Little Stuff

I’ve been up to little stuff in the kitchen lately.  Last weekend I made cottage cheese based on a recipe from this site. It was pretty easy and made for some decent cottage cheese. I did visit some other sites for help and combined some methods, which I think was the right thing to do. For example, the recipe from the above site just said to add the vinegar. Um, just dump it in or what? Other places said to stir it so I did. I think I’ll do some further experimentation as I delve deeper into the world of cheese making.  I ate some  of the cottage cheese straight up and used some in a pasta sauce along with some spinach. Turned out well and was eaten by both myself and Test Subject Bill.

Today I made crumpets from the King Arthur Flour website. These things were AWESOME. Even better, they were easy. Now I know what to do with excess starter! All I did was take a cup of starter, throw in some salt, sugar and baking soda, cook ’em up and voila! Brew a cup of tea and you’re practically sitting in the Queen’s parlor. All I did was top mine with butter (although a plethora of toppings would have worked).  I highly recommend this recipe to anyone who has some starter laying around.

I’ve also been experimenting with my new ice cream maker for the last several weeks. I’ve made mint chip, premium vanilla bean and (today) strawberry.  I love this machine way too much. The ice cream is top of the line, and I’m judging based on GOOD ice cream, not crap. I will never buy ice cream again. I would have taken pics of all of them but SOMEBODY (Test Subject Bill) ate ALL the mint chip. If I get a chance tomorrow I’ll post a pic of the strawberry ice cream (a gift from God) after it has a chance to set up a little better. I usually don’t like to buy strawberries out of season because they tend to be hard, not sweet, generally just not good, but I desperately wanted to make this ice cream so I made an exception.  I guess with the added sugar it made up for what the fruit itself was lacking. I can’t wait to make this with real, good, in-season berries in a few months!