Goat Cheese & Heirloom Tomatoes

I bought a large package of goat cheese last time I went "super stock up grocery shopping" and I have been trying to think of new ways to use it. I created this simple recipe because of these reasons:

1) The large heirloom tomato I had was going to go bad if I didn't use it immediately.

2) I was watching Jersey Shore and wanted something 'kinda' Italian

3) I love pasta

So here's what I did:

Boil 1 cup dry pasta with salt, red pepper flakes and some minced garlic. It gave it some flavor, I didn't want to add much to the finished dish.

Cut up 1/2 large heirloom tomato into small chunks

1-2 oz of goat cheese, as desired.

Once pasta is done, drain, put on plate, add goat cheese, stir around add tomatoes, stir a bit.

Season with Sea Salt. I also have this oregano, basil, sun dried tomato spice blend that I put on there.

I made this yesterday, I wish I had another tomato, cause it looks like it would be a yum dinner for tonight. Dammit.

Do you know the Muffin Man?

I was driving around my hood yesterday, on the way to get my haircut and saw two large lemon trees full of yellow ripe lemons. I thought "Oh delicious" then the thought quickly went out of my mind as I entered my salon. Driving around today I thought I wanted to make some Lemon Poppy Seed muffins, so here it is:

I adapted the recipe from imafoodblog.com

2/3 cup sugar

zest and juice of 2 small lemons

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup wheat flour*

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup non fat plain yogurt

2 large eggs**

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup applesauce

2 tablespoons poppy seeds

1/2 cup Sliced Almonds

*If you do not have wheat flour, just use 2 cups all purpose

**I typically use Ener-G Egg replacer for all my baking, 5 cal for each "egg" instead of 70, yes please.

Preheat oven to 400F

In a large bowl, rub together the sugar and lemon zest until the sugar is moist and you can smell the lemon. I like a lot of lemony flavor, so I also pulled some of the pulp from the lemon to add in. Not a lot, just a few pieces.

Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In another bowl or measuring cup, whisk together the yogurt, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice, butter and applesauce until well blended.

Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and with a rubber spatula gently and quickly stir to blend. Do not over-mix.

Stir in the poppy seeds.

Stir in the sliced almonds

Divide the batter evenly in 12 muffin cups.

Bake for 18-20 minutes

Do a fork test to make sure they are done, and if it comes out clean, your good. Let them cool for like 5 minutes if you can. I couldn't.

Eat up, then check teeth for poppy seeds.

These also freeze well, I like to double batches and freeze them for a quick nom treat.

Yo-Yo-Yogurt Pt Duex

Why would I want to make yogurt? Well, most importantly because I like to control things. Secondly I'm cheap. The yogurt I eat is expensive, at Costco its $5.75/32oz. I typically will only eat Fage Greek yogurt. Now I can buy a half gallon of milk for under/about $3, and get about 60oz of yogurt. Awesome.

So, I am not going to buy a yogurt maker. I can make it in my slow cooker, why buy another appliance. Unless of course I find a really nice one online for cheap, but that rarely happens.

So here is my experience with yogurt making if anyone wants to try it, it takes very little effort on your part.

Start off with a pasteurized milk, I used ultra pasteurized for my last batch and it took long to thicken. Although it may have been because I used 1% milk instead of 2%. Actually I think the fat % had more to do with it. Okay, so anyway, use ultra pasteurized or just pasteurized. I want to try a batch with raw milk, for funzies. I never drink milk, but I love yogurt, weird, and I have no idea how raw milk would do for yogurt, interesting.

Anyway, this recipe is adapted from A Year of Slow Cooking. I changed a few things.

Ingredients:

A half gallon of milk, fat % of your choice.

A 6oz container of PLAIN yogurt. I used Fage Greek yogurt for my first batch. Then I used Stoneyfield, plain. (note: Stoneyfield is a good brand to use because it offers 5-6 probiotic bacteria species than other yogurt, fuck Activia, just sayin)

Steps:

1) Pour into crockpot, and set on "low" for 2 1/2 hours.

2) Turn the crockpot off, and let the milk sit for 3 hours.

3) After 3 hours, scoop out 2 cups of milk and put into a mixing bowl. Add the 6oz of yogurt and blend well. Add the mixture back into the crock pot and gently stir together, I use a 8 figure formation.

Now, the reason I say to gently stir is because the heat breaks down the lactose molecules and if there is consistent shaking/stirring the yogurt doesn't do well. Once you stirred the mix back in, DO NOT STIR AGAIN.

4) What I do after this step is grab a mason jar, fill with hot tap water and put in my temperature gauge, I got it at Target for like $7. I put the jar in the mixture and put the lid back on the crockpot. I take the ceramic bowl out of the crockpot shell, and put the bowl on a heating pad, and turn it to "high". I also cover the bowl with a thick terry cloth towel. So its almost incubating.

I start the yogurt process in the afternoon, then do the heating pad into the evening, and overnight to thicken.

Watch your temperature, it should be between 100-120, I like to see it at about 110F.

Yes, that yellow/green liquid is supposed to be there, its the natural whey extract from the milk.

Ok, I don't know why I strained the whey this time, however, I have heard that you can use the liquid whey to make bread, which I think is really cool. Then you'd want to strain it to remove any yogurt particles.

I remove most of the whey, like I said, I like really thick yogurt. If you keep the whey in, it makes the yogurt thinner.

Once I have removed all the whey, I stir the yogurt very well until it is completely smooth. Then I put in these pretty little French terrain jars. I bought them at the Container Store. Put in fridge and let it refrigerate for 24 hours.

Now, its hit or miss with incubation times. I did the incubation for almost 24 hours last time, and I think it was because I used the lower fat % milk. I think making yogurt is super cool, and I am going to experiment with making yogurt dips next, I'm pretty sure I have figured it out.

I don't add any fruit to it until I put it in bowls to serve or pack for my lunch. Typically I will add some raw honey, sliced almonds and fresh fruit. Its so delish.

Yo-Yo-Yogurt

I tried making my own yogurt last night, well last night was the "incubation" period. After about 9 hours of sleep, I woke up to find that nothing had changed. Its still a milk consistency. DAMMIT!

I did some googling and found a guys blog who seems to be obsessed with yogurt making, parfait! He recommends to do a 24 hr incubation, so I put it in my oven with the light on. I'm following a recipe where I can make it in my slow cooker, but thinking about incubation and temperatures, thats why it didn't thicken. It needs a steady temperature for the incubation time.

I also found some information about pasteurized and ultra-pasteurized milk. Basically, the ultra pasteurization seems to allow you to skip the part where you scald the milk, awesome, because I don't want to do that part myself anyway.

I think I will be buying a yogurt maker in the future, with my upcoming school schedule and just the overall ease, I think it will be worth it.