Red Quinoa and Lentil Pilaf with Cumin and Cauliflower

Spring is here! The ice is off the roads, so the moped returns! Thanks for the new carny crash helmet, Mom. It works. Though maybe this video is reason enough to get KP a matching brain bucket–or a side car. Minnesota T-shirt weather today—read, 40s.

This is a recipe I adapted from the vegan chef who used to cook for Michael Jackson. The original was just too raw and vegetable-y—not enough spice. I spruced up the recipe with the cauliflower addition, and I think it is now just right. Still very healthy, but with a little zing. Like a red flower on a red moped.

Red Quinoa and Lentil Pilaf with Cumin and Cauliflower

Inspired by (but much changed from) Food and Wine March 2012

1 cup French green lentils, rinsed

1 bay leaf

1 thyme sprig

1 garlic clove

1/4 onion

2 tablespoons coconut oil

1 shallot, minced

1 celery rib, minced

1 carrot, minced

1/2 cup red quinoa, rinsed

1 cup vegetable stock

Salt

Freshly ground pepper

1 pound cauliflower, coarsely grated

½ cup sunflower oil

1 tbsp cumin

2 tsp turmeric

2 tsp crushed red pepper

1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley

1/3 cup coarsely chopped Marcona almonds

Put the lentils in a medium saucepan and cover with cold water. Add the bay leaf, thyme sprig, garlic and onion and bring to a boil. Simmer over moderately low heat until the lentils are tender, about 18 minutes. Drain and discard the bay leaf, thyme, garlic and onion. Wipe out the pot.

Add 1 tablespoon of the coconut oil to the saucepan. Add the shallot, celery and carrot and cook over low heat until softened, about 8 minutes. Add the quinoa and cook, stirring, for about 2 minutes. Add the stock, season with salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Cover and cook over low heat until the grains are tender and plump and the liquid is absorbed, about 18 minutes. Cover and let stand for 5 minutes.

In a large nonstick skillet, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of coconut oil. In a small bowl, combine sunflower oil with cumin, turmeric, and the crushed red pepper. Drizzle over the cauliflower pieces and dump the oil and cauliflower mixture onto the hot skillet. Cook over moderately high heat until lightly browned in spots, about 5 minutes. In a large bowl, toss the lentils with the quinoa, cauliflower, parsley and almonds. Season with salt and pepper and serve hot or at room temperature.

“When health* is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot become manifest, strength cannot be exerted, intelligence cannot be applied, wealth is useless, and reason is powerless.” Herophilus

*Methinks one could substitute “sun” for health and the ancient Greek sentiment would ring just as true.

Real Bread for Real People

Reality is something I have always questioned. Highly suspect. My first hint to the semi-permeability of existence, I think, was when I first noticed that people could disappear. In some rooms of the world, people appear, my daily astonishment in Labor and Delivery—the constant blebbing of new people into the world from bournes in dark hallways; in other rooms, in other dark hallways, they disappear. Coming from and going to where? Grandma Priscilla disappeared when I was four—but her disappearance, I recall even then, seemed to me highly suspect. Same the day my favorite student was murdered in New Orleans. I still cannot let go because it doesn’t quite seem he has entirely departed.

My family medicine preceptor, a kindred spirit to be sure, showed me a marvelous piece of writing on the topic of the afterlife: Proof of Heaven written by neurosurgeon Eben Alexander who had a near death experience (note: I haven’t read the whole book, so do not necessarily consider this a recommendation. But these several passages stopped me in my tracks.) The author describes the sound of angel singing that he heard while brain dead in the hospital: The joy of these creatures was such that they had to make this noise…the sound was palpable and almost material, like a rain that you can feel on your skin but doesn’t get you wet.

I know this feeling—the right harmony has always caused the flesh on my forearms and stomach to tickle and goosebump like a chill from the best sickness there is–longing. He goes on to say: It seemed that you could not look at or listen to anything in this [other] world without becoming a part of it—without joining with it in some mysterious way… Everything was distinct, yet everything was also a part of everything else, like the rich and intermingled designs on a Persian carpet.

On his journey through this Other world, he met a woman, an Angel: She looked at me with a look that, if you saw it for five seconds, would make your whole life up to that point worth living, no matter what had happened in it so far. It was not a romantic look. It was not a look of friendship. It was a look that was somehow beyond all these, beyond all the different compartments of love we have down here on earth.

She did not speak but communicated to him these simple messages:

“You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever.”

“You have nothing to fear.”

Reading Alexander’s warm description of what he believes to be the afterlife, penned by a man who had previously believed that everything in the universe could be explained in cold science, I was struck by how strongly I recognized his representation, having never once nearly died myself.

I have known people, Real People, here on earth who have given me the look he attributes to the angel woman. I know what it is to have your skin crawl with the sound of beauty—to have the written word press upon my chest with its weight, among all the other synesthesias of fine art. And again and again, Real People enter my life from the most unexpected trajectories offering me these very same messages of love and peace—you have nothing to fear, Rachel. You are loved.

While I don’t doubt that there is much beyond the veneer of reality we clutch about ourselves like summer nightgowns, I also feel rather confident that the heaven Eben Alexander found is already sneaking its way into the world…because I don’t have to imagine it, or hallucinate it, or almost die to have the same inklings.

This one (or two) is for all the Real people out there I have been so blessed to meet, if for no other reason than that I might know a little heaven here on Earth.

Real Bread

Adapted from Bon Appétit

1/2 cup unsweetened multi-grain cereal (such as 7-grain—I use Bob’s Red Mill because it has oats, barley, triticale, flax seeds, rye, whole wheat berries..you know, the good stuff that tastes like real food.)
2 cups boiling water
1 cup sourdough starter
4 1/3 cups (about) bread flour (more than half with whole wheat)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons sesame seeds
2 teaspoons flax seeds
2 teaspoons poppy seeds

Place cereal in large bowl. Pour 2 cups boiling water over. Let stand until mixture cools to between 105°F. and 115°F for about 20 minutes.
Pour sourdough starter over cereal. Add 1 cup bread flour, oil, sugar and salt and stir until smooth. Gradually mix in enough remaining flour to form dough. Cover dough; let rest 15 minutes.
Turn out dough onto floured surface. Knead until smooth and elastic, adding more flour if sticky, about 10 minutes. Oil large bowl. Add dough to bowl; turn to coat. Cover bowl with clean kitchen towel. Let dough rise in warm area until doubled, about 1 hour.

Mix all seeds in bowl. Punch down dough. Turn out onto lightly oiled surface. Knead briefly. Shape into a round loaf, or two smaller boules. Sprinkle baking sheet with 2 teaspoons seeds. Place loaf atop seeds. Cover with towel. Let rise in warm area until almost doubled, about 30 minutes.
Position an oven rack in center and one just below center in oven. Place baking pan on lower rack and preheat oven to 425°F. Brush loaf with water. Sprinkle with remaining seed mixture. Using sharp knife, cut 3 diagonal slashes in surface of loaf. Place baking sheet with loaf in oven. Spray with water several times in the first ten minutes. Bake loaf until golden and crusty, about 35 minutes.

Here’s KP eating dinner in front of Izzy. I wanted to see what the world looked like from her reality—and, as it turns out, KP and I look almost exactly like angels from her standpoint. Just goes to show, you never know whose angel you might be.

Homemade Brownies

I couldn’t find the picture that goes with these incredible brownies, so I figured a photo of Izzy looking mischievious in a surgical cap would substitute well. She is brown, in places. And homemade, technically. She looks a little here like Lucille Ball in the famous chocolate factory I Love Lucy episode, one of the best television scenes of all time. Can you imagine if I made similar substitutions in my future childrens’ baby books? Here’s a lovely brownie shot—couldn’t find a picture of my daughter on her first day of kindergarten.

Homemade Brownies

Adapted from the Penzeys Spice Catalogue

1 stick butter (1/2 Cup), melted

1 Cup sugar

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

2 eggs

1/2 Cup all-purpose flour

1/3 Cup cocoa powder

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 Cup Ghirardelli’s semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/4 Cup powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease an 8 or 9-inch square baking pan and set aside. In a mixing bowl, combine the melted butter, sugar and vanilla. Add the eggs and beat well. Add the flour, cocoa and baking powder and beat to combine. Stir in the chocolate chips. Spread the batter in the pan and bake at 350° for 22-25 minutes, until edges start to pull away from side of pan. When cool, cut and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

This is a fantastic recipe. Significantly better when made from scratch than from a box mix. Just use your imagination to visualize a steaming slab of soft chocolate, the hot smell of dark sweet sin filling the kitchen.

Brazilian Seafood Stew

It’s happening. Spring. KP and I contributed to the destruction of winter this morning by lacing our feet with YakTraks (like tire chains, but for shoes) and stomping onto every edge of ice we encountered on Bear Creek Trail. Then we came home and took bats to the icicles dripping from our gutters. This week it appears we may finally emerge from below freezing. 40s and 50s will feel like a spring fever. The war is being won—winter, too, shall pass.

I’m already busting out the coconuts and seafood. I’ll be in my lawn chair if anyone needs me.

Brazilian Seafood Stew

adapted from a recipe I snagged at the counter of People’s Coop in Rochester, MN

1 ½ pounds salmon, cut into 2- to 3-inch pieces

3 cloves garlic

¼ cup lime juice

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp black pepper

2 tbsp olive oil

1 cup yellow onion, diced

1 cup red bell peppers, diced

½ cup green onions, sliced thin

1 tbsp paprika

½ tsp crushed red pepper flakes

½ tsp ground cumin

2 cups canned diced tomatoes with green chilies

1 14-oz can coconut milk

¼ cup fresh cilantro, minced

In a large bowl, marinate the salmon in the minced garlic, lime juice, salt and pepper for 30 minutes in the refrigerator. In a large stock pot, heat 2 tbsp olive oil over medium-high heat. Add yellow onions and cook until they soften. Add bell peppers and cook another 2 minutes. Add green onions, paprika, chili flakes and cumin and sauté for one minute, then add tomatoes and cilantro and cook another 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove the salmon from the marinade (discard marinade), and place fish into the tomato sauce in the stock pot. Pour coconut milk over the top, bring everything to a simmer, cover and cook for 10-15 minutes. Stir gently once or twice. Salmon should be just cooked and tender. Add salt to taste.

Campagnolo

Bran betters things, in my experience. It aids digestion, adds some extra vitamins to a loaf of bread, and yet it doesn’t weigh the bread down like a heavy wheat flour. This bread has a lovely balance—it is robust and delicate at once. Went great as toast to accompany all the weird international soups I’ve been making to survive the winter. More weird soup posts forthcoming. All this to say, I think the Portlandia catchphrase this season, instead of “put a bird on it,” should be “put some bran on it.”

Campagnolo

Adapted from the Italian Baker

1 cup sourdough starter

2 2/3 cup warm water

2 tbsp EVOO
5 ½ cups bread flour

2 cups bran (YEAH!)

2 ¼ tsp salt

Stir sourdough and water together. Add oil. Sift the flour, bran and salt together in a separate bowl and then slowly, slowly, with a wooden spoon, add the flour to the diluted starter. Stir and knead on a floured surface for 8-10 minutes. The dough will be sticky all the way through, thanks to the bran. Crashing the dough, that is, slamming the dough ball down on the counter like a caveman (my favorite part) will help the gluten to develop around the hunks of bran. I wish I had a video of this part. Looks like an anger management session.

First Rise

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise for 1 ½ hours until doubled.

Second Rise

This will be a massive hunk of dough. You can either separate it into two loaves, or, you can have one massive loaf (what I prefer). Shape into an oval loaf, and then take your floured hand and karate chop down the midline of the oval—what I mean by karate chop is to press a hemisected line with your vertical hand into the dough, so that it looks like lips. Let rise on a heavily floured peel, cover with a towel, and let rise for 45 minutes.

Bake on a stone at 425 degrees for 20 minutes, then reduce the heat to 375 and bake 25 minutes longer. Cool on a rack.

Because fresh bread smells so good to wake up to, sometimes I foolishly embark on bread baking in the wee hours of the morning on purpose such that I have to set my alarm to ring at odd intervals during the middle of the night to transition the dough from first to second rise, to proofing and into the oven. With this dough, somewhere around 3am when the bread was baking in the oven, during the second temperature adjustment, I didn’t hear my alarm and however long it took my subconscious to alert me that my bread was in jeopardy, I finally awoke in a panic. No idea how long it was in there. It tasted great anyway, so either I got lucky and woke up shortly after the alarm finished, or this is a resilient and hearty country bread that can bake at 375 for much longer than 25 minutes and still taste wonderful.

Resilience, hmm. A Minnesotan virtue I could never have known until having lived through their winters. Hearty folk. Minnesotans must be made of bran.

Chipotle Garlic Edamame and Fire

Let my misadventure yesterday with a fire extinguisher, Not A Drill, prompt you now to go find the red canister where you are and thoroughly visualize Pulling the pin, Aiming while standing six feet away, and Spraying while Sweeping Side to side (PASS). Why? Because an enormous flame rising from a pot of greasy chili is no time for thinking. Or reading instructions. Or trying to figure out which black plastic piece is the spray lever. It might save you whole feet in fire damage, whole neurons that are not drenched in adrenaline. The skin on your knuckles might stay whatever color it normally is, your trachea and upper airway might never know the sting of ammonium sulfate. Get thee to a Fire Extinguisher and PASS.

Especially if you make these—HOT HOT HOT– but in this scenario, when it is your mouth on fire, might I recommend a tall glass of milk? Dry chemical tastes awful.

Chipotle Garlic Edamame

Adapted from Food and Wine

Ingredients:

One 14-ounce bag frozen edamame pods

1 T olive oil

1 chipotle chile in adobo (stemmed and seeds removed), minced

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 tsp ground cumin

Coarse salt and ground black pepper

Cook edamame according to package instructions. Drain and pat dry.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat EVOO and chipotle, garlic and cumin. Add warm edamame pods and cook, stirring, until garlic is softened, 1-2 min. The pods will be bright green with flecks of red chile.

Remove from heat. And then, how you choose to eat these pod-coated beans is a matter of preference. I recently brought these to a party and proceeded to put the whole edamame—seed and peach-fuzz shell—into my mouth. I was told, rather vehemently, “You can’t do that!” Is it poisonous?! I asked, finger poised to tickle my uvula (by far the nastiest sentence I have ever written). The consensus at the party, without Google’s input, was No, Edamame husks are not poisonous, just hard to chew and possibly hard to digest. It is now weeks since I ate a handful of whole edamame, and I have not yet died. If anything, I am singing a new tune—just a spoonful of chipotle makes the fiber, go down! (Yes, you should see Saving Mr. Banks.)

And I’m serious about the extinguisher. If you blew me off in the first paragraph, I implore– now is the time.

Happy Mardi Gras Red Beans and Rice

Happy Mardi Gras! Maybe next year I can convince Rochester to hold a second line parade on this important New Orleans feast day. Otherwise I gotta get me back to my Mondo Kayo. A wonderful friend sent me a post card with a quotation from Chris Rose on what Mardi Gras means…

…”It is annual front porch crawfish boils hours before the parades so your stomach and attitude reach a state of grace; it is returning to the same street corner, year after year, and standing next to people whose names you may or may not even know but you’ve watched their kids grow up in this public tableau and when they’re not there, you wonder; it is dressing your dog in a stupid costume and cheering when the marching bands go crazy and clapping and saluting the military boys and girls when they crisply snap to. .. it’s mad piano professors converging on our city from all over the world and banging the ‘88s until dawn and laughing at the hairy-shouldered men in dresses too tight and stalking the Mardi Gras Indians under Claiborne overpass… it’s wearing frightful color combinations in public. Mardi Gras is the love of life. It is the harmonic convergence of our food, our music, our creativity, our eccentricity, our neighborhoods, and our joy of living, All at once.”

And, it is contagious. Once a New Orleanian, you never cease to take the spirit of Mardi Gras with you into whatever corners of the world may find you. I know this is a humdrum Tuesday for most the rest of the country, but no’mm-mm, not for me. Today is holy.

Love. Peace. And Barbeque.

Red Beans and Rice

1 lb. dried small red beans (kidney beans), rinsed and soaked in water overnight, unless you don’t want to—you can just cook the whole thing longer—matter of preference.

2 smoked ham hocks

2 tbsp olive oil (or bacon grease, what have you)

2 onions, diced

1 red or green bell pepper, seeded, and diced

2 ribs celery, chopped

2 tsp. minced garlic

3 whole bay leaves

2 tbsp basil

2 tbsp oregano

2 tbsp sweet paprika

1 tbsp thyme

2 tsp garlic powder

½ tsp salt, or to taste

1 tsp ground black pepper

2 green onions, chopped

5 cups cooked rice, brown is better for you

Cayenne pepper or Tabasco sauce, optional

Heat onions, green peppers, garlic, and celery on a skillet in olive oil, ten minutes or so, until soft. Add this mix to a crockpot, with red beans, ham hocks, and bay leaves. In a small bowl, combine the spices and add 4 tbsp of the spice mix to the crockpot. Cover the mixture with water (about 2-3 quarts) and turn on the crock pot to High. Stir periodically and add water if needed to keep the beans covered. Cook for as long as you want… but keep tasting and add more spice mix if you would like. After several hours, remove the ham hocks, put some of the meat back in the pot if you would like. Remove once cup of beans from the pot and mash them until creamy—add them back to the pot for additional creaminess if desired. Remove the cover for the final 30-60 minutes, or until the sauce is the thickness you prefer. Serve over rice and sprinkle with green onions. Assemble your spices and marvel at the confetti of it all.

In the same pot, cook the bacon until crisp, and remove to the dish with the other meats. Cook the andouille slices until browned, and add to the bacon, etc. In the bacon fat, sauté the onion, bell pepper and celery until softened. Add the garlic, oregano and thyme, and stir for a minute or so. Stir in the reserved 6 cups of liquid, the beans, bay leaves and Cajun seasoning. Bring to a boil, lower heat to a simmer, cover and cook until the beans are tender and the liquid is beginning to thicken. This may take anywhere from 2-4 hours depending on whether or not you soaked the beans overnight. Remove the cover and simmer until thickened, probably another 30 minutes.

Stir in the turkey, ham, bacon and sausage. Taste and add salt, pepper, more Cajun seasoning, Tabasco and/or cayenne as desired. Heat the meat through and serve over hot fluffy white rice.

Oven method: If desired, once the beans and seasonings are added, the pot may be covered and cooked in a 300° oven instead of on the stovetop. Remove the cover for the last half hour, and then add meat, etc. as above.

It may have snowed last night, but it’s Mardi Gras in the warmth of my heart. Happy Mardi Gras, y’all. Spread, love, peace, and barbeque.

I would love to know who put the bead-bestrewn monkey on my front door. I’ll give you a prize if you fess up.

Pane di Chiavari

It is Lundi Gras, the eve of Fat Tuesday, and somewhere up North, two ex-New Orleanians huddle together with their bulldog for warmth and fortitude on yet another brutal subzero morning. That’s enough complaining for Monday. Izzy protested our not going to New Orleans this year, first Mardi Gras we’ve missed in seven years, by chewing up my red feather boa. She meant to help me pack it, which was when I broke the terrible news to her, and then she went into a feather-feasting fury. I totally understand. If any year we knew what it means to miss New Orleans, this is it.

The taste of these olives, in a small way, brings me to a Mediterranean state of mind.

Pane di Chiavari

Adapted from The Italian Baker

1 cup sourdough starter

1 cup + 3 tbsp warm water

½ cup olive paste (I made my own, see below)

3 ¾ cups all purpose flour

1 tsp salt

10 black olives (garnish)

1 egg white, beaten

Olive paste-

Blend together in a food processor:

¾ cup olives (green or black—I used green)

1 tsp olive oil

1 tsp red wine (that has been sitting on the counter too long, more like vinegar)

1 garlic clove

For the bread

Stir together the sourdough starter with the warm water and olive paste.

Add flour and salt and knead by hand until smooth. Gently place in an oiled bowl and let rise for 1.5 hours.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, punch out the air, and fold into an oval loaf. Twist the ends “so it looks like an olive” and cover loosely on parchment. Let rise for 45 minutes to an hour.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees (and baking stone). Just before the bread goes in, throw on a couple of black olives for garnish—push them down into the bread. (I learned the hard way that if you don’t, the olives turn into little burnt buttons on the surface of the loaf.) Brush the whole loaf with egg white. Place bread in oven and bake 10 minutes at 450. Then decrease the temp to 400 and bake for 35 minutes more. Cool on rack.

Had several gigs this weekend, along with a raging flu. Somehow managed to drag my aching corpus to stand upright behind the microphone. And then, as one would expect, the singing cured me. Miracle treatment, really.

Also hosted our annual Oscar’s party last night, and the victors attended dressed as the central characters from American Hustle. Congratulations!

A Bulldog’s Birthday and Stranger #2 with Chicken Milanese

So our second dinner with strangers per my New Years Resolution was a sly attempt to lure people to our house to celebrate Izzy’s fifth birthday. Our strangers were two couples from our church who were all rather surprised at the fanfare KP and I orchestrate on behalf of our bulldog. “How does Izzy know today’s her birthday?” Kay, stranger #2, asked me. How do any of us know it’s our birthday, I responded, there’s no internal birthday clock. A birthday is whenever loved ones conspire to sabotage us with love. It really should happen more often than once a year.

Izzy loved her cake, as you can tell by her giddy affect.

For our dinner with our beloved strangers, we served Chicken Milanese. Quick, easy, and full of flavor. Very low-stress dinner to serve when entertaining.

Chicken Milanese

Adapted from Food and Wine

2 eggs

3 TB Dijon mustard

1 ½ tsp cayenne pepper

Kosher salt and ground pepper to taste

1 ½ cups panko bread crumbs

4-6 4-oz chicken breasts, sliced thin (1/2 inch)

1/3 cup olive oil

2 cups grape tomatoes, halved

1 TB fresh lemon juice

¼ cup chopped parsley, or basil (which is what I used)

Shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

In a pie plate or shallow bowl, beat the eggs with the mustard and cayenne and season with salt and pepper.

Spread the bread crumbs in a separate bowl or pie plate. Dip the chicken in the egg mixture, then dredge in the panko, press to help it adhere.

In a large skillet, heat 1/3 cup olive oil until shimmering. Add the chicken and cook over moderately high heat, turning once, until browned and white throughout, 4-6 minutes. Transfer chicken to plates.

Meanwhile, in a bowl, toss the tomatoes, lemon juice and parsley or basil with a tablespoon of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Spoon the tomatoes over the chicken and garnish with cheese. Serve immediately.

So good, the chicken is very moist and tender. Olive oil is easy to burn so you have to take care not to turn the skillet up too hot. Be sure to let your bulldog have a little taste, if its her birthday. With a little nibble of cake…

Project Yogurt and Unintended Project Cheese

Why yes, I have recolonized my gastrointestinal tract, and likely my genitourinary tract as well, thanks for asking.

Project Yogurt

Notes on a first attempt to make my own bacteria-ridden milk product. Follow me to my Petrie dish of flavor.

I started with 4 cups of 2% milk, which I boiled in a high-edged saucepan up to 185 degrees, as measured by candy thermometer. Then, I turned the heat off.

As the temperature fell, I added:

1/3 cup of honey (which we got from our beekeeping friends Peter and Kristen for catching a queen in our backyard this summer!).

Several TBs of caramel, without shame

2 packets of Knox gelatin

Then, once the mixture cools to 105 degrees, add:

3 caplets of lactobacillus (which I lifted off of my mother, my probiotic dealer. I took a photo of the container (just in case I were to die after eating the yogurt, so KP would know who to go after. Note in the image below the hilarious human broccoli dance tree graphic. Granola to the max. I think I had a t-shirt from vacation Bible school when I was six that had the same clip art.)

Note- in the future, instead of the starter pills, once I have a solid starter going, at this step I will add a container of old yogurt, which should be teeming with lacto- and bifidobacilli. {Such great bacteria names—lactobacillus rhamnosus, plantarum, acidophilus, bulgarious, casei, helveticus, salvarius! Bifidobacilli breve, coagularis, lectis, longum, subtilis! Names worthy of their own Hogwarts spells!}

Then you place the mixture, by funnel, into your snazzy incubator,

And twelve hours later, you have:

A separated disaster—curds and whey.

Ahem. Notes on a second attempt to make my own bacteria-ridden milk product.

I started with 4 cups of 2% milk, which I boiled in a high-edged saucepan up to 185 degrees, measured by candy thermometer. Then, I turned the heat off.

As the temperature fell, I added:

1/3 cup of honey (which we got from our beekeeping friends Peter and Kristen for catching a queen in our backyard this summer!).

1 packet of Knox gelatin (2 made for a VERY firm yogurt—not my style)

Then, once the mixture cools to 105 degrees, add:

2 caplets of lactobacillus (3 was too much. It was a combination of the high concentration of bacteria, and perhaps slight over-incubation, that caused my first batch to separate)

Only incubated for 8.5 hours—much better product.

Now, what to do with the embarrassing yogurt cheese? I dumped the whey in the trash because the gelatin turned it into whey-Jello (sick). I have read, however, that preserved whey can make for a nice protein supplement in fruit smoothies. Should be relatively tasteless.

The cheese supernatant, the curds, I brought over to a friend’s party as a gag and then accidentally forgot to take home; the host was NOT happy that I left my bacteria-failed-yogurt-cheese at her place. I rescued it. And then used in it in the following tasty recipe, which I brought to another party with much success:

Creamy Cheese and Green Herb Spread

1 pound of failed-yogurt cheese, pureed

2 TB minced shallot

2 TB chopped chives

1 TB chopped tarragon

1 TB cider vinegar

1 TB walnut oil

Kosher salt and ground pepper to taste

In a medium bowl, whisk the pureed cheese with the shallot, chives, tarragon, cider vinegar and walnut oil. Season with salt and pepper as you like. You can add a little olive oil too if you want—YUM. And not a waste of an otherwise accidental product!

So now I have homemade yogurt that tastes great, so satisfying, AND an herbed soft cheese. Win Win.