Monday, July 29, 2013

Strawberry Cookie Biscuits

I'm learning Russian these days. While browsing a Russian food blog, I happened upon this cookie/biscuit recipe, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. The taste is GREAT. I will probably continue to experiment with this recipe, however I would definitely feel comfortable sharing a plate of these floppy biscuits with family and friends...and total strangers. They are delicious.


In the future, I may just plop the spoonfuls of dough/batter into a mini muffin tin and see how that works. They're kind of muffin-top-esque anyway. If I do that, I'll try to update this post accordingly. However, I would make these again and eat them again regardless of they're shape. Mmmm.

Strawberry Biscuits

Adapted and Translated from http://www.vsemzastol.ru 

Ingredients:
1 cup fresh strawberries, chopped
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vinegar
1/2 cup greek yogurt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350F. 
Using your fingers or a pastry cutter, combine the flour and butter to make crumbs. Combine sour cream, sugar, and salt. Mix baking soda and vinegar with sour cream mixture, then add to flour mixture and stir until barely combined. Add vanilla and strawberries. Stir gently until evenly distributed.

Prepare a cookie sheet with cooking spray or parchment paper and spoon (~2 tbs per cookie) onto the sheet. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from cookie sheet carefully and let cool slightly on cooling rack. Should make a dozen biscuits.

Note:
-I'm still unsure about the baking soda/vinegar combo. Next time I might just go with 2 teaspoons of baking soda (and omit vinegar), as the original recipe was difficult to translate at this point.

Saturday, July 27, 2013

Daring Baker's July Challenge

As humans, we are blind to the future.

I once overheard someone behind me as I was crossing the street.

"It's weird," She said. "I completely trust you and everything, but I've never crossed the street blindfolded before."

I didn't have to look back to know that a good friend of hers was likely guiding her across the street.
Isn't that how it feels sometimes when we try to follow Christ?

We know we're supposed to trust Him, but sometimes it's hard. Sometimes we wonder if there are cars coming. And we also might realize that the moment we let go of His hand and start going our own direction, we could get ourselves in some terrible or dangerous situations.

We can't see the future, so we have to listen close and hold on tight as Christ leads us into it. This isn't easy. But it must be done. If we quit following Him, we've cut ourselves off from the One who can see the future, yet we would still be blind.

Doesn't sound like a great idea to me: wondering around blind with no guide.

Even in cooking we sometimes need a guide. (Especially when we get hungry and our brains don't work as well!)

I could've used a guide for this month's Daring Baker's Challenge. We were guide-less, to an extent. It was a pick-your-own challenge from ANY previous challenge! Overwhelming.

Well I saw a few that seemed do-able but still challenging and I chose ricotta. I chose this because it would allow me to also complete another challenge: cannelloni. Well, the ricotta went really well and I highly recommend making your own.

The cannelloni, on the other hand, I would definitely not recommend making from scratch UNLESS you have a really good pasta rolling method. Please don't try it by hand--unless you have an unlimited amount of time and patience. It ended up tasting and looking wonderful by the end, but I had to throw a lot of pasta away and it caused me unnecessary stress.
This is how the "successful" pasta turned out!

Homemade pasta is delicious. Invest in a pasta roller :)

Because I didn't take a photo and it didn't go well, I won't include the cannelloni recipe here. Let's just pretend that all didn't happen. So onto the wonderful, simple, delicious ricotta...
This picture makes it look more like cottage cheese than it really did!

Homemade Ricotta Cheese

Originally From the bartolini kithcens
Total time: 30 minutes to prepare, at least 2 hours to drain.
Makes about one pound (about ½ kg) of cheese
Ingredients:
8 cups (2 litres) whole milk (homogenized)
1/2 tablespoon (7 ½ ml) (9 gm) table salt
5 tablespoons (75 ml) white distilled vinegar
Directions:
1.Combine milk, cream, and salt in a large non-reactive pot and stir over medium heat as you bring the temperature up to 85°C (185°F) (about 15-20 minutes).
2. Add the vinegar all at once and stir for 15 seconds; heat for two more minutes before removing from heat.
3.Allow to rest undisturbed for 15 – 20 minutes
4. Using a small sieve or slotted spoon, remove the floating curds and place them in a cheesecloth-lined colander to drain
5.Place colander over a bowl in refrigerator and drain for at least a couple of hours or overnight (I found 2 hours was enough). The longer you allow it to drain, the more firm the results.
6.Remove the ricotta from the colander, place in airtight containers, and refrigerate.

Note:
-don't use store bought cheesecloth. Use a real cloth--some sort of cotton napkin or towel. What's shown in the photo is what I strained it in, and it worked perfectly!

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Individual Cheese Curd Strata

We can be so slow to react to God's prompting. I'm pretty sure this is what it means in 1 Thessalonians 5:19. When we know what we ought to do, the Spirit is trying to drop hints all over the place, but we continue on as if we were following our own will. Following our own will is not the Christian's aim. Following our own will basically goes against everything Christ commanded. Yet we do it daily.

Picture the Spirit as a fire. One day, a fire is lit. At first, of course, you are more than excited about the fire. This is what happens when you're cold and alone and just want some warmth in your life. So finally, God sparked a flame and a fire came to you. This fire is tended to well at first. You give it utmost attention and are completely willing to forget many other things of the world in order to keep this fire from burning out. But there will come a time when you get distracted, after a while, and you will stray from tending the fire. It's ok, because the fire kind of keeps burning on its own (after all, there's only so much control you have over such a powerful essence). Then the distraction turns to more. It becomes your sole focus, your goal. It becomes what you want to invest in, rather than the fire. Although instead of just leaving the fire, you begin to feel that it would be a distraction from your new pursuits. So you toss water on it. You're beyond ignoring it, you'd like it to stay out of your mind, out of your way. So you put it out.

This is how you quench a fire. You pursue other things, you let it die, you toss water on it, or spread it out, because it is annoying you that it demands so much of your attention.

This ought not happen with the Spirit. The Spirit, our God should consume our lives. Let His fire roar in your heart, and follow His prompting until your heart is a wildfire that cannot be put out.

And now, an unrelated recipe.

Praise the Lord for delicious food combinations. This is one of those. Put cheese curds in breakfast strata. Do it. God made it good!

Cheese Curd Strata for One

Ingredients:
1 (fairly small) slice of dry sourdough bread
1 egg
1/4 c almond milk
1 tbs greek yogurt
handful of spinach
1 tbs chopped green onions
1 inch long cheese curd (~ 1 tbs?)
pinch of pepper
salt to taste

Layer all dry ingredients in a small (about 2 cup) oven-safe dish that has been lightly greased. Beat egg, milk, yogurt, salt, and pepper together in a separate bowl, then pour on top of dry ingredients. Leave overnight. In the morning, preheat oven to 350 degrees. When the oven is up to temperature, cook for about 30 minutes, making sure it doesn't giggle too much before taking it out. Let it cool for at least 5 minutes before eating.

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Swiss Mushroom Oatmeal

I just took a wonderful trip to Wisconsin with my mother. It was good.

We went to the zoo (yes we're children at heart) and we ate a lot of good food.
Fav. animals at the zoo: beautiful lions. The King and Queen!

We checked out some delicious Madison restaurants, which I would recommend. One of those is Fraboni's deli. If you want a quick, inexpensive and delicious sandwich with lots of meat, this is the place in Madison.

I also recommend Michael's Frozen Custard (also in Madison), and I don't recommend much topping. I got strawberry banana on vanilla custard, and the custard was SO good that I just wanted to skip it and go straight for the good stuff. So I would maybe just recommend one or no topping. No need to get fancy--but I'm a big fan of simple vanilla anyway (which is odd considering all the other strange things I eat). Unfortunately this nice little treat gave us a nice taste of something that we don't need to be craving all the time. Thankfully we have a few Culver's restaurants nearby and we might be giving them a little bit more business after this nice little trip to the frozen-custard-loving state.

We also spent the night in Wausau, which was a much more happening place than we expected it to be. While in Wausau, we woke up to a not-so-appitizing "hot" breakfast at our hotel, consisting of bread, waffles, coffee, 2 cereal choices, a big pot of oatmeal, and some pre-made fake-looking cheese omlettes. It sounds better than it looks. We decided to venture out for breakfast to a great little diner called Mint Cafe that has been around for a while. There we had some very real-looking omelettes and gobbled them down (I had a pesto tomato feta one and my mom had something with spinach and artichokes). It wasn't too much food--the prices were pretty low so we got what we paid for in our opinion.

All in all, a good trip.

But all this Wisconsin stuff and I don't  even mention CHEESE. Which, of course, I knew I needed to get before returning home. Well, guess what? We ended up buying about 7 lb. of cheese. And so far, so good. I recommend Mullins for a cheese factory store near the Wausau area.

Speaking of cheese, I've got a recipe for some oatmeal that would be great with some delicious Wisconsin swiss cheese (or nearly any other kind of cheese I'm sure). Mmm. Here's the savory recipe:

Swiss Mushroom Oatmeal

Makes 1 big serving or two side servings (would go well with eggs of some sort!)
Ingredients:
1/2 c old fashioned oats
1 c. water
2-3 baby portebella mushrooms, sliced
1 1/2 tbs chopped onion
1/4 tsp minced garlic
1/8 tsp basil
1/8 tsp oregano
1/8 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp worcestershire sauce
salt to taste
1 slice of swiss cheese


Combine worcestershire, water, oats, and herbs and let soak for at least 10 minutes. Cook the mushrooms, onion and garlic in a small skillet (might want some olive oil in there first). When they become limp take them off the heat. Then cook oatmeal in microwave for about a minute. Add mushrooms onions and garlic to the oatmeal and cook for another minute or two. When the oatmeal appears to be done, top it with swiss cheese and stir. Then let set for a few minutes (no burnt tongues!!) and enjoy.

Notes:
-The longer the oatmeal is soaked, the less it needs to be cooked. 
-This might be good if you pour the oatmeal into an oven-safe dish before topping it with cheese, then popping it in the broiler for a bit to get a nice cooked cheese effect! 
-This idea came from this recipe for "oat burgers" from food.com! I've never tried the burgers though--let me know if you have!

Monday, July 15, 2013

Yogurt Sauce for Tuna Burger


So as far as this recipe goes...I wrote it down without many measurements. I apologize. This is fairly embarrassing. The thing is, I said I would post this in the Tuna Burger post. So here it is. (Oh this is also technically an addition to the Daring Cook's yogurt challenge.)

No new photo either:

Herb Yogurt Sauce 

Ingredients for one serving:
1/8 c homemade yogurt (ok, store-bought works too)
fresh thyme
fresh oregano
some worcester sauce
some mustard
3/4 tsp honey
salt & pepper


Mix everything together. My note said that I added more worcester sauce then mustard, so that may be helpful. I remember it being delicious. Just keep tasting it until it's satisfactory and smear it on a tuna burger. Nothin' fancy!
:) Enjoy!

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Daring Cook's June Challenge: Yogurt

Yogurt is not one of those things that I've really desired to make "home-made"

It sounds...almost unnecessary. I've felt the same way with cheese. I know it's probably cheaper and just all-in-all better, but it's scary, foreign territory to me. Working with bacteria and the like just didn't seem to be my forte.

I'm still not 100% convinced that the effort is worth the outcome. I'm sure with a little practice, the effort would become less...intense. So I've decided that I'll likely try it again.

Because I get it. We're all control freaks a little bit and we want to put what we want in our yogurt and nothing else and we want it to be just the right amount of tangy, or runny, or whatever it is. I get it. We like control. So we make our own yogurt!

Well, maybe I need to take a deep breath and be ok when the yogurt bacteria start doing what they want and don't ask me what I want. So my yogurt turned out...not very tangy...and a little bit runny...and different than what I wanted.

But hey, I did it for the experience, not the control....right?? Maybe.

After I got over my slight disappointment, I started actually enjoying the yogurt (maybe I don't even know what's best!).

I'll be honest, I'm sad, because I ate it all. And I'm scared to make it again because I don't want the whole process to flop!

I need to let it go. Stop fearing failure, and cook me up another batch of this homemade yogurt. Because I've decided...it's good, and I'd gladly have some more hanging around in the fridge.


This excellent challenge came from Cher at http://crazyworldofcher.blogspot.com

Traditional Milk Yogurt

Servings: 4-6 servings
Adapted from “Cuisine at Home” June 2011

Ingredients
One quart (4 cups) (1 litre)whole milk
¼ cup (60 ml) (18 gm) (2/3 oz) non-fat dry (powdered) milk (optional, but recommended) (may substitute other thickening agent as noted above)
Sweetener (optional – 1 tablespoon (15 ml) of agave nectar, honey or sugar)
¼ cup (60 ml)(60 gm) (2 oz) plain yogurt or 1 packet of yogurt starter or other starter
Directions:
1. In the bowl of a double boiler* (or in a microwave-safe bowl), stir together the milk, powdered milk and sweetener (if using).
2. Place the bowl over the simmering water (medium heat) and heat until the mixture reaches 185°F/85°C. Be sure to stir frequently during this time. You can also opt to microwave the mixture until it reaches the desired temperature, but I have found that the double boiler method seems to produce the best results for me when making a milk-based yogurt.
3. While your milk is heating, prepare an ice bath. (I place ~4 cups of ice and 2-4 cups of water in a large bowl – the goal is to cool down the heated mixture as quickly as possible).
4. Once the mixture reaches 185°F/85°C, remove the bowl from heat and place in the ice bath. Stir constantly until the temperature of the liquid drops to ~115°F/46°C.
5. When the liquid cools to 110°F/43°C, stir in the starter. (If you are using a freeze-dried culture or pro-biotic capsules, make sure the liquid has cooled to the temperature recommended for that particular culture).
6. Ladle the yogurt mixture into ½ pint (235 ml) glass jars (should be ~5-6 jars depending on how full you fill them), secure the cover and place into your incubator. (If you are using a large glass bowl or some other vessel, cover the bowl securely with plastic wrap and proceed as below).
7. Incubate the yogurt for about 5-10 hours. Longer incubating times will result in a tangier yogurt. The optimal incubating temperature is ~122°F/50°C for yogurt starters (if you are using a freeze-dried starter or pro-biotic capsules, follow the recommended temperatures for those starters). Ideally, you want to keep the temperature as close to that as possible for the incubating period. Realizing that may not be possible – I try to target keeping the mixture between 115°F and 125°F (46°C to 51°C).
8. Once the yogurt is done incubating, carefully transfer the containers to the refrigerator and chill for at least 8 hours. This step helps to thicken the yogurt and lulls those ravenous friendly bacteria back to their sluggish state.
9. After the cooling period, the yogurt is ready to be enjoyed.
*If you do not have a double boiler, you can use a large heat safe (i.e. glass or metal) bowl that will nestle on top of a pan of simmering water. You don’t want the bottom of the bowl to touch the water.More detailed instructions can be found here.


Monday, July 8, 2013

Overnight Lasagna Oats

I'm a pretty prideful person. It's a terrible thing. My pride invades every aspect of my life. My conversations, my attitude, my relationships, and even my cooking. So sometimes I think I'm an such an awesome cook and whatever I make will turn out just how I want it to. But I pretty sure that's the case for anyone...getting it right every single time?

I mean, God has really blessed me with a lot of small talents. I'm no rockstar at any one thing, but He's given me the ability to be pretty good at many different things. (Often, I think I'd rather be really great at one thing and be terrible at everything else, but that would probably not be awesome all the time either.)

So I need to be grateful for what I've been given, while not getting cocky about it. Life is a balance. On our own, all we can do is swing back and forth between two bad lifestyles.

For example: cocky or insecure. And sometimes we manage to be both cocky and insecure! It's crazy what terrible things we can come up with on our own. Thankfully, Jesus can help us balance. With Him, at least once and a while (or hopefully more often) I can be humble and grateful. And that's something I'm thankful for!

I don't post my mistakes...most of the time. I mean, sometimes I do cook something that is super tasty.

This one may sound like it, but no--this one was NOT a failure. It was deliciousness. In a bowl.


Overnight Lasagna Oats

For one serving:
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
milk/water (enough to cover the oats)
baby spinach
1-2 tbs ricotta
2-3 tbs pasta/marinara sauce
pepper
sprinkle of parmesan 
*optional: basil, precooked chicken or beef, or whatever else you put in your lasagna!

Some of these ingredients don't have amounts. It's basically up to what sounds good to you. I layered all of these things in the order that they are listed into a microwave dish and then left it in the fridge overnight. You could have it cold the next day (if you're into the cold lasagna flavor) or you could warm it up in the microwave for about a minute, like I did!

Note:
I didn't stir it together at allso it maintained a more lasagna-like feel, but I'm sure it'd be good mixed up too--and it would probably cook more evenly.

Friday, July 5, 2013

White Chocolate Raspberry Pasta

Well I didn't mean to make homemade pasta. Originally I was trying to make...something else. But alas, it turned out pasta-like and I had some scraps and decided to boil them up.

It turned out pretty good! Accidental outcomes are fun.





So this pasta is...REALLY basic. Like, so easy, so simple. If you have access to flour and water, you can make it. So, that's a plus. Of course, that makes it less exciting (taste-wise). Except that it's homemade pasta. And maybe you're really not in the mood to go to the grocery store today (or you've already been a couple times!) and you just really want pasta. No fear, this pasta is ready in about 40 minutes. Most of that isn't even hard work.

It may not be necessary to take every step I did, because I was making the dough for something else. But I'm going to describe it how I did it.

This would serve 1 as a main dish, and perhaps 2 as a side (or a dessert as I made it)

White Chocolate Raspberry Pasta

Pasta:
1/3 c. flour
2-3 tbs of water
*optional: pinch of salt

Topping:
white chocolate chips (avoid the trans-fatty ones! I like Ghirardelli)
raspberries, fresh or frozen (thawed if frozen)

Combine flour and water until it forms a dough. Then cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 20-30 minutes.

Bring water to a boil in a medium saucepan.

After dough has rested, roll dough on a floured surface. It should be really thin in order for it to cook quickly!! There are lots of methods for cutting it, but I just sliced it with a nice big knife. (I've seen some fancy folding methods which look nice, but I didn't care if mine was a consistent size.)

Then throw the pasta in the boiling water and watch in fascination if you've never made homemade pasta before. Cook for about 5 minutes (or just taste-test them periodically as I did).

Strain pasta and top with white chocolate chips and raspberries. Enjoy!

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Cookies and Cream Barley Pudding

I just wanted simple vanilla barley pudding. That's how it started.

I wanted to use up the barley I had cooked the day before. 

So I made some pudding. But it wasn't my intention to throw an "oreo" cookie into the mix. It just kind of...jumped in there when the vanilla didn't quite give it the flavor I was going for. So here it is: 

Uninvited, but certainly not unwelcome.

Cookies and Cream Barley Pudding

Ingredients for 1 serving:
1/2 c. cooked barley
~1/3 c. almond milk (enough to cover barley)
2 tbs cornstarch
1/4 tsp coconut oil
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 crumbled oreo-type cookie (or 2!)

Combine barley and milk in a saucepan and heat thoroughly. Once it is warm, stir in cornstarch and coconut oil. Let simmer/cook until it reaches desired thickness (I simmered it for about 10 minutes). Once at desired thickness, remove from heat and add vanilla and crushed cookie pieces. Let it set for 5 minutes then serve it up or chill it to enjoy it cold!


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