naked Chef. Ross decided that a Paul Newman Marinara just wouldn't cut it for this situation, so he decided to take on a Molto Mario Marinara. Since we thought the deliciousness couldn't end there, we decided to try a new cupcake recipe from my new favorite cupcake book (see post: Vegan with a Vengeance) paired with a strawberry sorbet.

We started the day making the desserts. The strawberry sorbet was embarrassingly easy to make, basically you puree strawberries, sugar, vodka, a little water and a pinch of salt, put it in the freezer for 30 minutes to chill, then run in the ice cream maker for 30 minutes and done. I typically get a little nervous working with ice cream due to consistency issues, but the sorbet came out with excellent texture and froze up nicely.

For cupcakes, we made a chocolate cupcake with a cookies and cream frosting, both contained a heavy amount of food-processed oreo cookies. The Vegan Cupcake surprised us again, as the cupcakes were outstanding. These were a little bit richer (you really could only eat one in a day), but again provided an aesthetic quality worthy of a faculty luncheon.

Then we began the pasta. Truthfully, Ross and I have watched mom and dad make pasta a million times and it seemed like all you had to do is put some flour and eggs in the Cuisinart and press go. Unfortunately, we have a small-scale food processor, so several cups of flour and a dozen eggs later, we finally got the dough well-mixed. Julia and I rolled out the dough and stuffed it with a mixture of toasted pine nuts, ricotta cheese, Parmesan and an egg while Ross and Jayne hand-crushed the tomatoes and made a delicious sauce.



Overall it was a very successful evening of "firsts" for us newlyweds. In the end, it was pretty exhausting, so we followed up the meal with the next night with another first: our first delivered pizza. All in all, a very delicious weekend.

Pesto is the Besto

We spent the last night of the 4th of July long weekend with our good friends, Billy and Becky. We did pizza with homemade crust, handmade mozarella, fresh garden tomatoes, and fresh garden basil made into a lively pesto. B&B brought a lovely salad with vegetables from both their garden and Lillian's garden (which is something to behold, we're told). The variety of fresh flavors totally rocked. Paired with a nice red, more ice cream with peach sauce, and photos of their trip to Sweden that left us hunting for our passports, the evening couldn't have been more delightful!

Curt and Billy pulling mozarella like taffy.
















Fresh Basil Pesto
2C fresh basil leaves, packed
1/2 C freshly grated parmesan-reggiano
1/2 C extra virgin olive oil
1/3 C pine nuts (toasted)
3 medium sized garlic cloves
Salt and pepper to taste
In a food processor, combine the pinenuts with the basil, for a few pulses. Slowly add the olive oil in a steady stream while the food processor is on. Stop and scrape down the sides of the processor with a rubber spatula. Add the grated cheese and pulse again until blended. Add a pinch of salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Keepin' it fresh!

We'll drink ourselves to sleep... and thank you lambies!

While I'm used to the old school 4th of July BBQ at my parents house and would've loved to partake in the eating of the newly discovered grass-fed beef, we really couldn't stomach the thought of driving 10 hours again with two dogs, one of which is prone to car sickness, in the heat and traffic. Especially since we did this 4 days prior. We decided to stick it out and spend our first married 4th of July at home by ourselves. Since I'm off for the summer, my cooking has been fairly ambitious and Ross, being the medical school overachiever he is, shares my views. Being devout Jamie Oliverians, Ross decided to try his barbecued lamb complete with homemade BBQ sauce marinade. After reading a similar Martha Stewart Living recipe for roast lamb, I decided to use her recommended side dish of a cherry tomato couscous. Paired with Barton and Guestier's Bistro Pinot Noir, it made for a fantastic celebratory dinner.

Of course, we took pictures of the meal.

Here's Ross preparing the marinade:

The lamb shoulder marinated before they go in the oven, marinated:

Then we put them into the oven so they would be extra tender before a brief grilling, check out all that juice!
The finished product, complete with couscous and wine!

And, because Jamie Oliver's recipes are not always available, what you need for the marinade:
For the marinade:
1 heaped teaspoon cumin seeds
2 tablespoons fennel seeds
5 cloves
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Bunch fresh thyme or lemon thyme, leaves picked
Bunch fresh rosemary, leaves picked, a few whole sprigs reserved
1 orange, zested and juiced
1 bulb garlic, broken into cloves and peeled
4 heaped teaspoons sweet smoked paprika
6 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup organic tomato ketchup
8 tablespoons olive oil
10 bay leaves

And for the couscous (I substituted whole wheat couscous for Israeli and it was excellent!):

• Coarse salt
• 1 cup Israeli couscous
• 8 ounces cherry tomatoes, small ones halved, large ones quartered
• 1/2 cup fresh small basil leaves, plus more for garnish
• 2 tablespoons minced shallots
• 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Smoothie Love

How someone could live almost a half century without experiencing the daily magic that is a smoothie is beyond me. We are trying to become locovores, but draw the line at fresh fruits. Parker County peaches can only fulfill so much of our fruit requirements (although when Curt grills 'em with a little vanilla yogurt on top and a cinnamon sprinkling, one might think so).

Anyway, when I asked for a blender for Christmas I made it clear I wanted no variable settings, totally just on/off. Joel found the perfect one, a Waring Pro with 2 speeds, low and high. We commenced to enter Smoothie bliss.

We start with a basis of banana, V8 fusion, and fat free vanilla yogurt. Sometimes we remember to cut up and freeze the banana slices, but it doesn't really matter. On top of that, the fruit sky is the limit. Blackberries, peaches, mango, strawberries, blue berries, and pineapple have all found a place in the blender of serenity. We changed from fresh to frozen, it didn't seem to make a difference in the taste, and then you don't have to add ice. The 5 lb. frozen fruit bags from Costco seem to be the best all around. Curt will toss in some pecans occasionally as well. I am totally open to any smoothie addition ideas.

Smoothie Nirvana?

Recommended products: Waring Blender
Parker County Peaches

Chickpea Salad

I, Erin, am a magazine addict. Since I could learn to read, I have been reading magazines. When I was a kid, I would accompany whoever was going to the grocery store because I knew at the end, I could throw one in at the checkout line. I subscribe to insane amounts of magazines and still always pick one up at the grocery store. Being out of town for a month and collecting an actual calendar-month's worth of mail made me realize just how many magazines I subscribe to: 8. This puts me at about 2 mags per week, which I guess is about right. My addiction is so strong that I sometimes find myself subscribing to magazines that I have little interest in, which is why for some reason I subscribe to "Fitness" magazine. Regardless, I flipped through it last night and found a great recipe for a chickpea salad, which I made for lunch today. It was awesome, so I thought I'd share.

Chickpea Salad

Dressing:
1/4 cup olive oil
1T lime juice
1t dijon mustard
1 minced garlic clove

Salad:
2 cups chickpeas (I used canned)
4 artichoke hearts, peeled apart
4 sundried tomatoes, chopped
10 or so halved cherry tomatoes
handful of scallions
handful of basil
Parmesan cheese

Mix all dressing ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl. Then add chickpeas, artichokes, tomatoes, scallions, and basil and mix well. Top with a meager grating of Parmesan cheese. The recipe calls for 2 ounces, but I only used one.

And, if you're like me and counting calories:
Serves 4, 274 calories, 10g protein, 22g carbohydrates, 17g fat, 6 g fiber.

Bon Appetit!

*Edited to add: next time, I'd go light on the olive oil. The marinade from the artichokes adds quite a bit and we ended up with a big puddle of oil at the bottom of our bowl.

No Freakin' Whey

As an English teacher, few things delight me more than reading. Unfortunately, between To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, Othello, et cetera, I am left with little time to read for fun. Starting in April I began making my list of books to read this summer. After spending hours poring over Amazon.com reviews, I made my decisions, placing Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle at the top of my list. I picked the book up at the cute bookstore across the street and packed it up in anticipation of our month-long June Journey. The book arrived at my parent's house before I did so, of course, both of my parents have read it and I still haven't. The book inspired my parents to do all kinds of crazy things (buy local meat, shop at farmer's markets, bake bread), but the most interesting thing they wanted to try was making cheese.
Truthfully, until last week, I had no idea that you could just "make cheese". I thought it was something that came from a factory with mysterious ingredients and expensive equipment. Wrong. It's basically milk with a few chemicals and you can easily make it in your own kitchen. Mom ordered some basic cheesemaking supplies and on Saturday we began our first project, mozzarella.
We began by heating a gallon of non-ultra pasteurized milk and a bit of citric acid to precisely 88 degrees. At that point we added the tiniest sliver of rennet, an enzyme that causes the milk to coagulate and let the mixture sit for 8 long minutes. Then it was time to cut the curd into a grid and then scoop out the curds. Mom mentioned in the previous post that she had the ideal hands for squeezing out the excess whey, so I scooped the curds into a bowl and mom squeezed them out. We later upgraded our technology and scooped the curds onto a splatter screen and pressed the curds into it, causing the excess whey to drip into a bowl. Unfortunately, curds and whey looks an awful lot like baby vomit. Fortunately, it doesn't smell that way and we were soon to the next step, heating and pulling.
To make mozzarella, you heat the curds in the microwave at 35 second increments, and between each heating, you knead and stretch the cheese. It's pretty amazing watching a blob of curds turn into a smooth, shiny ball of delicious mozzarella. During the last kneading you add plenty of salt and then pull the mozzarella like taffy one final time.
The cheese was fantastic. It tasted so fresh and, as with anything you make yourself, we thought it was truly awesome.
Hard cheeses like parmesean take months to age, while the soft cheeses like cream cheese, manchego, and mozzarella can be ready to eat in a matter of hours or days. I probably won't become a full time cheese maker, only eating my own cheese, as I would need a cheese-aging humidor and several hundred dollars' worth of cheese presses. I will, however, definitely be making more mozzarella.