Yogurt making from chef Ryann

In the 5025 Corbett test kitchen this week a second try at making homemade yogurt was attempted. (I have dreams that someday, maybe in my retirement years, I will work in the Bon Appetit kitchen as a recipe tester.) My first attempt involved almond milk and a sub par incubator for the fermentation process. There were a lot of steps with this technique that were questionable. Like using a crockpot for the incubation phase or using almond milk in place of cow's milk, what was I thinking? The crockpot method didn't work for me because my crockpot cools pretty fast so the milk sat basically at room temperature overnight, rather than at a balmy 115 degrees like it should have. This explains why the result was just as the starting product, regular almond milk. Nope, it never set or got thick and creamy like yogurt should be because of the lack of heat. The fact that it was almond milk rather than cow's milk may have also contributed to this failure. But I read reviews where others had success with almond milk...they must be lying...

Anyway, the second attempt was magic. I woke up like it was Christmas morning ready to open my incubator to see what gifts I'd been given. Let me back up a few hours first though (ohhh the suspense). I did more research after my first failure to find other methods for yogurt making (it was an obvious place to start since my first flop failure). I found some very interesting facts about milk. Did you know that if milk is heated to 185 degrees, or just below boiling, it reduces the risk of bacterial growth? This is so important because of the long incubation phase needed to set the yogurt. I also learned that when milk is kept at a constant warm temperature (about 115 degrees) for 8-24 hours the live cultures you add will break down the lactose (the milk sugars). The milk sugar breakdown is what lactose intolerant people are unable to do, thus it causes all kinds of unpleasant GI symptoms. However if the live cultures break down the sugars for you during incubation then all people including the lactose intolerant can enjoy homemade cow milk yogurt. I know, it's wild. It's science! It's mmmmmmagic. 

I better explain all the tools and ingredients needed for this as I have already mentioned some. Obviously you need cow milk (whole, reduced fat or non fat). You'll need about a half cup of organic yogurt that has live cultures in it. It can be plain or flavored as long as it has live cultures. A double broiler, or make shift one, and a cooking thermometer are also needed. Last, a camping or mini picnicking cooler is needed for incubation.

The Process: 

Prepare the incubator: find your cooler and dust it off. Put a towel on the bottom of it. Set the cooler aside to use later.  

Prepare your tools: You can sterilize the thermometer and measuring cup in the boiling water you'll need for the next step. Sterilizing also helps to reduce bacterial growth. 

Heat the milk: heat a 1/2 gallon of milk in a double broiler to at least 185 degrees, make sure to keep under 200 degrees. Stir the milk while it's heating so it heats evenly and doesn't burn on the bottom. 

Cool the milk: Remove milk from the heat and let it cool in the pot to about 115 degrees. It takes about 20 minutes to cool on the counter. You can speed this up by placing the pot into a cold water bath, but be careful not to let any water get into the milk pot. Use your thermometer to check the temps.

Add the cultures: Once cooled to 115 degrees, add the 1/2 cup of store bought yogurt and mix well. 

Get ready for the incubator: Pour the milk from the pot into two large mason jars and close with lids. Find two other mason jars, fill them with boiling water, and close with lids. Put all four jars in the mini cooler on top of the towel and pull the sides of the towel up over the jars to cover so the jars are wrapped up to trap the heat. Close the lid of the cooler and let it sit for at least 8 hours, or longer. I've heard the longer you let it incubate the thicker it will become.

Below are two websites that also have a recipe and tips for reference. Check them out. It seems there are a lot of ways to do this, but find what works for you.

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/09/diy-homemade-greek-yogurt-recipe.html?ref=search

http://lifewithlampnsofa.com/2012/05/12/homemade-vanilla-yogurt/

almond joy cookies

Should I be a butcher? A baker? Or a candlestick maker? Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub.

I often don't recognize that I am the exception and not the rule with my kitchen creation crazes. I am delighted to spend all my free time standing above the black and white tiles, hovering over the counter tops and floating back and forth in my 10 x 2 foot kitchen space to access ingredients, bowls, utensils, or the oven/stove/microwave appliances. It never seems lonely, although I am almost always alone. Nor is it boring or quiet as thoughts and ideas are racing like a endorphin high athlete in my head. I had for a while starting putting on a Radiolab episodes while I cook, but realized that I would completely zone out and not listen to the witty banter between Jad and Robert. So instead of feeling bad about the lack of company or missed opportunities to learn about sciencey things in my free time, I started to appreciate my thoughts and creativity. I realized that I am expanding my mind in others ways. But when I start expanding my belly too this kitchen craze may need to be halted.
So, I woke up Sunday morning and wanted to make a treat before I went to work. I wanted to use the shredded coconut I bought weeks ago.  I thought about the other ingredients I had and decided to try a 'almond joy graham cracker cookie.' I made a basic cookie dough, except used flax meal in the place of an egg, and added chocolate chips and the shredded coconut to the batter. I also had some graham crackers left over from my sister's visit and crumbled a few sheets in the dough in attempt to add a honey graham flavor. The dough was wonderful! Plus, I could eat as much as I wanted because it didn't have raw egg in it! Not that the raw egg factor has ever gotten between me and the dough, I always eat the dough, but there are some that worry about this. Just think, if Gaston from beauty and the Beast can pop all those raw eggs why can't I? And if my parents let me do it as a kid, why not continue the habit with a healthier and stronger body. Seriously, I ask. Ponder it. Will you be a great parent and let your kids eat the dough? Keep in mind it's something kids remember FOR EV ER!

Coconut and chocolate chips, 
oh my!

To continue on, I didn't bake the cookies after stirring up the dough because I honestly have been enjoying the dough balls more than the baked cookies. I always end up telling Scott that once they are baked I don't like it anymore. I have baker bias. The flavors are just different after they come out of the oven, probably a combination of being drier and not as sweet. But this time I did a tester bake batch and only put a few dough balls in the oven. Just as expected, I was disappointed with the baked cookie. The graham cracker crumbs made the baked cookie turn out a little more stiff than normal, whereas the graham crumbs in the dough created little crunchy pockets of goodness. I'm pretty happy that I had the foresight to not put all my eggs in one basket, or all my cookies on one sheet. Real life lessons learned about real insignificant problems. Who needs Radiolab? (I still do.)

They're baked

    

DIY: Roasting coffee beans

A few weeks ago I played in a trampoline dodge ball tournament. It was awesome as you can imagine with soft rubber balls flying, nailing people in the head, back, stomach, legs..all body parts counted. On top of the traditional dodge ball shenanigans, imagine a huge netted bouncy trampoline that could easily hold over 2 dozen people. It's every kid's (and adult's-let's be real) dream come true.

 Jump, throw, duck, laugh, cry... play ball!

After we took second place in the tourney and scored a case of beer, a small group of us went to a local pub and sat around a cozy outdoor fire pit. Two of my teammates had recently started roasting their own coffee beans and were talking about how easy it was. They were telling us that the unroasted beans ('the 'green beans'), are easy to buy and can be roasted in the oven on a cookie sheet for 15 minutes. The lack of bitterness was the major difference between home roasting and store bought roasted beans, oh duh and the freshness of roasting and grinding your own beans only as you need them. They roast once a week and freshly grind each morning for a delicious cup o joe. 

Below is a picture of the 'green beans,' simply meaning they are unroasted. As you see we roasted ours in a cast iron skillet, rather than in the oven on a cookie sheet. Unless you have a convection oven, your beans are at high risk for burning on the bottom and thus not roasting evenly. With the cast iron or "frying pan" method, you just need a skillet on medium to low heat. No oil or anything else needed but beans. In order to prevent burning and to ensure an evenly roasted bean, we stirred constantly stirred the beans around the pan. It only took about 10 minutes until they were dark in color (almost black), much like you would find whole beans at the store. They crack and pop and smell  when they are roasting; it's a fun process and again sooo easy. It is definitely well worth every extra step step in comparison to buying already roasted whole beans or buying ground coffee. Plus, as if you need another reason, plus the green beans that we bought were only $6.50 a pound! 

When life presents green beans, make em black and drink up! 

Wanted: Cream of tartar

Today I tried to make cookies to take to work to share with my coworkers. I had a recipe for a "skinny lemon poppy seed cookie" that I was excited to try. I only recently started to like the flavor of lemony sweets, but still cannot even think of eating lemon meringue pie, yuck. My grandma is said to make a delicious pie and family members even request she make it for family parties. But still, I want nothing to do with that lemon treat. But the cookies I decided to try. 
I have had this bag of poppy seeds for well over a few months, dare I say years even. It was time to use them, and with my new found like for lemon it seemed like a winning idea to make lemon poppy seed cookies. I found a lightened up recipe and set up my stuff in the kitchen with a fresh cup of coffee. The one ingredient that I didn't have was cream of tartar, but after researching I thought I could  just substitute it by adding more baking powder. Spoiler alert: it turns out that there is no good substitute for the tartar. If you don't have it, don't fake it. My cookies turned out flat, yes actually flatter than a pancake and so sad looking. However, the batter was so delicious that I will probably try to make them again and actually harness the magical powers of the tartar. 
I also added crushed rosemary to the batter and will absolutely do it again the second time around. So instead of bringing my fun coworkers fresh baked cookies I just left them on the pan, flattening in the center even more like a cooling cake. Before I left for work though I peeled a cookie off the aluminum foil and tasted it and would have loved if it was fluffy. Better luck to myself next time. 
My ingredients from most to least amounts added include:
corn flour (b/c this was what I had on hand), sugar, butter, flax seed meal, water, poppy seeds  baking powder, salt, lemon juice and zest, and rosemary. 

This is my Grandma, she's the
queen of baking!

This is what they were supposed to look
like from the original blog :) 

But this is what they turned out like
without having the tartar...

Look how flat and depressing  

Spaghetti squash pasta with walnut pesto

I've been having a lot of scrumptious girls nights recently; it is a standing Thursday date night for us all. And I say scrumptious because most of these nights are centered around cooking together, eating good, drinking wine and having great conversations. Plus there has been some really amazing cheeses too, and I'm not usually too big into cheese since I'm lactose intolerant. But we're talking about a soft triple cream with a hint of lemon, how could I resist?!
Anyway a few weeks ago I made a walnut pesto in my adorable yellow food processor. The pesto mostly included the walnuts, fresh basil, fresh parsley, artichokes, garlic and lemon. The plan was to put it on roasted spaghetti squash. When cooked the squash can be scooped out of the rind and is stringy like pasta. I added sauteed peas and onions and rewarmed the squash with the pesto mixed in. The flavor was pretty dull and needed a lot of fixing, so we added other herbs and spices that we found in our friend's kitchen. Unfortunately there was not a lot of extras to choose from, but overall all the girls seemed to be happy with the dish. We also had sauteed garlic and shallot chicken breasts, a red quinoa broccoli rabe dish, and a huge green salad to go with the pesto-ed spaghetti squash (and the mentioned OMG cheeses as an appetizer).
I had roasted such a big squash and had made so much pesto that I took home half of what we made. At home I have a fully stocked kitchen with all kinds of herbs, spices, hot sauces, and extra veggies to saute and add, so that is exactly what I did. I added red bell pepper and more onion and a little braggs amino acids to put the BAM in it....BAM! Fortunately for me the revised version of the squash was so much better and more flavorful than when eaten with the other girls. It is unfortunate for them however, but I also know that my palate requires an intense abundance of flavor to be satisfied so maybe they were just as happy with version 1 as I was with version 2. After all they still allow me to cook for them and say I'm a good cook so that says something.

Here is my dinner plate
Bon Appetit!

The recipe for the lemon artichoke walnut pesto and squash was adapted from a recipe on a blog called "paleomg." You may have already guessed, but the woman writing this blog is following the recently trendy Paleo lifestyle.  The link is below.

http://paleomg.com/artichoke-lemon-pesto-chicken-pasta/

Friends fish tacos with crema and slaw

Another great weekend has come and gone, and it was another fabulous time to try try out new recipes with friends. The original plan was to get fresh fish from Pikes Place Fish Market in Seattle, since we were already downtown at the music museum. However, traffic, parking, and crowd really got the best of us and we just winged it with a frozen cod filet. So we never made it to the market, but we did find the energy to put together a  menu including smoked paprika cod, cilantro-lime crema,  and a cilantro- jalapeno cabbage slaw. Each dish had flavors that complimented each other. The smokiness of the fish was evened out by the sweet and vinegary slaw and the tangy plain yogurt crema. We juggled between several different recipes and just used what we liked, as any good chef will do right? Below are the basic ingredients we used for each dish.
Fish spice rub ingredients: cumin, coriander, paprika, salt and garlic powder.
Cabbage slaw ingredients: green cabbage, green onion, red onion, shredded carrot, rice vinegar, white sugar, dried garlic, salt, pepper, jalapeno, cilantro.
Cilantro lime cream sauce ingredients: plain greek yogurt, cilantro, lime juice and zest, salt, garlic clove, green onions, jalapeno.

Hanging guitars at the music museum

This is Pikes Place Market, but we did not make time to go

I tricked ya "rice"

It was Friday night, a perfect night for a low key dinner party with friends. I mean what else is there to do in Portland than to eat delicious food, drink wine and watch multiple episodes of "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia?" Did I mention it was just Friday, a day when nothing in this city is going on.....noooo, I don't feel guilty about staying in and snuggling up on the couch with my homies. Okay, what I feel most guilty about is letting netflix do all the work by auto-playing the next episode of a great TV series. Boom! one right after the other they play without ever lifting a finger to make it happen. Modern technology is the reason why we watched so many episodes, immobilized on the couch. But we had fun and laughed together, that's what matters.

Samantha and I set the dinner menu for the night, which included pan-seared rosemary dijon garlic chicken, a sauteed onion cauliflower "rice," and a big spring salad. The dessert menu (of course us ladies need dessert) was an apple, raspberry, blackberry fruit crisp with a chai glaze drizzle. You should be drooling because yeah it was pretty deeeelish. Us ladies (with powered noses and pantyhose...) even had a second helping. 

Had we not scarfed it all down, I could have taken and uploaded pictures. But we did, and so I can't share. There's always next time since I will be making the "rice" again for sure. See the trick to the rice (the 'I tricked ya rice') is that it is all made from cauliflower! You heard right, cauliflower. When you chop up raw cauliflower and pulse it in a food processor it has a similar appearance as rice. Trick or treat....I'd say a definite treat! And now think about adding the raw cauliflower chunks to seasoned and sauteed onions and garlic, cook for a few more minutes and you have a heavenly dish right in your own kitchen. Basically that's all there is to it. You start by sauteing onions with any spices you want and while that's cooking you can gently pulse the raw cauliflower. Add the cauliflower to the cooked onions, cook a few more minutes, add more spices if you want or a little broth to moisten and it's done. I bet peas and carrots would be a great addition to for a little more texture. Even toasted nuts for a crunch, I'm such a texture seeker. 

Our ingredients: cauliflower, onions, olive oil, garlic, vegetable broth, chicken seasoning, red pepper flakes, black pepper.

My inspiration and base recipe came for the 'rice' dish came from this link: 

http://www.kalynskitchen.com/2010/01/recipe-for-cauliflower-rice-with-fried.html