Roses Are Red Violets Are... Ummm... Rose Coloured.

Well, it has been pretty much a full month since I last posted. Mostly because it has been hurringly cold! That means most days are spent wrapped up in several afghans, with a warm hat, fuzzy scarf, and fingerless gloves, hugging a hot water bottle. Very hard to do anything craft-y like that! So, yes, I am WAY behind in all my embroidery stuff. And I haven't really done a lot else either - just a lot of reading and knitting a big warm afghan with large needles.
I did manage to knit a cute Minion hat last week on 4mm needles - I was bored and in the mood for a goofy hat.

Towards the beginning of the month I made my first ravioli - it was fantastic. Filled it with my homemade ricotta cheese. I do like the homemade pasta!
When I made the pasta dough (on the last post), I only made half a recipe, but got 7 meals out of it. 3 cups of flour and 3 eggs - 7 meals. Coupled with freshly made home-made ricotta cheese (2 litres of milk), my ultra-fast home made pasta sauces (a tomato one - buy 1 tin budget tomatoes, and 1 tin budget tomato puree; and a creamed greens one), and fresh veggies from the garden for sides, salads and the sauces, I managed to do a week's worth of dinners, surprisingly fast and easy, for a grand total of $7.00. Now that's economical!

I also broke into the first of my hard cheeses - the beer cheese. Oh wow! it was wonderful! Especially with my freshly baked peasant bread, and a glass of my homemade cider.

What I am most excited about though, is the violet blossom jelly I made today.
I can see why it is very rarely done anymore - very time consuming, down on the ground, picking 4 cups of violet flowers!
My garden is overrun with violets, and I regularly pull bucketfuls of the plants out trying to keep the garden clear and stop them overrunning and killing everything else in the garden. Unfortunately, the violets I have are the white ones - no scent at all. Bummer. My neighbour down the back though has a small patch of beautifully scented rose-coloured violets. They are just heavenly! She let me raid her violet patch yesterday for the flowers. I completely stripped the patch of flowers, and just managed to get enough.
After half an hour getting all the ants off the blossoms, I then steeped them in boiling water, left them to cool, and left them to steep overnight. Boy do ants LOVE violets! I put a plate over the bowl to keep 'things' out (you know, all the 'stuff' that invariable fall into whatever you are trying to cook if you don't cover it), and when I came back to check on the flowers an hour after pouring the hot water on, the whole bench was just covered in ants! They were all trying to get into the bowl to get to the violet water. Needless to say, I had to move the bowl to where the ants couldn't get to it.
So this morning I made up the jelly. Ooooo! Heavely! Very delicate flavour, and DEFINATELY worth the effort!

Playing with Pasta and Cheese

The days are still dawning bright and clear, but the crisp is gone, and the afternoon breezes are downright balmy. I was expecting a long winter and late, cool spring, but I think spring may actually have sprung. Further evidence of this are the aphid and the whitefly infestations that have appeared on the brassicas, typical of spring, but not generally of warm winter periods. Looks like brassica season is coming to an end.

This week's cheese is Wensleydale. Wensleydale is a hard cheese, somewhat sweetish, generally served with fruit and dessert wines. It often has dried cranberries in it. Dried cranberries are hurringly expensive, but since you don't use that much, I decided to go ahead and put them in. Pak n Save has a small bulk foods section stocking things from a range called 'Alison's Pantry' - stuff Alison Holst promotes for her baking and recipes. In that range are the most heavenly orange flavoured cranberries (natural orange flavouring, not artificial). They smell so divine, and taste just as wonderful! I absolutely love them, but rarely buy them because of the price. However since I only needed a handful of cranberries for the cheese, I splashed out and got these instead of regular dried cranberries, and it worked out to nice small sum of just under $2.50. They smelled so wonderful as I mixed them into the curd, and you just know the subtle orange flavour is going to permeate the cheese as it ages. This one is going to be fantastic.


Just out of the press, to be turned, redressed and put back overnight at 20kg pressing weight.

A couple of months ago, a book on pasta making that I have wanted since forever on Fishpond (NZ's version of Amazon) dropped in price by 60% for a short time, so I jumped at the chance to get it. It was finally shipped just on a week ago, and should be arriving any day.
So while I was waiting the 1 & 1/2hrs for the curds to drain, I decided to give pasta making a bit of a go as well. I can't believe how fast and easy it is to do handmade pasta! Of course it was just basic, a bit of a play to see how it went, in preparation for getting into it for real, but still. Including the 1/2hr resting time for the dough, I had it made, cooked and eaten by the time the curds had drained and were ready for pressing. Wow!
I now know what real 'al dente' is. With the dried pasta, I find that generally means 'not quite cooked', but with fresh pasta it is quite different. And I can also see why it was such a staple food for so long. Being as much egg as flour, it is very high in protein, and when smothered in (home-made) vegetable laden sauces, it packs quite a nutritional whollop. It is also LOADS more filling than the dried pastas. I only made half a dough recipe, only cut 1/4 of that into noodles and cooked them, and still could only eat half the meal. Definitely fresh pasta is going to become a staple for me, coupling nicely with my home-made cheeses, and home made sausages. Yum!

Here is my first pasta dough

My first noodles.

Freshly made pasta, with creamed greens (kale, flower sprout, komatsuna, perpetual beet, red silverbeet, yellow silverbeet - all freshly picked from my garden), topped with my grated home-made Ricotta Salata, and a steamed Romanesco broccoli from the garden.

Cheeseday Rolls Around

The day dawned crisp and clear. The kind of crisp and clear that makes you want to get out into the garden, even though it isn't really Spring yet. It was definitely cold enough to see your breath, but not quite frost cold, although my toes were a little sceptical about that. The lawn guy who used to bring the clippings that I mulched my garden paths with finally gave up trying to get into my pants, and with that also gave up bringing the lawn clippings. So the garden paths are now quite overgrown, and the long grass was drenched in heavy dew, soaking through my shoes, numbing my poor little toes. But with no breeze and a clear blue sky, the watery sun put out enough warmth to be able to stay out for a while and get a few thing done.
Spring is going to be very hectic, trying to get the garden in shape. The winter has been cold and nasty enough to not be able to get out into the garden, but not cold enough to halt - or even really slow - the growth of the grass and weeds. Sigh. So much to do. Eventually though, the many other things that needed doing today going around and around in my head got the better of me, shouting and yelling and clambering over each other, each vying for my attention, until finally I put the trowel and bucket away, and moved on with the rest of my day.

I have settled on a selection of cheeses to make to fill my needs, and have worked out a schedule for making them, doing one cheese a week, that should keep me in a good supply of all the types. My main cooking cheese will be Cheddar, and I will make it in a variety of flavours - Beer, herb, plain - depending on what I already have aging when it comes time to make the new one. The two other hard cheese I will do are a Wensleydale - which I will vary between Cranberry and plain - as an eating cheese, and Parmesan, for my pastas and pestos. Parmesan is the longest aging of the cheeses, requiring 10 months, where all the others only need between 4 weeks and 3 months.
The soft/mould cheeses I have settled on are Gorgonzola for the blue cheese and Neufchatel for the white cheese, being for eating with bread and in salads, and for cooking in pasta sauces and with grilled veggies (grilled mushrooms with Neufchatel... yum!). Feta is a staple for me, and now that I will be making it I will be able to use it a lot more. I use it - marinated - in salads a lot, as well as in a lot of my cooking. Mozzarella is the last of the cheeses on my list, which of course is a must for my homemade pizzas, as well as for salads.
Halloumi I only eat occasionally, and is fast enough to make that I can make it the day (or day before) I need it, and the same goes for Ricotta, which I normally only use in ravioli, cannelloni, and lasagne. So those two aren't on my cheese schedule, I will just make them as needed.
This week's cheese is Mozzarella, which I have just finished making. Meanwhile, the Gorgonzola is now wrapped and happily growing it's blue mould, the Neufchatel is happily growing it's white mould, and the Beer cheese (a type of Cheddar) is happily not growing mould at all, now that it has been waxed.
I have been eating the Ricotta Salata that I made last month, and while it is a nice enough cheese, it is not one I will bother making again, as everything it is used for, the other cheeses I have settled on will be much better for. But it has served its purpose as a quick aging cheese so that I could have a homemade cheese to use while getting my cheese schedule underway and waiting for the others to come ready.

Freshly baked Peasant bread, freshly made Mozzarella, and a Romanesco broccoli fresh picked from my garden.



Rainy Sunday

Yay! I was finally able to bottle my cider on Friday. The brewing took inordinately longer than it was supposed to, because winter finally decided to make a showing and the temperatures plummeted. I only managed to finally get it done by huddling my poor brew up to the fireplace. Even then, with wood reserves low, I was lucky to get it up to 18C (64.4F). In the end I wrapped it up in a towel for insulation and managed to get it up to 20C (68F). So now it is bottled, and sitting in a dark corner for aging.
My Gorgonzola isn't terribly happy about the cold either (the kitchen fluctuating between 4C (39.2F) at night and up to 12C (53.6F) - if we are lucky - in the day), and is protesting by flatly refusing to grow blue mould. Italians can be so fussy! My Beer Cheese however, being a true Brit with true grit, doesn't seem to mind the cold at all. It is happy, healthy, and cheerfully sprouting mould - unfortunately it's not the one that is supposed to be growing the mould! Never mind. Since it has developed a good rind, I have wiped it down with salt water to remove the mould, and waxed it this morning. Now it goes up to age for 6 weeks.
Meanwhile I have a Neufchatel draining in the kitchen. Neufchatel generally doesn't mind the colder weather, so I should have a nice cheese for my bread in about two weeks. With the wind and rain still persisting, and an endless grey sky indicating it will be like that that for a while yet, I think I will bake bread and make some Mozzarella today as well, before settling in to an afternoon of embroidery.

2 of my cider, and my freshly waxed Beer cheese.

Cheesy Chusday

The Chorizo turned out fantastic! I'm thrilled I am able to do sausages now, as I had given up totally on pre-made sausage, with their preponderance of large pieces of gristle. The final straw was several years back when I thought I would try some 'gourmet' sausages that had come on the market from a local artisan place (having given up on standard store-bought almost a decade before). Wow - the gristle pieces were even bigger than standard sausages. Then came the real crunch - literally! I cracked a tooth on a very large piece of bone in the sausage. Gourmet? For Klingons maybe, but I certainly wouldn't class them as even edible, much less gourmet.

Meanwhile, here we are over half way thru winter, and winter has finally actually set in. Brrrr! I am hoping for a sunny day soon, so I can bottle my cider. At the moment it is WAY too cold in the kitchen to do much of anything. Even putting the jug on is a quick dash before rushing back into the lounge and the warm fire. Oh, what I wouldn't give for a wood stove! Fortunately, the entire long 'outside' wall of the kitchen is mostly window, and faces the sunny side all day, so even in winter, when it is sunny it warms up real fast.

The last two sunny days we had I made the cheeses I had been waiting to make. On the first sunny day I did the Gorgonzola, which is a blue cheese. It is the oldest (i.e. first) blue cheese, reputed to date back to ancient Rome. Blue cheeses are quite fiddly to make, this one needing 10 hours set aside for it.
I only like blue cheeses when they are relatively 'fresh'. Unfortunately, even the 'fresh' ones in the shops are not at all fresh. Not that I can actually afford to buy them anyway. The last small (and I do mean small!) piece I bought for a pasta dish was 50g (1.76 oz) and cost almost $9.00! So making my own now is a real boon. Blue cheese dressing, blue cheese pasta sauce, ... mmmm...
Two days later we got another sunny day and I was able to do the Beer Cheese. This is a hard cheese that will be waxed for aging. For this one I soaked the curds in a Cooper's Best Extra Stout, a wonderful, rich, aromatic brew. Cooper's is a great Aussie artisan style beer - my favourite brand for using in breads, cheeses, meat dishes, and stews.

On the left is the Beer Cheese wheel, air drying in preparation for waxing. On the right are the Gorgonzola wheels, salted and ready for maturing to develop the mould, after which they will be wrapped and aged for a scant 4 weeks to produce a wonderful fresh blue cheese.

Chorizo - Further Fabulous Food Forays.

My food forays are becoming more advanced, and I have to say, I couldn't be happier! Finally, I have made the leap to sausages, and today made my first Chorizos.

I had actually planned on doing sausages quite a looooong time ago, and even forked out for a hand operated meat grinder and a sausage stuffer around four years ago, but then found I was unable to get the sausage casings, so the grinder and the stuffer were stashed away, and slowly over the years got buried under a pile of other stuff.
Then Mad Millie came out with sausage casings. Yay! I really do like Mad Millie! So last week I ordered the casings, which came Friday afternoon, and then spent a couple of hours digging out the grinder and the stuffer, washing them, and trying to figure out how to assemble them (Chinese made, no instructions, not even a diagram).
Saturday I was busy with other things, and didn't have a chance to get up town, so on Sunday I popped up (and by that, I mean walked several miles) to our local big chain butcher, which advertises that they have everything, and you only have to ask. Well, they don't have pork fat. Apparently they don't actually do their own sausages on site (like their advert suggests). Well, surely one of the small butchers will have some. Four hours of walking around later, nope. Most of the small butchers don't have it (they don't actually do their own sausages apparently), and the odd one or two that do, won't sell it. I began to think my sausage endeavours were going to be back-burnered again. Desperate, and on the off-chance I might get lucky, I stopped in at Pac 'n Save. They are a big chain supermarket, but they do still do their own butchery (many don't, they just buy the stuff in). Yes they do have pork fat (because they do their own sausages), but they don't sell it, and, being afternoon by this time, they didn't have any left anyway. But a lovely butcher there said that since I didn't want a huge amount, if I came in early the next morning, when the whole pigs arrived, he would sell me some. So up I walked again this morning, and sure enough, the wonderful butcher had half a kilo for me, at a very moderate price. Big smile on my face.
Here are my lovely chorizo sausages, freshly stuffed, and even properly linked (thank you stu8944 for your great video on how to link sausages).

Cheese-capades

The Artisan Cheese making Kit that I ordered from Mad Mille came on Friday - I ordered it on Thursday, so kudos to MM for their superfast shipping! The Artisan kit has all sorts of equipment in it, like a cheese press, a thermometer, as well as a big draining spoon, curd knife, moulds, etc. Expensive, but worth having if you are going to be making cheese on a regular basis. If you are only going to make cheese occasionally, then you can get by with McGyver-ing things, but if you are going to do it on a regular basis, it is worth laying out hard-saved cash for proper, quality equipment.
So this weekend's cheese making escapade resulted in two cheeses. The first, a Ricotta Salata - a ricotta cheese that is lightly pressed to make it drier and firmer, then aged for at least a month. This produces a semi hard cheese, that can be grated, and is great with pasta. Here it is, salt rubbed, and ready for aging.

The second cheese I did was Halloumi. I do love Halloumi! I will be grilling some of it up tonight, to serve with a warm quinoa salad. The quinoa has been cooked in whey instead of stock. Using the whey in place of stock is an excellent use of the leftover whey from cheese making. It is loaded with minerals, and high in protein, so is such a terrible waste to just throw it out. Here is the halloumi, cooling on the cheese mats.