Marisa wrote about yogurt making about a month ago. I would like to re-visit the subject from an extremely frugal angle. With wild fruits coming into season (like mulberries), yogurt is a great way to serve nature's sweet bounty.
I can remember trying yogurt for the first time as a kid. Most of the brands had a distinctive sour taste, and fruit on the bottom. They came in 8-ounce containers, and sold for anywhere from 25 to 50 cents a cup. Now, with prices double that or more, and the cups shrinking to 6 or even 4 ounces (who can eat 4 ounces of yogurt and call it a satisfying experience?), I decided to re-visit the old fashioned way of getting yogurt. MAKING IT YOURSELF!
This isn't just for frugality. I really enjoy making things at home that most people buy prepared. Some of the things we purchase without questioning whether or not they could be created right in our kitchens are actually quite easy to make. Yogurt is one of them, and requires very little in the way of equipment.
There are yogurt makers that you can purchase. I have to tell you though that they are really not necessary. The only piece of equipment you might need to buy is a kitchen thermometer. You will need a thermometer that can read as high as 100 degrees Celsius (212 Fahrenheit) and as low as 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit). For your first batch only, you need starter. A tablespoon of good plain yogurt works fine as long as it has active cultures (check the label). After your first batch you just need to conserve some yogurt each time to use as starter for your next batch.
Who doesn't love an Oreo? Each one comes with two chocolate cookies, happily connected with a nice dollop of vanilla cream. There is no part of that equation that is bad (I'm talking strictly about taste here, let's ignore for the moment that they aren't exactly health food items). However, it is my belief that something that is made in your own kitchen is always going to be better than something consumed out of a cellophane package and baked who-knows-how-many months ago, which is why, I decided to try making homemade Oreo-style cookies last weekend.
I spotted the recipe on Smitten Kitchen many moons ago (back in the days when Deb was simply The Smitten) and it's stayed with me ever since, a reminder that there were Oreo heights I had not yet experienced. An opportunity arrived in the form of a dinner party and so I spent Friday night making the cookies for Saturday assembly.
It's a quick, buttery dough that comes together easily. I found that the best way to make sure to get fairly uniform rounds was to form the flat cookie on the palm of my hand before place it gently on a Silpat-lined cookie sheet. Assembly was also easy as the filling (butter, vegetable shortening, powdered sugar and vanilla) whipped together like a dream. The only hitch I experienced was that the zip top bag I was using as a piping bag kept unzipping.
The cookies were delicious the day of assembly, but I discovered that they actually improve over a couple of days resting time, developing the exact soft-crunch consistency of the traditional Oreo cookie. I think my arteries are insisting that I wait some time, but I will definitely make these again.
When I was a kid, there was little I hated more than when my mom would make a peanut butter sandwich for my lunch using the heel of the bread. She didn't do it all that frequently, mostly when she hadn't been able to get to the store and there was no reserve loaf of bread in the freezer (on occasion she'd also use a whole wheat hot dog bun).
Marie at Make and Take doesn't force her children to suffer through sandwiches on the heels of bread. She saves them in her freezer and, when she's accumulated a good stash, processes them into homemade bread crumbs. She included step-by-step pictures in her post, along with a collection of recipe links that all use toasted bread crumbs. These days, when we're all trying to find ways to save a few pennies here and there, repurposing undesirable bread into crumbs seems like a good way to go.
So the other day I showed you how I make a Boiled Corned Beef Dinner. I made twice as much as I needed so there would be a ton of leftovers. Sure, I'll make a few hot and cold corned beef sandwiches, but my main goal is hash. That's right, an Old Style, Homemade, Corned Beef Hash; full of the flavor of spiced corned beef and lots of vegetables, all simmered long and slow.
Old Style, Homemade, Corned Beef Hash
Roughly chop up as much leftover corned beef and vegetables as you want. I like to go about 40% corned beef, 50% potatoes/carrots/onions, and only 10% cabbage. To this add a nice amount of fresh chopped raw sweet onion and some chopped bell pepper or chile pepper. I usually use a stemmed and seeded Jalapeno Pepper. Dust thoroughly with fresh ground black pepper and add a fat pinch of Kosher or Sea Salt.
Cook over medium-high heat in a pre-heated cast iron pan, and stir every few minutes as it browns on the bottom. Do not add any oil or grease, the meat has plenty.
The hash should be a mix of browned bits and un-browned. If you brown it too much it will get all dry. Fry some eggs easy over and serve a pile of the hash with two eggs on top. Mmmm... that's some wicked good cookin'.
Last week, Shayna showed up how to make our own chocolates for Valentine's Day. Her chocolates are sure to be delicious, but they are, admittedly, a little time consuming to make. However, there are chocolates out there that you can whip up in your own kitchen in less time and with fewer pieces of specialty equipment.
Over a Su Good Sweets, Jessica recently tested three truffle recipes for ease and taste. She came to the conclusion that simple is best and offers her readers the recipe she used (Robert Linxe's cream truffles) to make easy and delicious truffles just in time for the biggest chocolate holiday of the year. Over at Culinate, Melissa Lion wrote about nearly the very same recipe, giving readers an entertaining step by step narration of how to make rustic truffles for Valentine's Day.
Being that Valentine's Day is less than a week away, I've got chocolate on the brain. We've got an awesome feature coming up a little later in the day on how to make your own chocolate for Valentine's Day and so I set off in search of a image that featured chocolate for today's Food Porn pic. I didn't have to look far, because as soon as I saw this photo of a homemade chocolate cupcake from Rachel of Coconut & Lime. She made these luscious cakes for her birthday last summer and lucky for us, she posted the recipe on her blog.
If you want to see your images in this space, head over to our Flickr group, join up and start adding your pics to the pool!
I had never really thought of Irish Cream as something you could make at home (I thought it was something that only came in a bottle and was bought at the liquor store) until I came across this post on The Real Potato. Posted a couple of days ago, she offers a seemingly easy recipe for making your own Irish Cream (none of that pre-bottled stuff!). It does use raw eggs, so if that makes you feel uncomfortable, you can either get some pasteurized eggs or leave them out and add some extra cream. It would be a great thing to make tonight if you're going to have a mellow night at home with friends or family (or both)!
I am constantly in awe of my friend Jennie's (she of Straight from the Farm fame) level of food creativity. She is constantly coming up with delicious new recipes, doing things like making cheese (people keep telling me that cheesemaking is easy, but I've yet to give a whirl) and making cranberries dance and sing (well, not literally). But I do believe that she has outdone herself this time with these jars of homemade dulce de leche. It actually appears to be pretty easy to make and if you're looking for a last-minute homemade holiday gift, this might be your answer.
When I was in elementary school, we had a neighbor who made her own candy for Christmas every year. She mostly made black and white marbled chocolates in the shape of Santa and snowmen, that she would put on sticks for easier eating. One year she branched out and made her own hard candy lollipops. I had never seen lollipops (or suckers as they called them back in Oregon) that didn't come from a store and so I was totally intrigued by the idea that you could make such things at home, on your own.
I haven't thought about homemade lollipops in years, until I spotted this post over at Make and Takes in which Marie made her own for the holidays. She's got some fun vintage molds, but says that you can use the plastic ones available in the stores or even do them without a mold. It sounds like a fun seasonal project to me.
Yesterday, for the first time ever in my entire life, I canned. I've been watching my mom can jam for years, so it wasn't a totally foreign process to me, but I had never done it on my own from start to finish before. I don't think words can express just how satisfying it was to hear the snap when the cans sealed. When they were all finished, I kept going into the kitchen to tap on the lids, just to hear the pleasing dull ring that means that they were properly sealed.
The reason I was canning is that I started a batch of apple-pear (the apples were the last of the ones that Scott and I picked for the second episode of Slashfood in the Kitchen) butter on Tuesday that took until Wednesday to finish. Sadly I was overconfident and didn't call my mom for advice. Had I touched base with her before I started, I would have been reminded that she cooks the apples for a bit and then strains them in a small-holed colander for a while to get some of the liquid out before pureeing and cooking them down. The way I did it, it took nearly 10 hours of cooking before it had simmered down to the right consistency (my stove didn't help matters as it doesn't do the long, slow simmer very well). However, it doesn't matter, as it all turned out and I now have five jars of really delicious apple-pear butter to give as gifts this holiday season.
Last week I mentioned that Pho (Vietnamese beef noodle soup) is one of my favorite cold weather foods. I love the warm, anise-scented broth next to the cool crunch of the fresh bean sprouts and herbs. However, it's one of those dishes that I think of as restaurant-only. I've never attempted to make it, mostly because I know the broth is fairly labor-intensive.
The level of work that it required didn't scare away Brys from Cookthink (it appears that he rarely shies away from complex cooking projects, a trait that endears his blogging to me) and it looks like he created something tasty and close to authentic (except, where's the star anise? *). For those of you who have never made consommé, his narration and pictures will help you navigate those tricky waters.
Me, I'm just looking forward to the next time I can get down to South Philly for a steaming bowl of Pho.
*Even though I read Brys' post three times, I missed the star anise until a commenter pointed it out to me. My mistake!
I've always been a huge fan of the cranberry (did you know that in the next week, Americans will consume 80 million pounds of cranberries?). Every year I make many loaves of a cranberry bread that I pulled off the back cover a children's book when I was just a kid. However, until recently, I had never had fresh, homemade cranberry sauce. This is mostly because my mother is deeply loyal to the canned stuff (which I will be the first to admit is very tasty) and so only permits that on her Thanksgiving table.
I finally broke down recently and made a batch of fresh cranberry sauce, and let me tell you, it was delicious. I had no idea it could be so wonderful (I've been eating the leftovers with applesauce and cottage in the mornings for breakfast lately). The recipe I used was a very simple one that I found here. Spurred on by that success, I found another cranberry sauce recipe that caught my eye and I think it's the one I'm going to turn to on Thanksgiving. It's a recipe for Bourbon Cranberry Sauce and was posted by Nicole over at Farm to Philly. Because what could be better than the combination of tart cranberries, sugar and a bit of booze!
In my family we take our Thanksgiving gravy very serious. My father, the primary holiday chef in my parents' marriage, learned the secrets of gravy-making from his mother and has passed them on to me (my sister doesn't have a whole lot of interest in gravy prep). For years now, I known how to create at least half a gallon of turkey gravy (the picture to the right is how much gravy we had leftover after a 10-person meal last Thanksgiving). This skill ensures that there will always be more than enough gravy to extend past the life of the turkey and that the dog will be given gravy on top of her dinner for at least a week after holiday meal is over.
And now I'd like to share some of my gravy making prowess with you. Last year Scott and I made an episode of Fork You devoted to the flour toasting technique that is a vital component of the gravy prep. Two years ago, I wrote a lengthy post describing in detail how to make this gravy. And for those of you who don't want to watch or read, here are my basic tips. Toast two cups of flour in a pan on your stove top until it turns a nutty brown (gives the gravy good flavor and color). Make a pot of stock with the turkey offal and neck. If you are making a vat of gravy to take to someone else's dinner (something I have done) you can make stock with a package of turkey wings from the store.
My friend Wendy is an terrific cook. She is the one who made the gorgeous and tasty cheesy pita chips I mentioned awhile back. Despite the fact that she isn't actually a food blogger, she stopped by my place last Friday for the potluck and brought with her a couple very excellent dishes. One was a Vietnamese tofu and rice dish. I got to keep the leftovers and ate them the following morning for breakfast. The thing she brought was a batch of quick homemade pickles. These pickles were delicious. They held onto a fresh crispness while still absorbing all that puckery vinegar goodness.
At the end of the night there were but three lonely spears floating in a dish full of pickling liquid. With Wendy's permission, I poured those leftover spears and all the pickling juice into a jar. The next day I sliced up some of my own cucumbers and popped them into the jar, thus extending the life of her pickles for another week or so. Luckily today she sent me the recipe for the pickling liquid, so when this batch runs out, I'll be able to make my own. I recommend you do the same, as they bring such brightness, both in taste and in color, to fall and winter meals.
In my family we take our Thanksgiving gravy very serious. My father, the primary holiday chef in my parents' marriage, learned the secrets of gravy-making from his mother and has passed them on to me (my sister doesn't have a whole lot of interest in gravy prep). For years now, I known how to create at least half a gallon of turkey gravy (the picture to the right is how much gravy we had leftover after a 10-person meal last Thanksgiving). This skill ensures that there will always be more than enough gravy to extend past the life of the turkey and that the dog will be given gravy on top of her dinner for at least a week after holiday meal is over. 
DIY Foods: Making homemade sausage
Cakes so amazing they'd be hard to cut into
Fruit juice: An invitation to diabetes?
