Cheese, part two

When I picked up my cheese to check on it last night, it was... leaking. Uh-oh, I thought, I hope it hasn't turned to mush. Although I had planned to wait until at least the end of February, as it's only been aging about three weeks at this point, I was worried enough to cut it open now.

It's an interesting sort of cheese. It's definitely firmer than the cheese I've been making, but it's a bit more like feta than cheddar in texture. In terms of taste-- well, it's interesting. You can tell that someday, it will be a cheddar, but it isn't quite there yet. There is a taste, but it's not hugely strong.

So: notes for next time.

1. Make sure to press the cheese with the right amount of weight for the right amount of time.
2. Make sure that the cheese is fully dry before you wax it.
3. More salt? I think it's not quite salty enough for my tastes.

Also: there is more cheese than I will eat before it gets moldy. I have about five pieces to give away; each is about three ounces. Who wants some?

Unexpected Sausage

As I've mentioned before, I had two goals during the summer of 2010: bread and cheese. I also had a goal for summer 2011: sausage.

In the fall of 2009, just before Halloween, I discovered El Salchichero at the Scotts Valley Farmer's Market. One of the first thing I bought from them was their chestnut crepinettes. They came two to a package, so I cooked them, cut them into quarters, and served them at a Halloween dinner for eight. It was a rather loud night-- we were watching movies, talking about costumes, and answering the door for trick-or-treaters. But as our guests ate, silence fell. Thankfully, it was the good kind of oh-my-god-how-delicious-is-this silence. By the end of the night, we had been converted to the absolutely amazing sausage-making skills of Chris LaVeque, the man who owns and runs El Salchichero.

The sausage stall became a regular stop for me on my farmer's market rounds, especially once they started carrying whole cuts of meat, lard, and, occasionally, rabbits. I was continually amazed by the creativity shown in the week's offerings: they changed with the seasons, using locally-available produce, and were, without fail, the best sausages (and crepinettes!) I've ever tasted.

Then, in July, Chris folded up his farmer's market stall in order to remodel an old t-shirt factory into a butcher's shop. While I tried to make my stock of sausage last, it was too delicious not to eat. I was left in a quandary: did I want to go back to eating grocery store sausage (both New Leaf and Scotts Valley Market make their own), or did I want to start my next summer's goal a little early? In early September, armed with a KitchenAid stand mixer and attachments, I made my first sausage: a fairly simple breakfast sausage.


To be quite honest, it wasn't great. Neither was my next try-- spiced apple sausages. In both cases, the sausages ended up dry and bursting from their casings. Eventually, I picked up a copy of Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn's Charcuterie.

Ah, I realised after following their instructions (slightly modified) for Andouille sausage, this is it. I'd finally gotten the proper fat/meat/salt/seasonings ratio. The andouille became a Thanksgiving Day appetizer, and hung around in the freezer long after, becoming breakfast and dinner (I'm fairly sure I have a few links still). It was followed by garlic and herb sausage, mild Italian sausage (Christmas Eve lasagna!), and, most recently, sausage made with ras el hanout.

So, thank you, Chris LaVeque and El Salchichero-- oddly, thank you for closing, however temporarily. I am very happy to have discovered a love of sausage-making. I am also extremely excited about the fact that El Salchichero's new face (local butcher's shop!!) is opening this Friday. I'll see you there.

Lemon-Ginger Sorbet

This is posted by request!

Lemon-Ginger Sorbet

2 c. sugar
3 c. water
juice of 7 lemons (or thereabouts-- enough so that it's as tart as you like it)
1 tbsp. honey
1/4 c. candied ginger

Combine the sugar, water, and honey in a pan over medium heat; cook until the sugar is dissolved. Add the lemon juice and the candied ginger. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is just bubbling.

Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer and chill the liquid. Reserve the ginger from the strainer and, once cool enough to handle, dice it.

Once the liquid is cool, follow the directions on your ice cream maker. Add the diced ginger just before it is done freezing. Enjoy!

Makes about 1 quart sorbet.

(No pictures, because it will likely be gone before I get it and my camera in the same place at the same time.)

Farmer's Markets in January

What it means to go to the Farmer's Market in January for me: apples, onions, lemons, beets. Lettuce, parsnips, carrots, squash. More goat shoulder (because it's delicious) and fresh squid from the Monterey Bay. There was a lot more available (lots and lots of leafy greens), but I was able to buy everything I wanted-- yay!

Oh, and that guy playing the accordion. (There's always some guy playing the accordion-- this one was actually pretty darn good!)

DDC IN THE FUTURE: Adventures in cheese-land

Instead of New Year's resolutions in 2010, I made two summer resolutions: I would learn how to bake bread, and I would learn to make my own cheese. In pursuit of bread, I made a lot of focaccia, soda bread, pizza dough, and biscuits-- nothing I'd really count as a proper loaf (unlike my housemate Brianna, who has become quite adept at the whole bread thing).

Cheese, on the other hand...

I started making cheese in August, almost missing the end of summer. While on vacation up in Oregon, I picked up a ricotta and mozzarella kit from Powell's, put together by the fine people at Urban Cheesecraft. In it were cheese salt, rennet tablets, citric acid, good-quality cheesecloth, and an incredibly adorable (and accurate) thermometer. I quickly set about making mozzarella and ricotta, having a great time doing it-- there have been a few times I've made a "ground-up" pizza, with home-made crust, sauce, and cheese-- but I decided I wanted to go a bit further.

This fall, I started making my own goat cheese. While the results weren't always perfect (the feta that turned out as cream cheese-- delicious cream cheese!-- for example), it's something that I really enjoy being able to do. This winter at a craft fair, I brought home-made goat cheeses as my treat to share. The still-in-waiting scrambled eggs DDC post has goat cheese as an ingredient. I love the flexibility of soft goat cheese, the way they can be sweet (with honey and lavender) or savory (with shallot jam). I will eat it with just about anything.

Making cheese can be amazingly easy: a batch of goat cheese takes me no more than an hour and a half, if I'm focused. Ricotta is even simpler, and the hardest part of mozzarella for me is dealing with the hot curds when you're stretching them.

In mid-December, I moaned about the lack of local cheddar when making shepherd's pie. This, in part, led me to do the totally sane thing: pick up a copy of Home Cheese Making, a SRS cheese mold, and two gallons of Strauss farms whole milk. Twenty-four hours after I started it, I have a pound (or so) of farmhouse cheddar hanging out in my kitchen, developing a hard coating. In a few days, I'm going to cover it with wax, and by the end of February, I'll have my very own, pretty darn local cheese (not counting the cultures, rennet, or cheese salt). I hope it works.

DDC, Week Six: Braised Goat Shoulder

Okay, so there's totally a post that should go before this (scrambled eggs with chanterelles, shallots, and goat cheese), but I have to write down this recipe before I forget it. This is heavily based off of this recipe.


2 lb. goat shoulder, bone-in
2-3 tsp. olive oil
4 medium carrots, diced
3 medium parsnips, diced
1 medium cippolini onion, cut into strips
2 large cloves garlic, sliced
1 tsp. sea salt
1/2 c. red wine (I used a 2007 Zinfandel from Heart's Fire Winery; it looks like they're closed now, but it's really kind of amazing.)
4 c. beef broth

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Brown the goat shoulder with the olive oil in a dutch oven. Once the meat is browned on all sides, remove it from the pan. De-glaze the pan with the red wine, then add the vegetables. Cook over medium heat until the onions are just barely soft. Add the meat back to the pan-- nestle it in to the vegetables. Add about 2-3 cups of the beef broth, until it the meat is about 2/3 covered. Make a parchment lid for the dutch oven, and put it in the oven. Cook for two hours.

At the two hour mark, take the dutch oven out of the oven and check to see how much liquid remains-- mine was pretty dry, so I added more beef broth. Baste the meat. Cook for another hour (or until the meat is falling off the bones) at 300 degrees, basting occasionally.

Remove from the oven, let rest in the dutch oven for about 15 minutes. This is not a very pretty meal, but it is a very, very filling one: serves 5 (if they're not very hungry) or fewer.

It tastes almost like the best pot roast I've ever eaten. My temporary-housemate Sydni has been telling me for months that I really ought to cook goat, and was she ever right. I think that this is something I will cook even after the challenge is done-- it's amazing. Pictures will be going up later (ETA: they're up now!)


Goat shoulder: Old Creek Ranch, Cayucos (just barely inside my radius)
Olive oil: Bariani, Sacramento
Carrots: Lakeside Farm, Watsonville
Parsnips: from SV Saturday Farmer's Market-- I don't remember which farm, unfortunately!
Onion: Happy Boy Farms
Garlic: I really don't remember-- I'm fairly sure it was a FM purchase, but I've had it for a while.
Salt: Farmhouse Culture, Santa Cruz
Red Wine: Heart's Fire Winery, Campbell
Beef broth: home-made; beef from TLC ranch w/local vegetables

DDC, Week Five: Scrambled Eggs

Simple one, this time: scrambled eggs with stuff in them. Not really a whole lot to say about this one, aside from the fact that it's my first non-dinner meal.

Eggs: Glaum, Aptos
Butter: Strauss Farms, Petaluma
Rosemary Salt: Eatwell Farms, San Francisco
Goat cheese: homemade, with goat milk from Myenberg, Turlock
Chanterelles: Shopper's Corner (they were marked "local;" it's a grocery store I trust)
Shallots: my father's garden
Thyme: kitchen windowsill
Garlic: from the farmer's market; I don't remember which farm.

This entry is backdated to reflect around when I actually cooked the eggs.