We are making loads and loads of homemade raw goat milk cheese (chevre) around here. Because of this I have to find new and exciting ways to USE the goat cheese, hence today’s recipe.

The bread comes out delightfully herby, cheesy, and moist. Super delicious. This bread keeps well in the refrigerator and goes fantastically well with red meat as a side.

This bread is a definite keeper for me!

I made a video on how to make chevre cheese, see below. Its certainly not the best video out there but it gets the job done! Sorry that my voice over is not more fetching!

Raw kefir chevre (goat cheese) bread
Adapted from Joy of Cooking Cheese bread recipe (pg 749, 1997)

Ingredients:

• 5 1/2 cups bread flour
• 3 packages of active dry yeast (make sure its absolutely fresh)
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups home cultured raw goat milk kefir, medium thickness
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 1/2 cups raw homemade goat cheese (chevre)
• handful of fresh oregano, minced
• handful of fresh dill, minced

Directions:

Mix together: flour, yeast, sugar, and salt. Add kefir and melted butter. This part could be difficult if you are hand mixing (much easier if you are using a stand mixer). As you mix, its possible that this amount of kefir may not be enough. This depends on the dryness of your flour! You will need to keep adding kefir until the dough comes together just right (not too dry and NOT too wet). The knead the dough (hand/mixer) for a good 10 minutes or until it is delightfully elastic.

Put dough into oiled bowl (make sure top of dough is oily too), cover with plastic, and let rise 90 minutes.

In the mean time, prepare your cheese filling.

Mix your goat cheese with your herbs.

Once the dough has risen, punch it down and split it in half.

Roll out half the dough into a rectangle, not too thin.

Take half of the cheese mixture and spread it out onto the dough rectangle.

Roll it up.

Pinch it closed.

You now need to go to the next rise. Put the dough in a bread pan, seam side DOWN.

Oil and cover with plastic, rise for 90 minutes.

Put into a 350 F oven for 40-45 minutes until the bottom sounds hollow when tapped.

Enjoy!

Be sure to keep this bread in the refrigerator (due to the cheese).

Its amazing simply toasted (under a broiler, not in a toaster), try it!

Wow, our ISP (to remain unnamed for the moment) REALLLLLY screwed us over, on galactic proportions. I feel shaky having come out the other end of this nightmare.

My blogs are back and I am hoping our new ISP has more ethics than the last.

Today I am going to show you how to make an acid precipitated cheese called Queso Blanco. This is similar to paneer (Indian Cuisine) and is quite popular in latino cooking. We also have Queso Fresco which is different. I actually prefer queso fresco but I didnt have the cultures needed to make that cheese on hand.

I made 3 gallons worth of queso blanco because I had an over abundance of milk from our 7 milking LaMancha goats who are giving us between 2 to 2.5 gallons a day now.

You can learn more about our real local backyard food at my homestead blog Humble Garden.

I mentioned that this is an acid precipitated cheese. What that means is that the casein protein in the milk is rendered solid (and no longer able to float about in the fluid of milk) by changes made to the protein molecules by the acid. In this case, that acid is added (lemon juice, vinegar, citric acid, etc). Other cheese rely on lactobacillus bacteria to grow in the fluid milk. Over time, their metabolic byproducts include lactic acid which then, once the fluid reaches the correct pH, causes the change in the protein to form the curd. This second method yields more depth and allows for the creation of a cheese that stores long in some cases (versus queso blanco which must be eaten fresh).

Ok, without further discussion, lets get into the how-2.

Ingredients:

• 1 gallon milk (I use raw goat milk but it wont stay raw)
• 1/4 C lemon juice or white vinegar (though you have to go slowly, you may need more or less)

Directions:

Heat the milk in a non-aluminum pot to 185 F, do not burn!

Use a thermometer and stir to keep the temperature evened out in the pot.

Once it hits 185 F, kill the heat and add the vinegar and stir gently and then let it sit for 5 minutes.

If you do not see the curd separating from the whey (white clumps in yellowish greenish liquid) then carefully add more vinegar until you get the curd.

Stir for 5 minutes to keep it from clumping up.

Pour the whole mixture (its hot!) into a cheese cloth lined colander over a large bowl in the sink.

Mix this slightly in the colander to encourage release of more whey.

Now comes a 2 part pressing process. I do not have a proper cheese press yet and my scale died so I had to guess on actual weights.

What you want is:

• 20 minutes pressed at 10 pounds
• 2.5 hours pressed at 25 pounds

What follows is how I jury rigged it all!

Put your well drained cheese in it’s cheese cloth, made into a tidy little ball, on a plate, and then add what is called a follower (in my case the base to a spring release pan form).

Add 10 pounds of weight.

After 20 minutes, add enough weight to make it 25 pounds and leave for 2.5 hours.

When done you will have a well pressed cake of cheese! Refrigerate and eat within the week.

I love serving it with freshly made hot Colombian arepas.

Goat Cheese by Maggie Foard (published by Gibbs Smith in July 1, 2008) is a delightful cookbook that explores a range of ways for using goats milk cheeses.

You may remember that we have our own herd of 18 LaMancha dairy goats and that we milk 7 does on a daily basis (we are up to 2 gallons a day). I blogged on how to make chevre cheese from goats milk some time ago – Making chevre cheese from our home-milked goat milk. Its quite easy and I do it now on a daily basis! Only difference between the chevre I make and what you buy in the store is that ours is extremely fresh (taste just blows you over) and its raw – has not been pasteurized.

With 1 gallon making about $30 worth of cheese (about 30 ounces) we have a lot of cheese! I also make yogurt, Labne (strained yogurt), and buttermilk. We also drink it fresh. All of this is consumed raw so that we can get the full benefit of the special ecology of our goats. We do love them so!

Back to the chevre. In the near future I will be making semi-soft, semi-firm and hard cheeses from the goat milk but for now its chevre. This cookbook could not have come at a better time. Not all of the recipes are for chevre, some are for the other sorts you can buy at better cheese shops (Whole Foods for example).

I tested out a chevre recipe and found it to be simply fantastic and one that I think I could eat several times a week and at any time of day (great for breakfast, lunch or supper).

I highly recommend this book for the experienced cheese type and to those of you who are new to goat cheeses. Foard has an excellent section at the back of the book that goes over the different types of goat cheeses that are made. She does a beautiful job in the introduction to the book giving you a sense for how she came to goat cheese (she kept a goat and then it all spiraled out from there). The many recipes and photos span a great variety of palate pleasing dishes that are sure to hit on some of your own favorites or entice you to make something new!

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Morning Breads and Pancakes
• Frittatas, Omelettes and Eggs
• Pizzas and Quesadillas
• Appetizers and Sandwiches
• Soups and Salads
• Main Dishes and Pastas
• Desserts
• A Beginners Guide to Goat Cheesesz

I tried out a recipe on Page 86 called “Farmstand Lettuce with Baked Goat Cheese Buttons and Rosemary Walnuts” but had to change a few things.

I can tell from the photo that this would be a fantastically delicious salad. Thing is, we have nut allergies so I had to pass up on those delicious sounding rosemary walnuts.

I also had to improvise a bit with the rest as I realized I had no panko!

I decided to use some unsweetened organic flaked coconut with rosemary and turmeric (to give it a golden color) as a replacement for the panko.

One last change I made was that I pan fried it (in organic coconut oil) instead of baking it as the book suggests. I served it with lettuce from our garden (mustard greens and other mesclun types) as well as coconut oil sauted red bell peppers that were so sweet and a delightful counter-flavor to the tangy goat cheese.

I will list to recipes here – the one as found in the cookbook and then the one I actually made that you see in the photos here.

“Farmstand Lettuce with Baked Goat Cheese Buttons and Rosemary Walnuts” (Page 86)

Ingredients

• Several heads of young farmstand lettuce or 1/2 pound baby lettuce mix
• 8 ounces fresh chevre
• 2 tablespoons minced herbs, like rosemary, thyme, and oregano
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, divided
• 1 clove garlic, sliced
• 1/2 cup coarse fresh bread crumbs
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar or fresh lemon juice
• 1 – 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon honey
• pinch salt
• Rosemary Walnuts (see below)
• Fresh Baquettes

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F. Wash and dry lettuce, set aside. Place chevre and herbs in a small bowl. Poach the garlic in the olive oil (do not let get dark). Drizzle 2 tablespoons of the garlic oil into the chevre and then mix with a fork. Make 4 little chevre patties and dredge them in the crumbs. Cover and put in the freezer for 10-15 minutes.

Pour remaining oil into the bottom of a large salad bowl, add the vinegar or lemon juice, mustard, honey, and salt. Whisk vigorously until emulsified. Toss lettuce in this and put out onto 4 small salad plates.

Bake the cheese buttons for about 7 minutes or until the cheese JUST begins to soften. Remove from the oven and cool slightly. Serve out onto the salad plates, top with the Rosemary Walnuts and add toasted baquettes.

Rosemary Walnuts

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups walnut halves and pieces
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon fresh or dried rosemary, roughly chopped
• kosher salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a small baking pan, combine walnuts,olive oil and rosemary. Toss and coat. Spread them out in the pan and sprinkle with some salt. Bake 7 – 8 minutes or until fragrant. Do not overbake or burn!

Nika’s Coconut Rosemary Goat Cheese buttons

Ingredients

• 8 ounces freshly made chevre
• 1 tablespoon cilantro, minced
• 1 tablespoon fresh dill, minced
• 1/2 tablespoon fresh marjoram, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon celtic sea salt
• 3 tablespoons organic unsweetened coconut flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary
• 3 tablespoons organic coconut oil

Directions
Mix chevre, minced herbs and salt until distributed. Form into buttons or patties, mix coconut, turmeric and rosemary, at coconut mixture onto the two sides of the cold chevre buttons, put in freezer for 10 – 15 minutes.

Add coconut oil to a medium cast iron pan and allow to melt.

Fry the buttons until golden. Use a heavy metal ad sharp spatula, flip quickly and then remove carefully.

Serve with eggs or as a salad.

Enjoy!

Product Details

• Goat Cheese
• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Gibbs Smith (July 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1423603680
• ISBN-13: 978-1423603689
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 9.3 x 0.8 inches

I have been working with our new dehydrator to create several types of crackers and fruit leathers. The goal is to understand what the drying process does to various foods and to test some of the recipes one finds on the web.

Everything I will ever make will be 100% nut free. We have a zero tolerance policy on nuts of any kind.

Note that coconuts are not tree nuts and do not present tree nut allergens so I like to use coconut flesh, milk, butter, water, and juice!

I definitely enjoy making all manner of smoothies and munching on salads but its also good to have some texture for the need to nibble on dense food stuffs. I want to forestall cravings for Lays potato chips!

To wit, today’s post is on what I ate for breakfast this morning. After whipping up some cheese grits and homegrown chicken eggs for the family, I pulled together this plate of crunchy goodness.

I have a few slices of raw cow’s milk aged (5 years) cheddar cheese (Black Diamond) – notice I am not vegan, beta flax crackers (recipe here), sprouted wheat berry crackers, carrot ginger crisps, mango leather, and banana leather.

Recipes!

Sprouted wheat berry crackers (adapted from this recipe)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 Cup organic wheat berries
• pure water, as needed
• 3 tablespoons organic shoyu
• raw organic sunflower seeds, enough to sprinkle over top of crackers
• 1 tablespoon olive oil, cold pressed, first press
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Directions:
Sprout wheat berries (will take several days, I do it until primary shoot begins to emerge). Put sprouted grain in food processor, add the shoyu, lemon juice, and olive oil, process until the grains have been macerated. You might need to add a bit of water to get the mixture to macerate and form a dough.

Spread the dough onto paraflexx sheets in the shape of crackers (so that you will not have a hard time cracking them into shapes later).

Sprinkle with the raw sunflower seeds and press them into the surface of the crackers slightly.

Start dehydrating at 135F for an hour or so then turn down to 115F to dry over night. In the morning, flip the crackers and if they are still dark (not dried) underneath, put them back into the dehydrator until dry. Do not over dry. Store in a zip lock baggie.

Notes: When I make this next time I will add more shoyu and also sprinkle a bit of salt ontop as it goes into the dehydrator. Over time I will likely need this salt less but for now it seems this recipe needs that, for my taste.

—

Carrot Ginger Crisps

Ingredients:

• 15 large organic carrots
• 1 tablespoon shaved ginger
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• organic coconut water, as needed

Directions:
Peel and juice the carrots. Save the pulp, add to a blender jar. Add back in the carrot juice, lemon juice, and the ginger. Blend the mixture, adding the organic coconut water as needed to encourage a puree to form.

I almost killed my blender with my beta flax cracker recipe (began to smoke) and then this recipe was challenging for my run of the mill blender. Be careful with yours! Stop it often to mix the unblended stuff at the top down into the lower parts of the blender jar. You do not want this to be really juicy either.

Using an offset spatula (your very best of friends for a lot of these recipes), spread the puree/mix out onto the paraflexx sheets, might take 2 or more.

Dehydrate overnight at 115F. It goes fast so you might want to keep checking it, depending on your conditions.

Notes: the ginger is fantastic with this crisp! Its an intense experience and I am still thinking of how best to use it. Might be nice in salads, might make an interesting topping on another recipes.

—

Mango Leather

Ingredients:

• 2 ripe mangos
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• organic coconut water, as needed

Directions:
Peel mangos and remove flesh from pit, put into blender jar. Add lemon juice and then blend. Add coconut water as needed to help the puree loosen up just a bit without getting too juicy.

Using an offset spatula, spread the puree/mix out onto the paraflexx sheets.

Dehydrate 4 – 6 hours at 125F. Keep checking on it, depending on your conditions. Objective is a dried, slightly tacky sheet that is not so dry that it is brittle.

When done, remove from sheet, roll up in a parchment paper and store in a baggie in a cool dry location. I use a rolling pizza cutter to cut my leathers.

—

Banana Leather

Ingredients:

• 4 moderately ripe bananas
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• organic coconut water, as needed

Directions:
Peel bananas and put into blender jar. Add lemon juice and then blend. Add coconut water as needed to help the puree loosen up just a bit without getting too juicy.

Using an offset spatula, spread the puree/mix out onto the paraflexx sheets.

Dehydrate 4 – 6 hours at 125F. Keep checking on it, depending on your conditions. Objective is a dried, slightly tacky sheet that is not so dry that it is brittle. This banana leather might dry sooner than this, keep an eye on it. Mine turned out a bit more like banana toffee which is not necessarily a bad thing!

When done, remove from sheet, roll up in a parchment paper and store in a baggie in a cool dry location. I use a rolling pizza cutter to cut my leathers.

Ok, there you go!

I know my limits in terms of diet and I know I need lots of texture.

These things should not be what you are eating 100% of the time. A raw food diet should consist of mostly simple fruits and vegetables, some seeds and grains, LOTS of water, and in our case, raw dairy.

Let me know if you try any of these recipes!

If you are interested in getting a dehydrator yourself I can tell you that I am just tickled pink with my Excalibur 9 tray dehydrator, the only one I have experience with.

Their page is at this link.

We are enjoying our independence from the food chain. We get our eggs and our milk (and now cheese) from our backyard. We eat our salads from our backyard.

If you don’t now, what are you waiting for?!

If you think food prices are high now, you will be pale with shock soon enough. Think oil-based fertilizers, oil-based pesticides, oil-run tractors and trucks, think floods, think drought, think 2008.

The seed companies are reporting a 40% rise in seed sales this year (they were shocked, didn’t see it coming, these people need to get on the web more often).

Now that the baby goats are not such babies and are fully weaned, we have more goat milk to work with. We go through less than 1 gallon of fluid goat milk a day for Baby O (who adores goat milk and is sensitive to lactose in pasteurized cow milk).

Our milking doe, Torte, gives us about one and 1/2 gallons of milk a day. Over two days, we then have one extra gallon of milk, works out nicely.

You may or may not know that it is hard to make cream or butter from goat milk because the fat doesn’t separate out (because the fat globules are smaller and stay spread out, like its been homogenized). We could make it if we bought a $400.00 cream separator but thats not going to happen! I love goat cheese just fine.

We will be getting a jersey cow/calf to have super high quality milk, cream, and butter. I can wait for that.

Back to the topic for today.

It is VERY easy to make chevre but it takes a few days, you simply have to be patient.

We are using milk we pasteurized for this batch, we may go raw with he next batch.

We used a chevre starter from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company, I can not recommend them highly enough.

This little packet is enough for one gallon of milk. This could not be easier, you just bring your milk up to (or down to as the case may be) to 86 F and sprinkle the starter in. Mix well and let culture at room temperature for 12-20 hours.

The curd sets up and excludes the whey.

You then slice it up a bit so that the mass of curd is broken up and more whey is excluded.

Remember that all of the equipment being used must be sterilized.

We bought the plastic chevre molds from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company which I cleaned very well.

These are well worth the cost and will last a long time.

Using a sterilized slotted spoon, you scoop out the curds and begin to fill the molds.

One gallon of milk yielded three molds worth of cheese.

Once they are filled they go on a wire rack over a pan or bucket to catch the dripping whey, cover the tops and let sit at room temperature or in the fridge for 2 days. They will shrink a lot.

After the two days, the cups were no longer dripping and the cheese was quite firm and much dryer.

This cheese tastes unbelievably fresh and, I think, uniquely ours. Its a fantastic feeling to sit down to a salad that we grew topped with chevre we made from our own goat. I watched Torte munching on tree bark in our backyard as I nibbled on the cheese.

Resources:

• New England Cheesemaking Supply Company
• Chevre Starter
• Plastic cheese molds
• Books on making cheese
• Classes on making cheese

As you may know, we have been growing all our own vegetables this year. I have been writing about it over at my garden blog Humble Garden. I have learned a whole lot about organic gardening (mostly its about getting out of the way of nature, the zen approach – A healthy and diverse ecosystem with strategic and complimentary or companion intercropping and intensive permacultivation allows for a balance that gives you healthy plants with very little fuss at all).

We grew straw bale potatoes (potatoes are put on the ground – not in it – and straw is layered over it. See these links: “Its all about the green” and “A small harvest of straw potatoes” ) but have not reaped a large harvest. Potatoes are fascinating for their ethnobotanical journeys across the world and also its plant physiology but most importantly, homegrown potatoes have a distinct flavor different from the ones in the store, making any trouble you put into growing them worthwhile. I urge you to give some a try next year. You could grow them in containers so even intrepid sky high apartment dwellers should be able to hack homegrown taters.

As Alton Brown said in his second Good Eats episode, potatoes will grow in any hole you drop them in.

Even though the harvest was meager, what we have gotten, as I have mentioned before, are definitely tasty. I just wrote previous to this post in “Homegrown Potato Satori” about using them in a simple saute.

The potatoes have been lurking for me a bit because I do not have a large potato eating habit and so I do not know THAT many recipes for using them. I was raised to eschew pasta and potatoes, rice was King.

I was looking for SOME sort of inspiration for our taters before they were no longer brand spanking new.

The other day, I was reading a book called “The Lost Towns of Quabbin Valley” about the towns from the region that is now called the Quabbin Reservoir here in Massachusetts. These five towns were essentially summarily dismissed, condemned to obsolescence, taken by imminent domain and razed to the ground (This man-made lake is the water source for Eastern MA – Boston).

One of the photos in the book shows the North Dana schoolhouse (1910, I think) with a caption that talked about how the children would have hot lunch at school, one day a week.

A quote by Katherine Reed, a 90 year old former pupil, says:

“It was usually soup and often potato soup. Us older girl were allowed to leave class a little early to peel the vegetables. It happened on Fridays, and all the students brought their own cup and spoon.”

School lunch, one day a week, no plates or utensils! They probably had more nutrition in that one meal than is served all week in today’s public school’s meals. Don’t get me started.

In 1910, they were likely using potatoes from home gardens, very much like mine so I was inspired to make a potato soup that they may have eaten. My recipe has some things they likely didn’t have the money to add – cheese and sour cream perhaps, maybe even the pepper.

I searched online and through my old Joy of Cooking and didn’t find any recipes that sang to me. What follows is an admixture of all the recipes that I found with various sections from here and there to make this soup.

You may need to add more or less salt and pepper to bring it to a flavor right for you and your family. We had only this for supper and we were mighty satisfied. We liked it chunky. The thought of blending this soup makes me weep, it would make it into a glue-like mass.

For us, the flavor was the purity of freshly harvested potatoes. The salt and pepper were nice sub-notes. The sour cream, while decadent and optional (isn’t everything?), is a nice pure accent of creamy goodness. I can see using yogurt instead for a lower fat and different flavor. Adding the chives was also a nice additional layer of flavor. I added some cilantro and a bit of fresh sage to my soup more as a nibble of green versus a dominant over all soup flavor. You could incorporate sage into the recipe (I love sage) but I preferred to keep the main flavor to potato.

Cheesy Potato Soup
Ingredients:

• 8 medium potatoes (try to get fresh ones from a farmers market or grow your own) (I used the yellow skinned potatoes we grew)
• 1 C whole milk
• 1 small shallot, minced
• 3 tablespoons all purpose flour
• 3 C organic chicken broth
• 1 C finely shredded cheese (I used cheddar, you might want to get more creative with this if you wish)
• 1/2 C half and half (or more, up to you)
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated black pepper
• 1 tablespoon bacon fat
• sour cream – enough for a small spoon for each serving
• chives – small cut – for garnish

Directions:
Dig up potatoes, pitch any that have been nibbled on by resident rodents, hose off dirt while standing in front yard and enjoying the sunny fall day. Once inside, clean away all remaining dirt and peel potatoes. Boil in salted water until a knife slips in easily but the potato does not crumble apart. Remove to a strainer to drip dry. Do not let the potatoes sit in the water.

Bring the milk and minced shallot up to a scalding simmer (do not boil) and add the flour. Whisk very briskly to avoid any chance of flour lumps. Add the chicken stock and bacon fat and bring back up to a simmer. Add 1/2 teaspoon sea salt and 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated black pepper. Add shredded cheese and stir to incorporate.

Add potatoes and begin to break them down into smaller pieces. I suggest not using any sort of mechanical device, just the back of a large spoon. Do not make it a mashed potato soup. Leave a lot of texture.

Simmer until the remaining potato chunks are of a mouth feel that you like. Add half and half to the soup and bring back up to serving temperature. Do not boil. Add remaining or even more salt and pepper to your taste.

Enjoy!

Learn more about the Quabbin Lost Towns:

• Documentary – Haunting the Quabbin
• The Lost Towns of Quabbin Valley
• The Wiki on the Quabbin
• Maps of the lost towns

Technorati Tags: potato, recipe, grow, vegetable, garden, Humble Garden, organic gardening, zen, diverse, ecosystem, strategic, complimentary, companion, intercropping, intensive, permacultivation, healthy, straw bale, ethnobotanical, plant physiology, homegrown, Alton Brown, Good Eats, The Lost Towns of Quabbin Valley, Quabbin, Reservoir, Massachusetts, Boston, North Dana, schoolhouse, School lunch, cheese, sour cream, pepper, Joy of Cooking, soup, bacon fat, chicken stock, The Lost Towns of Quabbin Valley

I apologize for not posting much this last week. Its been rather hectic!

To broaden my photographic learning experience, I am the second shooter in a few weddings this summer with this fantastic guy Rob Brown, his site is Rob Brown Photography in case you need the friendliest wedding photographer in New England. I am learning massive amounts from my mistakes and I am really appreciating this opportunity.

For me on a personal note, it means I have been doing more image processing in this past week than I usually do. Even though I have shot several recipes and I have an awesome upcoming post on this fantastic experience I had last week, I have been blog-blocked big time!

I can foreshadow at least three upcoming posts for you (tease you):

• Photos from my dreamy evening with the Les Dames d’Escoffier and Michel and Marc Escoffier at Sandrine’s in Cambridge, MA.
• Photos from an amazing trip I am taking this next week to chronicle the making of Italian Porchetta (in contrast to the Colombian Lechona) one day and then the feast of it the next.
• A post on the upcoming Feast in the Field fundraiser by Les Dames for a Culinary Scholarship at the Allendale Farm, site of last year’s Feast in the Field (as seen on PBS). (I will be shooting and eating at this event)

Whew, see, its tiring just contemplating some of this!

Here at home, we are planning and about to build the raised beds for our garden and the first aquaculture tank (with help, mind you. My husband and I have found out we do not do construction well together).

Ok, no more delays! Lets get to today’s recipe. While this is not low glycemic because of the puff pastry, the stuffing is and its good for you as well as being delicious. This is good hot out of the oven or cooled off later on.

Puffy Spinach Ricotta Triangles

Ingredients:

• 1 small package frozen spinach (just spinach, no extra sauces and such fripperies that you find in the stores now)
• 3/4 C low fat or no-fat ricotta cheese
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice or lime juice
• 4 large basil leaves
• 3 tablespoons fine ground parmesan cheese
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil with fragnant aroma
• 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic (more or less, up to you)
• pinch sea salt
• 1 teaspoon beaten egg (use the rest as the glaze on the outside of the pastry)
• 1 sheet of store bought puff pastry, thawed

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Put frozen block of spinach in colander and allow to thaw. Squeeze out as much liquid as possible, saving expressed liquid. Use this spinach water later to thin the filling, if needed.

In a food processor, mix until incorporated and smooth – spinach, ricotta cheese, egg, basil leaves, salt, olive oil, parmesan, and garlic. Set aside until puff pastry is ready.

Roll out thawed puff pastry on a floured board and then cut into 9 equal squares. Roll each square until rather thin.

Put about one tablespoon of the filling (try to pre-portion it into 9 portions to best use the filling) in the middle of the square and then brush two sides with the remaining beaten egg. Bring the other edges of the dough over to work a triangular pie. Pinch edges, wash with some more egg, fold edge over and then crimp again.

Put pies on a cooking sheet with parchment on it (I spray it with cooking spray, up to you).

Brush whole pie with egg wash.

Bake until golden brown.

I served it with some limes and ginger ale (we are on a diet ginger ale binge here, cant really say why)

Related Posts:

• Electronic Gluttony: A pig roast by any measure

Technorati Tags: wedding, Rob Brown, Rob Brown Photography, wedding photographer, New England, Les Dames d’Escoffier, Escoffier, Sandrine’s, Cambridge, MA, Italian Porchetta, Colombian Lechona, Allendale Farm, Feast in the Field, PBS, raised bed, garden, aquaculture, low glycemic, puff pastry, Puffy Spinach Ricotta Triangles, spinach, ricotta, basil, parmesan, cheese, olive oil, garlic, sea salt, egg, puff pastry

Here in central Massachusetts, we have an abundance of apple orchards. When tourists come to this region in the summer, they expect to do a few very specific things – buy antiques, pick apples, visit 18th century New England at Old Sturbridge Village, and enjoy a rural landscape. Those of us who live here year round can become rather inattentive to our the local charms but the coming of spring usually pulls us back out of our ruts.

Today has been just a stellar day weather-wise so my oldest daughter and I took a trip to one of those local orchards, Brookfield Orchards, in North Brookfield, MA. This place is a fair hike from our house and is situated in the middle central part of the state.

For those of you who may not know where Massachusetts is -

This map shows you where North Brookfield is in Massachusetts

Their address is 12 Lincoln rd, North Brookfield, MA 01535

(508) 867-6858

Their website is www.brookfieldorchardsonline.com, where you can see all about their mail-order options. They ship apples, preserves, relishes, mustards, jams, gift baskets, and more.

To learn more about the other offerings in the area, check out the “Browse the Brookfields” site for other attractions, like:

• The Salem Cross Inn (I can not recommend this place highly enough, follow the link!)
• The Riverbend Gallery
• The Warren Farm
• The Purple Onion (antiques)
• Tip Top Country Store (whole foods and organic produce)

The following photos gives you a bit of a photo tour through the outside orchard and the store. Enjoy!

The specialty at Brookfield Orchards is hot apple dumplings, served with vanilla ice cream and/or a chunk of cheddar cheese. (seen at top)

Dormant apple trees that will have stunning blossoms in a few weeks time.

Some of the store.

Loads of antiques and charm.

The ceiling

More antiques.

Some fun kitchen stuff too.

Sites of Interest:

• Brookfield Orchards
• Browse the Brookfields
• The Salem Cross Inn
• The Riverbend Gallery
• The Warren Farm
• The Purple Onion
• Tip Top Country Store

Related Posts:

• Local Foods: Auntie Cathies Bakery – Gluten-free to order
• Local Foods: Another visit to Auntie Cathie’s Bakery

Technorati Tags: The Salem Cross Inn

(Image Source: Vermont Butter & Cheese Co. promotional materials. All the remaining photos are mine.)

This is the second installment of the iTasting series. You can find the first one here – iTasting: Elevages Perigord – Duck Foie Gras.

There were several cheese producers at the Dole & Bailey Northeast Family Farms Road Show, and I got to sample different types of cheese from each table. It is one of these producers which I will talk about today – The Vermont Butter & Cheese Company.

The start-up story for Vermont Butter & Cheese is compelling. It’s a story about Allison Hooper, one of the founders of this small company, following her heart and her bliss. As a college student studying in France in the 70s, she was ahead of her time when she sought out organic farms that might let her work on their farm, in exchange for room and board and the chance to learn about artisanal cheese making practices. Fast-forward a few years, and Allison is a dairy lab technician for the state of Vermont. When Bob Reese, a marketing director for the Vermont Department of Agriculture needed to source some chevre for a state dinner he was putting together, he turned to Allison. She whipped up a batch of creamy chevre and it was such a hit at the dinner that both Allison and Bob felt like this was the birth of a partnership, one to launch a company that would serve the unmet needs for cultured butter and cheeses based on the sustainable practices and ethics Alison was exposed to during her time making cheese in Europe.

The company grew from a small one-woman cheese making and one-man cheese selling enterprise in the late 80s to currently employing 29 people, sourcing high quality milk from 21 family farms, and moving into a recently constructed 4,000 sq. foot facility. They have achieved the dream of making delicious artisanal European style cultured butter and cheese while also providing critical support to the family farms in the region who may not have been profitable without this company. The difference they make is clear and extremely important in a time when even very large milk producers are on shaky ground.

Enough with the non-food chat! Lets talk about whats really important here: the butter and cheese.

If you live in the Northeast, you may have seen their products in the grocery store, especially their European cultured butter. We enjoy the cultured butter because it has a stronger flavor than your average American large-company-produced butter. If you want to break out of the usual butter mold (puns, gotta love them), give this product a try. Remember, its has a stronger flavor so if you do not like it right away, experiment with it and you will likely find yourself using it in many ways.

I have borrowed some of the specifics about this product from their site:

Note that they make it a point to use hormone free milk. This is a theme throughout their product line.

Some of the products they offer include the following.

From the Cow:

• Crème Fraîche
• Cultured butter
• Fromage Blanc
• Marscapone
• Quark (German for “curd”)

From the Goat:

• Chevre
• Creamy Goat Cheese
• Feta

“Signature” Aged Artisanal Cheeses:

• Bijou
• Bonne Bouche
• Coupole

Below are several different types of chevre on display that day.

This table was always crowded, people several deep, so it was hard to sidle up to the “bar” and snack out on all the cheeses. Instead, I did a surgical strike, going in after the Bonne Bouche, an interesting ash covered cheese.

The Vermont Butter & Cheese site says this:

“Bonne Bouche is the “flagship” of the signature line. This hand ladled, ash-ripened cheese was first introduced in 2001. “Bonne Bouche” literally means “good mouthful” and is a French term used to describe a tasty morsel. Bonne Bouche is simply that and won instant acclaim among chefs, retailers, and food writers. It won First Place for aged goat cheese at the American Cheese Society competition.

Bonne Bouche is made from pasteurized milk and set in tubs for lactic coagulation for 24 hours. The following day, the cheese curd is carefully hand ladled into moulds and drained overnight. The cheeses are then unmolded, ashed, and moved into the drying room and then into the aging room, where the controlled environment is cool and humid. The entire process takes seven to ten days before the cheeses are packaged in their individual micro-caves.

Bonne Bouche can be enjoyed fresh or aged up to 45 days. As a young cheese, the rind has a distinct geotrichium flavor. The texture is mild yet still acidic like a fresh chevre. As the cheese ages, it becomes softer and the rind becomes more dry and piquant. The “made date” is indicated on the package”.

As you can see in the photo below, it has a creamy “melting” interior.

The flavor was mild and delicious. As noted on their site, it’s flavor and aroma does remind one of flowers and hazelnuts. It is certainly not astringent or ammonia-like as a similarly ripened cow-milk Brie can be (although, I love that flavor too). This product comes in it’s own little “micro-cave,” so that you can age it past the level they ship it at (on average, 45 days), into characteristics that you choose. These are so good that this and a couple of other Vermont B&C Co. cheese have been raking in the prizes. See below for a listing of the most recent.

These products are not locked away in a cheesemonger‘s back room, available only for the Fromage Illuminati. You should be able to find these at grocery stores, or will soon. I suggest that when you see them, try a few out, explore their fresh and bright flavors.

Recent Awards for Vermont Butter & Cheese Co. products:

2007 U.S. Cheese Championships (held every two years and dates back to the 1890s):

• The Best of Class Award for Soft Goats’ Milk Cheese: for its Vermont Fresh
  Crottin.
• The Best of Class Award for Semi-Soft Goats’ Milk Cheese: for its Bonne
  Bouche.

2007 World Cheese Awards (held in London at the International Food and Drink Exhibition. The Awards are open to products from all major cheese- producing nations, and over 130 experts from around the world evaluated the entries):

• The Gold Medal for Soft Goats’ Milk Cheese Plain – Fresh: for its Vermont
  Chevre

Resources:

• The Vermont Butter & Cheese Company (call for an appointment for a tour!)

Related Posts:

• iTasting: Elevages Perigord – Duck Foie Gras

Technorati Tags: iTasting, series, Dole & Bailey, Northeast Family Farms, Road Show, Vermont Butter & Cheese, Allison Hooper, France, organic, farm, artisanal, cheese, dairy, Vermont, Bob Reese, Agriculture, chevre, company, butter, Europe, cheese making, family farm, cultured butter, Northeast, hormone free, milk, Bonne Bouche, hazelnut, Brie, micro-cave, Vermont, cheesemonger, Fromage, Illuminati, U.S. Cheese Championships, World Cheese Awards, International Food and Drink Exhibition

(This post will appear on the Paper Palate blog, a member of the Well Fed Network)

Book review of Camilla V. Saulsbury‘s Panna Cotta: Italy’s Elegant Custard Made Easy

I had never heard of panna cotta before I saw it made on Iron Chef a few years ago. I obviously do not frequent many Italian restaurants, mainly because I live in an Italian restaurant wasteland where white dinner rolls (you know, the kind that you buy at Stop and Shop ready to pop in the oven to “bake”) are served along with bologna antipastos (practically right out of the grocery store packaging). No, you can bet panna cotta will not be on any local menus.

Seeing it made on Iron Chef is a very different thing than making it yourself. I actually never had a hankering for it until I agreed to review “Panna Cotta: Italy’s Elegant Custard Made Easy” by Camilla V. Saulsbury and I am so glad that I decided to try a panna cotta on for size. I recommend this type of food and this cookbook in particular to both beginning cooks and the more experienced. You will not be disappointed.

First, let me tell you about the most fundamental lesson I learned from this book – panna cotta is extremely easy to make. You are essentially making a custard-like concoction without any eggs. You do this by replacing their eggy magic with powdered gelatin.

The cover is fantastic, a raspberry vibrancy that sets off a poppy seed panna cotta to excellent effect. If you are visually cued like I am, you will be drawn in by the cover, seduced into exploring the panna cotta.

In it’s mere 128 pages, this book packs in quite a lot of fantastic information about what panna cotta is (literally means cooked cream), the fundamentals of making a panna cotta, and a treasury of recipes that will definitely inspire you to try a few out.

Just inside the front cover, the book has several pages of color photographs that depict some of the recipes. These are not as beautiful as the cover but they serve to illustrate the variety of panna cotta forms and presentation possibilities.

The introduction provides an excellent grounding in panna cotta First Principles. Do not skip this chapter because it will give you the basic understanding of this eggless custard that you can then use to design you own creations.

The recipes are organized into six chapters:

• Top-10 Panna Cotta Favorites
• Chocolate, Caramel, & Spice
• Fruit Panna Cotta
• Spirited Panna Cotta
• Enlightened Panna Cotta
• Savory Panna Cotta

In the “Top-10″ chapter, you will find recipes like vanilla bean, PB&J, toasted coconut, cinnamon panna cotta and others.

Chapter Two has quite a few tempting recipes, such as mayan chocolate, pink peppercorn (sweet!), cannoli, chai, and five-spice & honey panna cotta. There will certainly be a dessert there for everyone in your family.

Chapter Three explores the use of fruits such as mango, hachiya persimmon, roasted pear, and even sweet pumpkin!

As you might have expected, the “Spirited Panna Cotta” Chapter (Four) delves into recipes that use alcohol, recipes such as late harvest reisling, mint julep, limoncello & mint, and even white chocolate amaretto panna cotta.

Chapter Five, “Enlightened Panna Cotta,” provides “lighter” versions with ingredients such as evaporated fat free milk and reduced fat sour cream in decadent sounding recipes like ricotta-honey, cafe brulot and linzer panna cotta.

In the final recipe chapter, “Savory Panna Cotta,” Saulsbury gives recipes for the panna cottas which I personally find the the most attractive. With recipes for butternut squash, porcini, asparagus, cauliflower and gorgonzola panna cotta, you will impress friends and family with flavorful and unexpected appetizers that can really set the scene for a memorable dinner.

Saulsbury is able to, in a very small number of pages, put you on track to making your own panna cottas and encourages you to strike out on new paths, exploring your own part of the pana cotta universe. I found her writing encouraging to the uninitiated, namely me, and I soon found myself innovating a new recipe on my first time out of the panna cotta gate.

I would recommend this book to any of my friends and family and I look forward to trying out more of these recipes.

What follows is my first panna cotta, inspired by Saulsbury’s Thyme Goat Cheese panna cotta. The family, from toddlers, pre-teens, to adults, all loved this savory appetizer.

(Copyright 2007 Nika Boyce)

Basil Ginger Goat Cheese Panna Cotta by Nika Boyce

(Inspired by Saulsbury’s own Thyme Goat Cheese Panna Cotta found on page 124)

Makes 12 or so mini panna cottas with some left over for the cook.

Instead of the many tempting sweet panna cottas featured in this book, I chose to make a savory one. Saulsbury has several very tempting recipes for savories such as summer corn panna cotta, asparagus panna cotta, avocado panna cotta and many more. I adapted her recipe for thyme goat cheese panna cotta because I didn’t have the exact same ingredients that she called for. Instead of heavy cream, I used half and half. Instead of thyme, I used basil. I also added ginger because I seem to want to add ginger to everything these days and I wanted to see how it would do in this setting. Ginger, for me, was a wonderful addition.

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons warm water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
• ginger, small 1/8 inch thick slice that is not minced but left whole
• several basil leaves, tear by hand into small pieces
• 8 oz goat cheese chevre, cut into small pieces
• 1 1/4 C half and half
• 1/2 C sour cream
• 2 slices hardwood smoked bacon, fried until crispy, allow to cool
• 1/2 red delicious apple
• 2 crimini mushrooms, medium size and sliced
• 2 large basil leaves for presentation
• sea salt

Directions:

Add the powdered gelatin to the 3 tablespoons of warm water and set aside to allow the water to be absorbed, at least 5 minutes.

In a heavy pot, bring the half and half, ginger slice, and basil leaves up to a simmer (over the lowest heat that will get you there), remove from the burner and add the gelatin. Mix until the gelatin is dissolved. Using a whisk, incorporate the goat cheese and then the sour cream.

I used a mini-muffin tin that I had coated with a good olive oil. I poured the panna cotta mix into this tin and then put it into the refrigerator overnight. Saulsbury suggests at least 4 hours.

I served this up two different ways. Not shown was how I had poured some of the excess mixture into a medium size baking cup. The next day I just stuck a spoon in to spread the panna cotta on matzos, very delicious and not fussy at all. The dry matzo and the rich panna cotta spread are a hit in this house now.

The photos show the second way I served this. I slowly fried some hardwood smoked bacon slices in a cast iron pan. I set those aside and sauted several apple slices and also diced apple and allowed them to drain and cool. I also lightly sauted some crimini slices. I assembled them, as show, with some basil leaves as the base, the panna cotta, a dribble of olive oil, a slice of apple (with the peel for color), a slice of mushroom, a bit of apple and bacon dice, and then long slices of the bacon for flair. The bacon, apple, and mushroom eaten with the panna cotta are a unctuous mix of savory, sweet, tart, and creaminess. Try to allow all garnishes to cool as hot items may just make your panna cotta melt.

(Copyright 2007 Nika Boyce)

Books of Interest:

• Panna Cotta: Italy’s Elegant Custard Made Easy by Camilla V. Saulsbury $11.53 US and £7.75 UK

Resources:

• Wilton Excelle Elite 12-Cup Mini Muffin Pan
• Chicago Metallic Gourmetware Non-Stick 12-Cup Popover Pan

Technorati Tags: Paper Palate, Well Fed Network, Camilla V. Saulsbury, Panna Cotta: Italy’s Elegant Custard Made Easy, panna cotta, Italian, Iron Chef, Saulsbury, egg, gelatin, seduce, panna, cotta, cooked cream, recipe, First Principles, design, vanilla bean, PB&J, peppercorn, hachiya, persimmon, roasted pear, pumpkin, reisling, mint julep, limoncello, porcini, asparagus, gorgonzola, Goat Cheese, appetizer, goat, cheese, chevre, basil