Kitchen happenins & other stuff

A recent procurement of 40 lbs of Jumani apples through Bountiful Baskets led to two long days of canning.  The majority of apples were made into applesauce but I wanted to have some other items to mix up our pantry lined with applesauce, peaches, & numerous jams.  I'm not much of a chutney fan but I liked the idea of a savory apple mixture to use with meals.  Unable to find specific recipes, most of my research was spent ensuring the ingredients were safe for water canning (& canning in general) - everything else was fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants & taste.  We split the rest of the batch into curry apples (chopped apples reduced down in Simply Apple juice & curry powder) & apple rum cinnamon sauce (chopped apples reduced down in Simply Apple juice, brown sugar, rum & cinnamon - idea from Ball peach rum sauce).

We opened a jar of the curry apples to have with pork chops - success!

 Apple rum cinnamon sauce - with ice cream, it's like a party in your mouth.

If you need a successful black bean burger recipe, check it out.  The secret ingredient to keep it all glued together?  Plaintains.  Who knew.  These are delicious dish.

 Homemade ranch dressing.  This stuff is the bomb dot com.  Never again will I be able to eat store-bought ranch dressing.  Ever.

Our local community college offers "community enrichment" classes - most are one-day & for a small fee, you can learn such items as baking, cooking, jewelry-making, soap-making, etc.  I took a ceramics class in high school & was hooked but never made much of an effort to pursue it after graduating.  Note: I didn't say I was good.  Just that I really enjoy making ceramics.  Fast forward post-college in Sheridan & I find out one of the local potters is offering a 10 week, Monday night ceramics class at the community college.  We don't have assignments but instead show up & for three hours, once per week, have complete access to the clay, wheels, glazes, & kilns (our pieces are fired with the college student pieces, which is a nice perk).  Since then, I have taken the class a handful of times the past few years & I decided to take it again this semester.  I'm finally noticing improvement.  Ceramics is an art form that most certainly takes a lot of practice - our instructor, who makes beautiful pottery, mentioned it took her ten years before she felt comfortable opening her own shop.  Of course, our house now has more damn bowls than I should admit, but I think I'm getting the hang of some other shapes.  :)

Food Stuffs

Food is, without a doubt, one of the highlights of my life.  Seriously.  I consider eating/cooking/baking/imbibing a hobby.

Steve calls the picture below a "Ramirez family dinner."  I love meals that consist solely of tapas - and although I don't have access to some of the wonderful cured meats, I make do with the overly priced cheeses at the stores.  These dinners typically occur when: a) I'm too lazy to cook; b) Steve is away for the night for work & I'm too lazy to cook; or c) I'm too lazy to cook.  Wait...did I say that already?

This particular meal of loveliness is a few marinated olives, a variety of artisanal cheeses, & asparagus broiled with olive oil, salt & pepper (the broiling method gives the asparagus a nice crisp at the top of the spears).  Oh, and don't forget a key ingredient - giant glass of wine.

Peanut Butter is one of my daily staples.  If I don't have PB at least once a day, something is missing in my life.  Usually, I work PB into my breakfast.  Although you have to be aware of the calorie content, if eaten in moderation, it provides a great amount of protein, which is a necessity to get me through to lunch.  I read about Peanut Butter & Co. some time ago & knew I had to get my sticky lil' mitts on some.  On a recent trip to WalMart (which is the bane of my existence & a store I try to avoid at all costs...but living in a small town, is an unfortunate necessity), I just about danced through the aisles when I saw none other than PEANUT BUTTER & COMPANY hiding so quietly next to the big-kahuna brands of PB.  Will I overpay for what is supposed to be super delicious peanut butter that is made of all natural ingredients??  You bet'cha!

Oh. My. Goodness.  I took one little taste of the Dark Chocolate Dreams & let me tell ya...was it dreamy!  Sooooo so so so so very delish.  Not overpowered by cocoa, not overpowered by sugar - just perfection.  After finishing off the jar (not in one sitting, darlin', I have some self-control), I jetted back to WalMart & decided to balance out the Dark Chocolate Dreams with White Chocolate Wonderful.

I tried both this morning with my breakfast.  I fainted in delight.  While at my desk at work.  My boss considered calling the psych ward.

Just kidding.  But this stuff is awesome.  And yes, the nutritional content is relatively similar to standard PB - in fact, it has only a few more grams of sugar but less calories.

 Don't worry, the bottle of wine doesn't go with me to work for my breakfast.  Although there have been days when I've considered it...

Napa Valley, Food & Drink Favorites

As I've already said a million times, I think Napa Valley hooked me with food.  It's no surprise - a popular place to travel, especially for the wealthy, would only attract the best.  And there is a lot of competition to be the next best place to eat in such a popular destination.

And we don't have to say too much about drink.  Duh, it's wine country.  Knowledge of great wines runs rampant.  Microbrews are widely popular, but there are a handful of places that we thoroughly enjoyed.

A few of our favorites:

Calistoga Inn & Brewery
The beers were de.lic.ious.  Their Oatmeal Stout was smooth, creamy, & so incredibly drinkable.  Our first night, we weren't very hungry but instead decided to try some appetizers.  Their crab cakes & seared tuna were perfection - the crab cakes were not overly breaded & processed like so many crab cakes & the seared tuna as cooked just perfect with a pink center & a surprisingly tasty seaweed salad.

Casa Nuestra
By far my favorite winery.  Totally off the beaten path with very friendly staff and an owner they claim is a self-described hippie.  And they allow dogs.  No better way to enjoy a winery than with a couple cute dogs hanging out.  Delicious wines.

Silverado Brewing Company
The only place we went to eat twice.  Two words: Lamb Burger.  Their beer was tasty, but their lamb burger was out-of-this-world delicious.  The flavors in the burger meshed so incredibly well - locally raised lamb, rosemary aioli, & feta were the three major players in a bite that was heaven in my mouth.  Angels sang, the heavens parted, & sun rays shone down.  Something about their feta was different than typical store-bought feta - it was creamier, slightly less tangy, & more similar to a shredded feta than crumbled feta.
Excuse me while I wipe drool off my laptop.

Gott's Roadside
According to the Milat winery owner, Gott's is a yuppie roadside diner.  It totally is & definitely a tourist trap, but they make some damn good "diner" food.  Thick, juicy burgers, tasty hot dogs, & super yummy garlic-parsley fries.

Zuzu's
Hands down, without a doubt, my favorite place.  It's a bit "fancier," but well worth the prices.  Service was excellent (a server that made excellent recommendations based on true knowledge of the products), food was ahhhhhhhhhhmazing, & atmosphere was warm.  I would recommend a trip to Napa Valley solely to eat at ZuZu.  We shared three tapas: Jamon Iberico de Bellota with Grilled Garlic Bread & Olive-Anchovy "Garum," Pan-Fried Manchego w/Roasted Poblano Chiles & Guajillo Sauce (we think the manchego would have been better without being fried), & Niman Ranch Pork Meatballs w/PX Sherry & Piquillo Pepper Sauce.  Since we were splurging, we went for dessert & had tres leches cake with mango curd.  I just fainted from memory of that dessert.  The cake was not soggy like many tres leches can be, but perfectly moist.  And the mango curd.  The mango curd.  Oh my.  The mango curd.  Words escape me.

I loved it all.  There are more places we ate & drank not mentioned, but we enjoyed everywhere we went.

I have a whey problem

Sounds nasty!

Not really.  As I continue experimenting with yogurt-making, my biggest issue has been runny yogurt.  I want thick yogurt, like Fage, a creamy delicious Greek strained-yogurt.  Key word: STRAINED.  The company's website has a short, fun cartoon explaining the process, found here.

Well duh, I haven't been straining my yogurt, so if I wanted similar results, I would need to strain the yogurt to reduce the whey.  I'll let Wikipedia explain whey.  I don't often resort to unconfirmed sources for explanation, but type "whey" into Google & you'll be inundated with body building websites.  So Wikipedia it is.

I grabbed a recent batch of homemade yogurt (made with 2% milk), poured it into a strainer lined with a clean white handkerchief & suspended over a bowl in the fridge for a few hours.  Ta-da!  Thick, creamy, just-how-I-like-it yogurt.  But then my health conscious mind went into overdrive...."I just got rid of whey!  Isn't whey supposed to be some super-healthy product?  Is my yogurt un-healthy now??"  Back to Google I went, trying to find an answer.  Yes and no.  I did strain out a lot of calcium, along with additional vitamins.  But I also concentrated the yogurt into a more protein-packed food.  See here.

Answers weren't very clear & I still am not sure just what I'm getting rid of.  Oprah  kind of gave me an ok to strain out whey.  But like Wikipedia, I take it with a grain of salt.

I found two variations that might assist in reducing the whey & allowing me to not strain nearly as much whey out of the yogurt - adding dry milk in addition to the liquid milk before heating it & scalding the milk for a longer period of time to really force the proteins to bind.

We'll see what happens.

Who cut the cheese?

We have several homebrews on tap (I'm a lucky gal) but one of the more popular is Steve's Cascadia, which is a black IPA.

Love this pint glass from a brewery in Utah...if you look closely, underneath the name, it says "Good for What Ales You."

We're continuing to experiment with cheese-making. We have yet to taste-test the final products, but currently a Farmhouse Cheddar & a Manchego are aging in our basement.

This morning I made crepes with a homemade mascarpone filling, topped with strawberries.

Homemade mascarpone is out-of-this-world delicious. So creamy. And so easy to make. Adding a bit of powdered sugar & almond extract, we had a crepe filling in a snap.

Tonight's menu includes a Cheddar-Ale soup with homemade Naan bread.

Before I finish breakfast, I'm already planning dinner. People wonder why I run so much.