Haha, that’s what I felt like making Five Minute Ricotta last night. But omg it was so easy and the results so astounding, I may never buy the pre-packaged stuff ever again!
I got turned onto this recipe from a tweet by Ruth Reichl (Twitter is both cool and scary… on one hand it makes it seem like the former Gourmet editor and I are like super close, swapping recipes and the such. “Oh yeah, I got this recipe from Ruth.” Until I have to admit that “I follow her” and then I just sound like a stalker. Anyway…)
Back to ricotta! So yeah, it’s super easy. And though I’m the kind of person who shuns cooking in a microwave (mine primarily heats water for tea), somehow using a microwave in this instance seems ok. Perhaps it was this tidbit on the Serious Eats’ Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Ricotta article: “Unlike a stovetop, which heats the milk only from the bottom, a microwave heats the milk evenly from all sides, preventing both burnt-on milk proteins, and the chance of a dangerous boil-over.”
See, using my microwave isn’t just quicker, it’s also smarter!
Ready to try it yourself? Here’s what to do: Take three cups of fresh, whole milk and put them in a microwave safe glass container (I used a mason jar). Add a pinch of salt and three tablespoons of vinegar. Put in the microwave for two to four minutes, until bubbles just start to form on the edges of the milk. You’ll actually be able to see the curds and whey separate… if they haven’t done that, put it in for another 30 seconds or so. Then, remove the container from the microwave and pour the mixture through some cheese cloth (or coffee filters or food-safe paper towels). You can drain a short period of time for creamy ricotta or overnight for something thicker.
Oh and if you don’t have white vinegar, buttermilk or lemon juice will also work.
There are many things I love the internet for. It allows me to read the newspaper without walking down four flights of stairs to pick it up off the front step, answers almost any question I have about the universe (thanks, Google!) and lets me keep up on the latest episodes of The Colbert Report even though I don’t have a TV. But I think the thing I love most about the Internet is how it’s changed the way I eat, exposing me to new recipes and restaurants I never would have found on my own.
Case in point: Last week I was perusing Twitter when something written by CarrotsNCake caught my eye. The tweet included a link to her blog and 15 minutes later, I was still reading (What can I say? She writes well and her fitness goals are similar to mine!). Anyway, in a few posts she raved about these kale chips she’d made, basically saying, “Kale Chips Rule!” Now, I don’t believe everything I read on the internet, but I happen to like kale a lot. And the idea of kale baked into a crunchy chip sounded pretty good, and pretty healthy, which is a bonus for me these days.
The next day I came home from the market armed with kale. I put in on a baking sheet with some cooking spray, sprinkled it with sea salt and olive oil and popped into a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes. WOW! It was indeed crunchy like a potato chip, but with this intense kale flavor… The closest thing I can think of comparing it to is a sheet of nori (which I also happen to love eating like potato chips).
I had some people over that night and put out a plate of kale chips for people to nibble on- they disappeared like Bud Lights at a Sox game. I was kind of surprised. I mean, I know I have a rather adventurous palate, but I didn’t think kale chips would be so popular. I also told a friend about this recipe find- she promptly tried her hand at them and sent me a text, “Kale Chips Rock!”
What I love about this story (and getting back to my original point) is that the recipe Tina over at Carrots ‘N Cake originally posted is from allrecipes.com. She shared them with her many readers, including me, and now I’m passing it on to you all, who might in turn tell someone else. It’s a little internet chain reaction that’s left us all slightly better off.
I don’t know that I’ll ever forget the first time I ever saw pimento cheese. I was a northern bred 11-year-old, in North Carolina for my first extended stay. I was going to camp and when lunch rolled around I expected tuna, or chicken salad or cold cuts. Instead, I got pimento cheese- a combination of sharp orange cheddar, mayonnaise, Tabasco sauce and diced pimentos (those little red things that come inside martini olives). It was heaven. And unlike so many childhood favorites like Kool-Aid and Ring Dings, this one still tastes good.
Southerners have an intimate relationship with this stuff, the recipe for which varies from family to family. But get much north of Tennessee and pimento cheese gets as rare as red dirt and Nehi. I remember as an adolescent being so blown away pimento cheese that it was one of the first things I showed my mom when I got home. But she didn’t share my affinity for “cheese salad,” so the sandwich became a summer treat. After I stopped going to camp, I forgot about the stuff for years.
I got a hankering for it a few days ago, and was delighted to find pimentos in the pickle aisle at my grocery store- though I have no idea what else you use them for (any suggestions? Please leave ‘em in the comment section!). I had people over for dinner that night and they were pretty blown away, which is awesome, cause this stuff is really easy to make.
The thing about pimento cheese is that it’s versatile. You can slap it between to pieces of white bread for a quick lunch or tea sandwich. Or put a bowl of it out with crackers and veggies and let it act as a dip. The Varsity in Atlanta serves it on hotdogs and cheese burgers. This week, I slathered it on thin slices of bread and popped them in the oven just long enough to get melty and delicious. Then this morning, I mixed it into an omelet. Go ahead, give it a try.
Pimento Cheese:
1 lb grated sharp orange cheese
2 oz diced pimentos (half of a 4 oz jar)
Mayonnaise (low-fat is ok)
A few dashes Tabasco sauce (or your favorite hot sauce)
Mix the pimetos and cheese in a bowl and add enough mayonnaise to keep it all together (so it’s the consistency of chicken salad). Add a few dashes of Tabasco, a sprinkle of black pepper and you’re good to go.
New York has made quite a few food headlines lately and not just because of the city’s fabulous restaurants. First it was transfats. Then the calorie content of fast food. Now, salt is the enemy. At times, it does seem that the mayor’s own diet challenges guide these policies.
While I’m not one to advocate for a paternalistic approach to governing what I eat (I try to make sensible choices and get plenty of exercise, so please don’t ban my occasional Wendy’s binge), I did find it helpful to see the calorie content of Starbuck’s snacks displayed prominently when I was in Manhattan last week. While it’s common knowledge that their pastries are rather calorie-laden, having the raw numbers right there was a useful guide. Yes, the fact that a slice of coffeecake had 420 calories was a deterrent, but I was conversely drawn to their egg sandwiches, most of which have less than 400 calories, as well as less sugar and more protein. While the sugar/protein content wasn’t a surprise, the calorie count was. I mean, who’d think that a sandwich with (albeit, low-fat) bacon would have fewer calories than a scone?
A few weeks ago, I told ya’ll about my latest favorite pig part: pork jowl. While doing some research for that post, I came across a recipe for Maple Glazed Pork Jowl Muffins.
I was so intrigued, I couldn’t resist trying them for myself last week.
Once, when I was visiting friends in Annapolis, Maryland, I happened upon a little stand that made doughnuts dipped in bacon bits. It was heaven, all salty and sweet, crunchy and soft at the same time. This recipe seemed to offer that same little slice of heaven.
“These muffins are sweet, savory, smoky, porky…a complete roll through the omnipotent tastes that make life here on earth something special. When you’re done eating one, you’ll start looking for the next one immediately,” the author promised.
The prep was easy enough, and the muffins did lovely things in the oven, turning all golden and rising majestically from the tins. But the glaze went on like frosting, giving them a cupcake-like quality. Which brings me to a very serious question: what is the difference between a cupcake and a muffin? These definitely blurred the line.
Reviews were mixed. The muffins were indeed savory and sweet at the same time, with bits of pork jowl mixed in the way one would expect to find chocolate chips or walnuts. They were a bit dense though, and I didn’t think the maple flavor in the glaze was pronounced enough. Not sure how to remedy that.
One friend liked them, but liked them less once she found out there was pork jowl in them. Chicky pronounced them ok, but thought there wasn’t enough jowl. I thought maybe they’d be better without the frosting, as a straight savory cornbread-type thing, perhaps as a compliment to chili.
For those of you who might want to try this experiment at home, here’s the recipe. Let me know your verdict, please!
Smoked Pork Jowl Muffins with Maple Glaze
(from Group Recipes)
1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/2 c coarse cornmeal
2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
3/4 c half and half
1/4 c plain yogurt
1/3 c butter, melted
1/4 c of finely grated mild cheddar
1/2 c pork jowl, 1/4″ dice (you can probably substitute thick-cut bacon)
confectioners sugar
maple syrup
Directions
- Preheat oven to 400 F.
- Cook the smoked pork jowl in a heavy skillet over a medium flame. When it’s crispy but still chewy remove it from the pan and drain on a paper towel.
- Sift together the flour, corn meal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Add the sugar to the melted butter and stir to dissolve. Then add the egg, half and half, yogurt, and cheddar to the butter mixture. Stir to combine.
- Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.
- Add the pork jowl and mix lightly. Don’t over mix.
- Spoon into muffin cups and bake for about 12 to 15 minutes or until a knife inserted into a muffin comes out clean.
- While the muffins cook, mix up a glaze with confectioners sugar and maple syrup and once the muffins are warm but not hot drizzle them with the glaze.
I attended Boston Slow Food’s screening of “End of the Line” on Sunday. It was ok; a bit redundant in light of all the news and debates over the demise of fishing stocks both locally and across the globe. I was interested to see last week that the European Union is considering a ban on the bluefin tuna trade, one of the focal points of the film. I do wish that the film had also identified more best-practices and examples of sustainable fishing fleets. Surely, they are out there.
“End of the Line” reignited the guilt that now washes over me when I have to make choices about seafood. (Disclaimer, I could not stay for the discussion afterwards, and perhaps this would have helped clear up some of my questions… but then again, I’ve read a lot about this debate/discussion and I still struggle, so maybe not.) I understand why the tuna trade is problematic, as well as why farmed salmon is. But the tradeoffs aren’t easy. Case in point: is it better to participate in a CSF, which is local but also might be hurting the environment because they use bottom trawlers or catch cod, or is it better to buy a fish rated a “best choice” by the Seafood Watch program, but may have been flown across the country or the globe?
Also, I’ve noticed lately that restaurants get creative in their fish naming, making it touch to discern what exactly it is and where it comes from. For example, I had dinner at Grill 23 the other night and saw Australian kingfish on the menu. I’m not familiar with this species and a search of the Seafood Watch brings up five types of kingfish, which range from being best to worst choices. I opted to avoid this dish, surmising that it didn’t make sense to eat something flown here from Australia. Instead, I chose the salmon, but only after my server assured me it was wild-caught. And in retrospect, perhaps I should have chosen the “Wild Virginia Striped Bass,” or maybe not… I see now that they have high mercury levels.
Quandary indeed…
I’m not inherently cheap, but I do take pride in making a great meal for (and out of) next to nothing. It makes me feel crafty and creative. So I was particularly proud last week when I cooked a meal of champions for Chicky and I for less than $6 (slightly more if you add wine to the menu, which I suggest).
The menu: roasted root vegetables and a beef marrow bone.
Marrow bone: $1.75
Loaf of bread: $2
Beet: $1
Giant carrot: $1
A lot of people get squeamish about marrow, but to me it’s God’s gift, a secret part of the cow that few know about or appreciate. Area chefs are starting to bring it to the masses though: it’s on the menu at Eastern Standard and Toro. And for good reason: it’s cheap and delicious. As Chicky says, “It’s like meat butter.”
Roast marrow is simple to make at home… the hardest part will be finding a butcher who’ll slice the beef bone length-wise, giving you easy access to the marrow. If you can’t find one, opt for marrow bones cut cross-wise, about four inches long.
If you want to cook the above meal at home, remember that the veggies will take longer to cook than the marrow: Throw the bones in the oven when the veggies are just getting tender.
Roast marrow bone:
1 7-inch long beef bone, cut lengthwise
Sprinkle of sea salt
Loaf of crusty bread
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Set bones in a shallow baking pan, flat side up and sprinkle with sea salt. Roast 15 to 20 minutes, until the marrow is brown and soft, maybe a bit crusty on top. Be careful not to cook too long or the marrow will liquefy. Slather on bread. Mustard and pickles go well with it too.
A few weeks ago I mentioned that I was bringing home several pounds of pork products from North Carolina. A lot of people probably wonder why I’d bother lugging a bunch of random smoked pig parts that cost less $1.50 a pound across the eastern seaboard. The only answer I have is that they taste mighty good, and my local supermarkets seem to think the only parts of the pig worth eating are the chops, roast and ribs. Yes, I can find a ham hock here and there, perhaps even a pig’s ear… but we Yankee’s don’t seem to have mastered the art of smoking our swine the way they have down in Appalachia.
To me, these seemingly random parts hark back to a time when folks had to use the whole pig in order to make it through winter or to their next pay check. More than one southern grandmother has told me stories of a childhood that consisted largely of cornbread dipped in collards flavored with fatback, or whatever other part of the pig was handy. Chops and roasts were for the rich, but you could make a rich meal out of a bit of pork fat.
My 12 lbs of hog consisted of some smoked bacon ends and salted fat back. However, the vast majority of it came in the form of whole smoked pig jowls. For those of you who aren’t well versed in piggy anatomy, that would be the cheek, a lovely, fatty cut that’s akin to bacon, yet smoother (a result of the additional collagen found in a pig’s face).
Since falling in love with jowls, I’ve found that they have something of a cult following. The Atlantic wrote about them late last year and the internet raves about this recipe so much, I don’t think I’ll be able to resist trying it (yes, I’ll blog it).
I generally use the jowl in place of bacon, putting a touch of it into my caramelized onions, using it as flavoring in beef stew or to add a satisfying punch to veggies, beans and lentils. I keep them in the freezer a) because they last longer there and b) because frozen jowl is way easier to slice. Another plus: you cut your own jowl, and can decide if you want it thicker or thinner depending on what you’re making.
P.S.- if any of you readers know where to get smoked pork jowl in Boston, please pass it along, both for my sake and for that of the poor TSA people (and their dogs) who have to go through my bags when I fly from N.C.
Creamy lentils with pork jowl
1 small onion diced
3 oz smoked pork jowl diced
1/2 lb green lentils
2 c diced carrots
2 c red wine
3 c chicken stock (maybe more)
½ c light cream or half & half.
In a medium sauce pan sauté the pork jowl over medium-high heat until it starts to brown. Add onion and cook until translucent. Add lentils and carrot and stir around. Add red wine and stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until lentils are tender, about 25 to 30 minutes. If lentils soak up too much liquid, add more stock. Remove from heat and stir in cream. Serve immediately.
OK, so life didn’t exactly hand me lemons. Rather, sometime during the fall I got a bee in my bonnet about making limoncello. Chicky and I love the stuff- love it- and I’d read that it isn’t terribly hard to make.
My infatuation with this lusciously sweet digestif began on summer trip to Italy, where it’s icy presence made up for the country’s pervasive lack of air conditioning. Since then, I’ve been on a quest to find the best limoncello available in the U.S., perusing the liquor store’s in Boston’s North End and grilling bartenders and family members for reputable brands. Too often though, I’ve found that the limoncello here falls into two categories: gross or grossly pricey. I didn’t feel like I had much to lose by giving it a whirl myself.
However, the gap between setting my heart on making limoncello and actually doing it was rather large. You see, grain liquor and organic lemons aren’t easily found in Massachusetts. Grain liquor is illegal here- I ended up driving to Rhode Island and going to three liquor stores before I found it. And organic lemons… well, they’re kind of precious, i.e. expensive and hard to find.
A few people have inquired as to why I used organic lemons, when conventional ones are so easy to come by. Limoncello is made using the zest of the lemon- the yellow part. Unfortunately, that is also the part of the lemon that absorbs any pesticides that get sprayed and the idea of them leaching into my beverage was sort of scary to me. So I went organic.
I scoured the internet for recipes, and then because of circumstances and the fact that I can’t follow directions to save my life, kind of winged it. I finally found organic lemons at Whole Foods, but they looked like they’d been bullied by the other fruits… there was some serious bruising going on. But since they were all I could find, I decided to plunk down for them and simply avoid the bruised parts when I trimmed off the zest.
Once zested, I put the lemon peels and two liters of grain alcohol into my infuser. The grain alcohol really was something. First off, it was called “Graves Extra XXX Fine.” Second, the bottle came with a warning to keep it away from heat and flames. No wonder this stuff is illegal. Anyway, I left this lemon peel mixture to hang out for a month or so in a dark corner, as many sites recommended. However, I was perturbed one day when I came home to find that my entire apartment reeked of booze. Seems my infuser (basically a glass jat with a glass top) wasn’t airtight, and the alcohol was evaporating. In addition, when I tested the lemon peels, the snapped like a potato chip, and indication that they have infused all they can. But my mixture was hardly yellow… chalk it up to bad lemons.
About this time, I happened upon some lovely looking organic lemons at my local Shaw’s. So I decided to zest these (about a dozen smallish ones), add them to the remaining kind-of-infused liquor and add another bottle of grain alcohol (I’d bought three in Rhode Island, unsure of how much I’d need). I let this sit for about a month, again in my infuser, which I topped with plastic wrap to make airtight.
After a couple weeks, the mixture turned a deep, dark yellow, “Kind of like horse urine,” Chicky said. Mmmmm… yeah, exactly what you want to ingest, right?
At that point, Chicky and I got some cheesecloth and strained out the lemon zest (make sure to wet the cloth so it doesn’t absorb a bunch of booze). Then, I made a simple syrup of equal parts distilled water and sugar. Once cooled, I mixed it with equal parts of the infused lemon liquor. The result was a bright, but strong, limoncello. As my step-dad said, “It’s tasty, but there’s no doubt this stuff carries a kick.”
The whole process took about three months and cost me close to $90, about the equivalent of three bottles of good store bought stuff. So would I do it again? Absolutely! Now that I have a sense of what I’m doing, I want to perfect my recipe, maybe make an all-organic version, try one with oranges… I have visions of arriving at parties with the perfect hostess gift, of serving it ice-cold to friends at late-night summer gatherings on the roof deck and of finding the perfect little bottles to store it in. Warning to friends and family: this could become a years long experiment. Holler if you’d like to be a guinea pig.
As a rule, I don’t get too excited about holiday food. There are no real traditions in my family surrounding Christmas and New Years the way there are at Thanksgiving; we eat what we’re inspired to cook. One year that might be a leg of lamb, while the next it might be a whole pig or simply a roast chicken. You never know until you show up for dinner.
This year, however, new bars were set. My father turned 50 not long ago and his mid-life crisis has manifested itself in his culinary veins. While some men might have bought a fancy car or started working out, my dad installed a grill station. Set on the downstairs porch of our North Carolina house, the set-up allows my father to grill four sides of brisket while admiring the Appalachian mountains.
The set-up wasn’t entirely complete when we arrived here last week, but a guy came over on New Year’s Eve to install the grill so we could cook dinner. As soon as the last screw was turned, my dad was out there with Boston butts, pork shoulders and brisket. He cooked meat for eight hours, basting, rubbing and tasting all day and into the evening. The results were tremendous, though my dad has decided that his grill is too small. He wants a full-size smoker.
We had 36 for dinner and with our guests came a symphony of sides. Green bean casserole, carrot casserole, sausage and grit casserole, roasted squash and salad. This is one thing I love about the south. People here take pride in their cooking, passing recipes from one generation to the next, and on to one another at cocktail parties or just about any place else- remember that scene in Steel Magnolias where Truvy recites the cupa-cupa recipe in the beauty parlor?
As I prepare for my return north, I’m making a list of what southern delights to take back north with me. Stone ground grits, smoked pork jowls, bacon ends, maybe a smoked trout or some cheese straws if I can find ‘em. I’m also returning with a few recipes gleaned from some of the south’s better cooks: oyster pie, squash casserole, Russian tea, and some kind of dip made from corn and cream cheese.
I find Russian tea hilarious- I mean, really? Tang? I’d scoff at it if I hadn’t tried it and found it rather delicious.
Russian Tea
2 cups powdered Tang (or other orange-flavored drink mix)
2 cups white sugar
1/4 cup instant tea powder
3/4 cup lemon-flavored instant tea powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
In a large bowl, combine orange drink mix, sugar, tea powder, cinnamon and cloves. Mix well and store in an airtight container. To serve, put 3 teaspoons of mix in a mug. Stir in 1 cup boiling water. Adjust to taste.
