Winter Market

Posted on March 25, 2013 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

This past Saturday, a friend and I went to a Winter Market put on by Fulton Farmers Market (kind of a mouthful). It was housed in the greenhouses at Bachman’s in South Minneapolis. They had a great turnout. I think the combination of a sunny day and a city itching for spring had everyone eager to get out of the house and pick up some treats.

They had a mix of canned goods, meats, cheese, honey, jewelry, and crafts for sale. A couple of food vendors were there too if you needed a croissant for breakfast or falafel for lunch. I was really hoping there would be a little bit of early, fresh produce but it’s still just a little to early for that. Stupid snow.

I picked up some fresh Feta (from Singing Hills Dairy) for sprinkling over salads this week and some Raspberry Pepper Jelly (from Hazelwood Creek Farms) that I might eat with some cream cheese and crackers later this week. Yum!

Homemade Mozzarella

Posted on March 11, 2013 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

Back when I made my kitchen project list in January, I talked about how excited I was about trying homemade cheese. Well, Sunday afternoon I finally got around to picking up a cheese making kit for some mozzarella. I picked up my kit at Midwest Supplies. We went there for the first time a few weeks ago for The Hubs to pick up some beer brewing items. Their focus is definitely more around brewing and winemaking but they also have supplies for mead, hot sauce, coffee and of course cheese. The kit had all the basics I needed to get started, the only thing I had to supply myself was a gallon of whole milk and some chlorine free bottled water.

To get started I crushed up half a tablet of rennet into 1/4 cup of water and set it aside (the kit came with enough rennet to make 19 more batches after this!).

Next, I poured the full gallon of milk into our non-stick stock pot, sprinkled it with 2 tsp. of citric acid and put it on medium heat.

It started to curdle almost immediately, then all I had to do was wait for the temperature to reach 88 degrees.

You can sort of see the mini curds of milk forming on the thermometer.

With the milk at temperature, I added in the 1/4 cup and rennet into the curdled milk and gave it a quick stir.

The curds separated from the whey almost immediately. I’ll be honest, the way it looked kind of grossed me out. Moving on.

I now had to wait for the temperature to reach 105 degrees, it kept separating forming larger curds as it warmed up.

Once it hit temperature, I used my new skimmer to pull all of the curds out of the whey into a glass bowl.

There was still quite a bit of whey in the bowl, so I did my best to pour off some of it from the bowl.

From there I popped it in the microwave for about a minute to keep separating the whey and make the curds more malleable.

I put the bowl back in for a couple rounds at 30 seconds each, working and separating the whey as I went. It started to look more and more like real mozzarella.

It reached a real stretchy, taffy like consistency, but it was still tearing a little bit at the edges. My instructions said if it was still tearing at this point to put it back in the microwave for 15-20 seconds, so I did.

I shouldn’t have. Instead of being pliable and shiny per the instructions it started to tear more and got rubbery.

At this point, I was ready to give up. I was cursing myself for not stopping earlier. Then The Hubs had a brilliant idea, pouring hot water over it. We’d seen mozzarella being made on TV a few weeks ago, they kept the stretchy cheese under water and shaped it that way. So we boiled a tea pot of water up and poured it over the rubberized cheese and I crossed my fingers. It worked!

With the cheese being workable again, we were able to split it out into two containers. One, just one large ball of cheese and the second, a few smaller balls.

We tried melting them over some pasta and marinara sauce for dinner tonight. It turned out ok, it was a little firm and didn’t melt very well but the taste was good overall. I think the process of re melting and then re working the cheese is was created the firmer texture.

I’m definitely going to keep working on perfecting mozzarella making. I want to learn more about what exactly the citric acid and the rennet are there for, but mostly I keep thinking how great it would be to whip up a batch of fresh cheese to eat with our fresh tomatoes and basil this summer.

Winter Project List

Posted on December 3, 2012 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

It’s December 3rd and, despite the fact that there isn’t any snow on the ground, the garden is all tucked in for the winter. Usually, when this happens I sort of stop thinking about projects to do and start stocking up on holiday treats. This year I’ve decided to change that. I’m going to try and get some projects underway for the long cold weekends we’re starting to have.

First on the list is basic organization. I would absolutely LOVE to open my cupboard doors and have them look like this. Realistically, I’ll settle for getting rid of old soup mixes stuck in back corners of top cupboards and figuring out what sort of thing we’d actually use and want to have on hand.

Image: Home Shopping Spy

Other organizing ideas, are to make freezing and canning easier for next spring and summer. Blank labels for freezing and canning as well stocking up on enough storage containers will keep any last minute runs to the store to a minimum.

Image: marthastewart.com

In a perfect world, I’d get to add in an extra piece of counter with a couple of cupboard/drawers similar to the photo below. Like I said, in a perfect world.

Images: Chris Perez, from theKitchn.com

Aside from organizing, I want to get some non-seasonal food stored. First up would be pasta. Easily the most bought and used dry good in the house. I’m also going to look for some other dry goods that would be easy to make and store, like crackers or other snack foods.

image: Copyright Paula Jones with bellalimento

But most importantly I want to learn how to make CHEESE!!!

Images: Emma Christensen, TheKitchn.com

Lastly, I’m wondering about entrees I can make and freeze, like this pizza. We’ve had so many busy weekends without time to grocery shop, stuff like this would have really come in handy.

Image: America’s Test Kitchen

I’ll keep you posted on any updates to the list. I think starting with the organization will make the rest easier and, to be honest, get the worst of it out of the way first!

**just a note, I didn’t intend this to be a post about how many projects you can find at TheKitchn.com but I couldn’t help it, they’ve got some good ideas

So Long April

Posted on April 30, 2012 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

Hi All,
I hope you’re having a good start to your week! I have a bit of catching up to do with you.

I went back to the farmer’s market and picked up more asparagus, morel mushrooms, radishes, rosemary and wisconsin cheddar cheese. It was a good haul and the number of vendors easily doubled from the last time I was there. I’m going to freeze more of the asparagus and keep some fresh for dinner tomorrow too. I’m undecided with the rest of the haul. Do I make another pasta dish with the mushrooms? Radishes in a salad? Or dipped in vodka and salt like I had at my photography class? Do I eat the block of cheese all in one sitting or shred it over tacos or burgers. Decisions, decisions….

All day Sunday the Hubs and I worked in the yard. I’m talking 6-7 hours of work. We planted almost all of the herb garden. The final piece will be some mint plants and one more rosemary to finish it out.

The container veggies are also all planted and ready to grow. 2 potatoes, 2 onions, and 2 carrots. Don’t they look exciting right now?

We also transplanted our teeny, tiny tomato seedlings into some larger pots to get them better established before we put them in the larger garden. They’re looking pretty spindly, I’m hoping their new homes will encourage them to pick up the pace a bit.

The largest chunk of our day was spent doing a combo of mowing, picking up sticks, picking up dog presents, weeding and re-seeding the lawn. We’ve got a lot of watering to do over the next few weeks between the different gardens and lawn. We’ll keep our eyes on things and hopefully we’ll get some herb sprouts soon and some strong tomato plants.

I’ll be back tomorrow to fill you in on what I did with the eggs I bought last week. Time to start the sprinkler!

Morel Mushrooms 2 ways

Posted on April 26, 2012 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

I wanted to get as much milage as I could out of the morel mushrooms I picked up at the farmers market. I’ve never cooked with them before so I wanted to try a a couple of dishes one simple and one a bit more complicated.

Tuesday was fast and simple, just sautéing them in butter:) Topping off a steak right of the grill with buttery mushrooms was a perfect way to elevate a regular Tuesday dinner a bit with minimal effort.

Wednesday took a little more time and effort. I made Wild Mushroom and Farro Risotto using the recipe from Spoon Fork Bacon. It also gave me a chance to try cooking with farro, a whole grain that is similar to rice in preparation but just a touch on the healthier side. I followed their recipe pretty much to the T. We used dried porcini mushrooms in place of chanterelle just based on what was available at the Co-ops.

While the mushrooms were re-hydrating, I started the chicken broth simmering on the stove.

Then jumped into the onions and garlic.

When the onions were translucent, I added in the farro to start toasting.

After about 5 minutes I added the wine, super steamy goodness

When it was almost all evaporated, I started adding in the chicken broth a ladle full at a time as it absorbed and cooked. Like cooking any other risotto it took a bit of time for each addition to absorb and cook off . I’ll spare you the pictures of each addition of broth.

After the last of the broth had been added and cooked for a bit, I started tasting for doneness. When still had a little bite too it, per the recipe, I added in the mascarpone and Parmesan cheese and stirred until it had melted and been mixed in completely.

With the farro done, I turned back to the mushrooms. I drained them and then sauteed them in olive oil before adding them into the cheesey farro.

We topped our bowls off with a bit more Parmesan and dug in. It was so creamy and delicious! The recipe said it would make 3-5 servings and we just about polished it all off before we got too full. I was pretty pleased with how the two dishes turned out and really glad I got to try cooking with a couple of new things this week. It makes me look forward to heading back out this weekend to see if there’s anything else new for me to try.

Food Photography 101- Class 2

Posted on February 6, 2012 by heidi@mmmMinneapolis

I had my second session of Food Photography yesterday at Kitchen in the Market. The class theme was ‘Food for Lovers’, in line for Valentine’s Day. The class was great but I think I did more eating than picture taking and I’m OK with that. I also got the chance to get behind the counter and make some chocolate fondue sauce. It was a pretty straight forward recipe but cooking for such a large group made me nervous. I was glad that it turned out as well as it did.

First course- Brie, honey, apples and a harder cheese with cumin ( forgot to find out exactly what it was)

Second course- Raw oysters on the half shell (skipped this one- not a fan of seafood)

Third course-

Salad with fried oysters (I gave this one a try, oysters weren’t to bad after all)

Fourth course- Cheese fondue with plenty of dipping options

Dessert!- Chocolate fondue with marshmallows, strawberries and pound cake. It was really hard to know when to stop:)

This class has been a lot of fun, I really enjoy being able to get a little bit of cooking in while I’m there. The next class is going to focus a little bit more on the actually styling of food and it sounds like I’ll need to wear sweatpants. We’re having sangria, paella and tapas! Can’t wait!

P.S. I’m going to post some more photos from my class to the mmmMinneapolis facebook page during the week this week. Stop by and check it out!

mmmMinneapolis

Tag Archives: Cheese