Grist

Salmon tikka on naan with raita. Gotta love Jamie Oliver.

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:58:30 -0400

Salmon tikka on naan with raita. Gotta love Jamie Oliver.

Homemade raita is the easiest thing in the world and one of the...

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 07:44:24 -0400

Homemade raita is the easiest thing in the world and one of the most delicious. With my homemade goat’s milk yogurt.

Naan, first attempt. Taste was good, texture wasn’t there....

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 15:59:27 -0400

Naan, first attempt. Taste was good, texture wasn’t there. I cooked them on a pizza stone, which I think was smart—thinking more flour in the dough.

Pizza bar. Good for girl’s night, especially when...

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 08:00:27 -0400

Pizza bar. Good for girl’s night, especially when there’s anchovies, homemade ricotta, caramelized onions and truffle salt.

Cheesemaking takes a certain amount of rigging.

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 15:59:08 -0400

Cheesemaking takes a certain amount of rigging.

Homemade lemon curd. Easier than I thought, but more time...

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 07:54:24 -0400

Homemade lemon curd. Easier than I thought, but more time consuming.

Skinny eggs!

Sun, 02 Sep 2012 15:55:14 -0400

Skinny eggs!

Basil crop did great this year, even though most of the veggies...

Sun, 02 Sep 2012 07:56:03 -0400

Basil crop did great this year, even though most of the veggies tanked midway through the summer.

Grilled flatbread with haloumi, mint, pine nuts and chili.

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 22:26:23 -0400

Grilled flatbread with haloumi, mint, pine nuts and chili.

Did you miss me? This is what I made for dinner last night:...

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 09:44:53 -0400

Did you miss me? This is what I made for dinner last night: smoky corn chowder with shrimp, topped with bacon, tomato and basil.

Homemade paneer cheese. A week ago my small group was having...

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 15:51:38 -0400

Homemade paneer cheese.

A week ago my small group was having Indian food and so I decided it was the perfect opportunity to try out a recipe for paneer cheese. Turns out it’s very easy, and fairly similar to the process of making Ina Garten’s “ricotta.” The result is subtly flavored, extremely mild cheese that’s ideal for adding to an Indian curry or vegetable dish.

I’ve used raw milk here, but you don’t have to; you’re going to heat the milk to boiling anyway. This recipe generates a lot of whey, so I saved it and made ricotta. The result was a very small batch of ricotta, but at least I got more out of it.

Homemade Paneer
recipe originally from here

Ingredients

2 liters whole milk
3 T. lemon juice

Things you will need

2 heavy deep bottom pan
Cheesecloth
Wooden spoon to stir

Method

Heat the milk over medium. Let it come to a gentle boil and stay there for a minute. Make sure the milk is not vigorously boiling. If it does, reduce the heat and bring the milk back to gentle boil.

Add one tablespoon of juice and quickly stir it in. At this point, you will start to see small curdles in the milk but no whey. Add another tablespoon of juice and again stir it in. The curdles will increase and you will slowly begin to see the greenish whey. Add the last tablespoon of juice and with this, you should be able to see a clear greenish whey separating from the curdles. Turn off the heat at this point and continue to stir gently until the curdles are quite large.

Line a sieve or colander with two layers of cheesecloth. Gently spoon the curdles into the cloth, then run a little cold water over them to remove the lemon taste.

Tie up the cheesecloth in a tight bundle and let it drain for about 30 minutes, then place a weight on the cheese to get it to be flatter and drain out extra moisture. I did this by gently shaping the cheese into a disk, wrapping it with a layer of clean, thin kitchen towel and placing it on a board. I put a plate on top of the cheese and weighed it down with a can of beans. Allow to drain for approximately 1.5 hours, or until firm, but not crumbly.

This cheese will keep, well wrapped, for up to a week in the fridge, but it’s yummiest served right away.

Yields about 12 ounces of paneer

sp00nful: Truffles The Most Expensive Food in the World (12...

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 10:05:11 -0400

sp00nful:

Truffles The Most Expensive Food in the World (12 minute documentary video)

Interesting parts of the documentary:

Truffles are wild mushrooms from France or Italy (they are an underground fungus)

Pictured above, the world’s most expensive truffles sold at auction for $330,000

One NYC restaurant sells a $150 truffle burger

Chinese truffles are fake low-grade versions used in black markets to pass off as the real deal.

Only truffles from Italy and France are considered legitimate, but must be careful when visiting these countries because Chinese truffles are being mixed with authentic ones.

American law doesn’t require a distinction between varieties of truffles so labels on American sold truffle products maybe deceitful. Legally, if the truffles are packaged in France they can label them as “product of France” when in fact they maybe a Chinese truffle product.

Truffle black market trade is similar to drug trade, dangerous and mafia like.

Dogs are used to hunt for mushrooms

Kale-ginger juice.

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 07:55:49 -0400

Kale-ginger juice.

This is my favorite massaged kale salad. I make it with a...

Sun, 24 Jun 2012 15:59:15 -0400

This is my favorite massaged kale salad. I make it with a balsamic lime dressing.

Current shot of my garden.

Sat, 23 Jun 2012 08:07:04 -0400

Current shot of my garden.

"Cheap food is an illusion. There is no such thing. The real cost of the food is paid somewhere. If..."

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 17:01:18 -0400

““Cheap food is an illusion. There is no such thing. The real cost of the food is paid somewhere. If it’s not charged at the cash register, it’s charged to the environment, it’s charged to the people in the form of subsidies, or it’s charged to your health. In the end you get what you pay for.””

- (via siimplesays)

I accidentally set my alarm for an HOUR late last Monday....

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 15:53:01 -0400

I accidentally set my alarm for an HOUR late last Monday. Instead of rushing into work, I decided it would be worth the extra time to make myself something healthy before running out the door, so I juiced a beet, an apple, and entire bunch of chard and a knob of ginger.

Feeling like Ma Ingalls.

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 12:15:00 -0400

On Wednesday B texted and asked if I wanted a full-size, upright freezer for $50. Uh, yes, please. The guy he bought it from threw in a vintage refrigerator, too, which will either be nice for extra cold storage or make the coolest looking kegorator ever.

I’m really excited, because I thought canning and drying would be my only options for preserving summer’s harvest, and I’ve really never done either before. This way I can chop up veggies for stir fry and freeze them together, freeze extra batches of tomato sauce and sliced, seasonal fruit that I find on sale, not to mention I can make stock to my heart’s content: beef, chicken, veg, lamb, fish, etc. I like to have a ready supply of as many of those as possible on hand, but it’s hard with our smaller-than-standard fridge.

Also, I have a mental block about throwing things away in general, so my upstairs freezer is jammed with freezer bags full of celery tops, herb stems, leftover bones, lemon rinds, ends of bread loaves, beet greens, etc., that I save up until I need to make a batch of roasted lemon zest powder or vegetable stock, bone broth or breadcrumbs, etc., etc. In its current state it is an utter disaster; with this new freezer, I can actually buy plastic bins for all these things and (hallelujah) ORGANIZE them.

I feel so thrifty, just like Ma Ingalls. Also terribly uncool, but I’m really focusing on the high I’m getting from the thrifty thing.

My eggplants are doing really well this year, in spite of the...

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 16:01:03 -0400

My eggplants are doing really well this year, in spite of the aphids that are chewing their leaves into intricate lace patterns.

Chocolate cherry tomatoes from the garden. Yum.

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 10:58:00 -0400

Chocolate cherry tomatoes from the garden. Yum.