Chowder Head!

Hello fellow food passionistas.  I am hoping that everyone is well on this delightfully chilly weekend.  We missed our weekly farmers market but were able to stop at our little local healthy grocery store to get some provisions.  Oddly enough there were ears of corn which looked to be pretty good so we got some and today I tried my hand at a nice fresh corn chowder.  Since it is a milk based soup I used my slow cooker to avoid having the milk burn at the bottom of the pot.  For starters I have never tried corn chowder so this was a complete shot in the dark but as always it was a fun little adventure and of course turned into a great meal.  I consulted a couple of web recipes and came up with a hybrid recipe based on the ingredients that were available at home today.  


1-1/2 C skim milk
1 C heavy cream (if you want a flavorful and filling soup do it right- use the cream)
2 cubes of chicken stock*

3-5 ears of corn (de-cobbed)
1 cup baby carrots chopped small

2 celery stalks chopped small
1-2 shallots chopped small

1 Medium potato chopped small

Thyme (sprinkle lightly on top)

Kosher salt (to taste)

black pepper (to taste)


It was simple, put the milk and cream into the pot and chop everything up very small and add to the base.  Let it cook low and slow for 6 or more hours, stirring and tasting as the day wears on.  Many times people (including myself at times) will try their hand at a great soup recipe that they experienced while eating out but will substitute "diet" type foods (i.e. all skim milk instead of the cream) and wonder what happened to the flavor and texture of the recipe.  Flavorful food needs the correct ingredients, using a substitute will not get you to where you want to go.  I have been there, I have tried it and can tell you first hand you will end up with a product that is only partly half what you were aiming for.  Of course all good things should be enjoyed in moderation which is the balance I strive for continually. 


*For the chicken stock I made a batch of it previously and froze some in and ice cube tray so i had them at my disposal for cooking.  (I also did this with pesto, now I can have a fresh pesto dish on a moments notice!)

Bon Appetite!
~CM

BEST COFFEE EVER!!!

I mean it, I truly had the best cup of coffee that I have had this side of the Atlantic.  As with all things in life when it comes to something I feel strongly about I don't simply like it, I LOVE it, and obsess over it and look for which place makes it better and then still find ways to improve upon that.  As an additional engagement gift we were sent a "Brikka" coffee maker.  It is a little stove top deal that makes espresso style coffee.  

First I should premise this story by stating that New York is afraid of good coffee even if you pay through the nose for it they are just not willing to grind it fresh or do any of the steps that would make it worthy of the price tag they deem appropriate.  Therefore I always look forward to the weekend mornings when I have the time to fire up my little grinder and make MY coffee MY way.  

I digress, the Brikka, is a percolator and it took about 3 minutes flat to produce the black gold that I had the pleasure of drinking this morning.  As an additional and ingenious treat I used coconut milk instead of almond milk or cows milk and it really made it sweet and creamy.   I think the only change I would make is to have steamed the milk so it was warm but I just did not think about it this morning pre-coffee.  I know for next time thought:)


To all the coffee lovers out there, I recommend one of these contraptions if you do not have one already. (by the way it's from Target!)



Signing off
~CM

Stew in 30 minutes?

It sounds crazy but it is true, well almost!  We recently got a pressure cooker as an engagement gift and last night we took it for a test drive.  I have never thought that owning a pressure cooker would change my life, but it has and it will continue to do so the more I use it in delicious fooding adventures.  Our pressure cooker is a three in one digital machine.  It can steam, slow cook and pressure cook, it can also just keep something warm which is a nice feature.  


But I digress!  Last night about 5pm I decided that it was the perfect crispy fall day for stew.  So I was feeling a little kitchen creative and decided to reconstitute a vegetable soup that I made over the weekend into the stew broth, it turned out great but was a little too peppery.  I stopped off at the store for a little 2 pound roast and ran home to share my ideas with Mr. Mouse.  Of course he loved it.  So we seared the beef and cubed it, in the meantime I cut up three potatoes and 8oz. of baby bella mushrooms and tossed them into the pot with the soup/veg liquid, I would tell you how much except that I don't know, there is a line inside the pressure pot that says "max" and has a 2 next to it, maybe that means 2 quarts?  So anyway, we had everything in the pot and set the pressure cooker up as the booklet directed (knobs turned, gaskets affixed, lid locked and loaded etc.) and set the timer for 30 minutes GO!  Our little machine started to huff and puff a bit so we respectfully moved away.......then it stopped.....and the timer was not counting down.  Darnit what went wrong?  It turns out nothing, the pressure will build up then the timer will count down, when I thought about it later it made complete sense.


During the time the stew was stewing the kitchen smelled wonderful, it smelled beefy and brothy and rich.  Oh were we excited!  Then we heart it, "BEEP"......."BEEP"........"BEEP".......it was done.  Now what to do?  There are knobs to be dealt with, a lid to be sweet talked and MY DINNER IS INSIDE THIS MONSTROSITY!!!!!  So me being the very patient person that I am run over and immediately disregard the safety instructions I have just read and throw the knob from pressure to steam.  Wow was that a totally bad idea!  There was literally delicious smelling but sort of greasy beefy steam blowing straight up to the ceiling for what seemed like forever, I finally got a towel thrown over it to help with the mess I created, good lord was it impressive.


When we finally felt it was safe to take the lid off we ladled some stew into 2 mugs and gave it a try.  OH IT WAS SOOOOOOO GOOD!!!!!  The meat was tender, yet flavorful, they potatoes were soft and delicious, the broth was unbelievable (I had 2 cups it was so good!)  And all that in, well considering searing time and cutting of extra veg and oh, don't forget the pressure building time, I would say an hour tops!  This is something that I would normally slow cook and it would take hours.  I can't wait to see what other delicious delectables this will produce for us, so far it was great and we look forward to having a long and happy friendship with our pressure cooker.


Until next time
~A very pressurized CM

The great ice cream contest!

Yes, we did, we bought yet another kitchen toy.  Thank goodness that the biggest room in our apartment is the kitchen or I think we may be in a bit of trouble.  I am very adamant about multi-use appliances and do my best to purchase them whenever possible, our kitchen-aid mixer has the ability to add attachments to it, I wanted an ice cream machine.  It arrived and I popped the bowl into the freezer before I left for work.  Yesterday we had a free evening to begin our madness.  I decided to go with a frozen yogurt, made from home made yogurt I made over the weekend with fresh whole milk and cream.  Mr. Mouse went with a good old fashioned ice cream recipe using the same farm fresh milk but in 2%.  He also (sneaky guy) shredded fresh coconut and used a little bit of Nutella for flavoring.  He got the first spin in our new toy, it's a neat thing that ice cream maker and I must say his ice cream came out really delicious.


For my recipe I did a peach vanilla frozen yogurt.  Once the yogurt was strained I popped it into the freezer, I used 3 farm fresh peaches which were just perfectly ripe, 2 tsp of vanilla flavoring and about 1/8c of raw sugar.  I boiled it and pureed it with the hand blender to get everything to a consistent texture.  I then popped that into the freezer to cool down.  Once the ice cream bowl was sufficiently re-frozen I pulled all my frosty cold ingredients together and popped them into the mixer then just let it go slow and low for about 20 minutes.  I think thoroughly chilling everything really helped with keeping the bowl frozen and making my yogurt creamy.  It was delicious.  The next day we re-tasted recipes, Mr. Mouse graciously said that my recipe won, I think he as just being nice, they were both really good and easy to make.  The only thing I did not like about both of them was that they pretty much froze solid once in the freezer, instead of staying creamy, I need to do a little research on why that happened, all in all, I look forward to making all different flavors of home made ice cream, yogurt and sorbets!


Until then
~CM


p.s. Below is the recipe I started off with, then I altered it according to my preferences, I got it from the following web site: 
http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/a-frozen-yogurt-recipe-to-rival-pinkberrys-recipe.html


Vanilla Frozen Yogurt Recipe
Heidi notes: First off, remember it is important to use good-quality whole-milk yogurt. The version in David's book is Vanilla Frozen Yogurt. This time around I skipped out on the vanilla, opting for straight, bright white yogurt with the sweetness playing off the tang of the yogurt. I also used slightly less sugar than called for here, more like 2/3 cup - but you can go either way depending on what you like.

3 cups (720g) strained yogurt (see below) or Greek-style yogurt
3/4 cup (150g) sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)

Mix together the yogurt, sugar, and vanilla (if using). Stir until the sugar is completely dissolved. Refrigerate 1 hour.
Freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.
To make 1 cup (240g) of strained yogurt, line a mesh strainer with a few layers of cheese cloth. then scrape 16 ounces or 2 cups (480g) of plain whole-milk yogurt into the cheesecloth. Gather the ends and fold them over the yogurt, then refrigerate for at least 6 hours. So, for the above recipe start with and strain 6 cups of yogurt.
Makes about 1 quart.

Goatgurt?

I got a new yogurt machine this week.  It's a yolife machine which is great because I can make large batches of yogurt in mason jars or smaller ones in the little glass jars provided, there is one drawback, it does not have a timer so it will not shut off automatically.   As you may know I have recently become obsessed with Greek strained yogurt and I wanted to take it to the next level of making the yogurt with a goat milk and heavy cream mixture.  Goats milk has really great nutritional qualities, is naturally homogenized and is the closest milk to a mother's human milk that we can get.  
 My "goatgurt" failed - dare I say it was baaaaad,  but I have a couple of things working here and I am not sure which one of them it was that did not work.  First it's a new yogurt machine, I may have misjudged how long it would take to "yo" in a larger container (I used two 24oz mason jars each filled to the 2 cup mark) and I also did not bring the milk to a full boil and then back down to the temp the culture needs. I simply took it up to the temp the culture requires.  Well the end of the story is that the mixture never solidified after 14 hours and it did not have the yogurty smell that I am used to.  I took a little sip, it actually tasted really good so it was a little depressing that I had to dump it.


Today at the market we bought 2 pints of whole milk, it's not raw the great state of New York will not let us choose to purchase raw mile.  This milk is also not ultra pasteurized so the cream still rises to the top.  We tasted it and um it is really great and dare I say milky tasting, if you have had fresh milk form a happy cow lately you know exactly what I mean.  We are still on our search for raw milk but we will most likely have to go black market to get it, or buy a cow.......I somehow think our landlord will not be real happy with the second option.  With this milk I am going to take a second stab at a really good healthy yogurt on the new machine, if it's successful I will be trying the goat yogurt again and see if it's the actual milk or my new machine that is causing the difference.


As an aside, I recently had a fresh batch of yogurt which I strained.  I put fresh blue berries and maple syrup over......oh good god it was just delicious!  Move over honey - maple syrup may take over from here!!!!!


I will make the yogurt tonight and let it do it's thing.  More tomorrow on this little experiment.


Later
~CM