Crème Fraîche

Yes, it's been forever.  I've been posting a few things on Facebook that I realized this morning I could post here and then share on Facebook, so that's what I'll be trying to do from here on out.

For those of you who don't know what crème fraîche is, you're in for a treat!  It's a gently soured cream, not as tangy as sour cream but very smooth and very French.  In my efforts to increase the healthy fats in my diet, I've been adding a couple dollops to my scrambled eggs each morning.  Wow!

I've made crème fraîche in the past by adding a tablespoon or two of cultured buttermilk to a quart of cream and letting it sit out overnight.  The rest of the buttermilk was then used for baking.  But I'm not really baking anymore (both in avoidance of grains and in avoidance of adding extra heat to our hot afternoon house).  I bought some crème fraîche from the gourmet grocery store last week (cha-ching!).  I was almost out and I thought I'd give something a try ("I tell you, LaFou, I've been thinking." "A dangerous pasttime." "I know.").

I added a couple large dollops of crème fraîche to a pint of cream and let it sit on a kitchen counter in a mason jar for 24 hours.  It thickened up nicely, but didn't smell quite tangy enough this morning, so I let it go another 12.  I still have to decide if I'll put it into the fridge tonight or tomorrow morning, but it's smelling pretty good right now.  Even though it wasn't quite done, I used a little in my eggs this morning and it tasted great.

I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep this up.  Hmmm…maybe if I store a couple spoonfuls in the freezer, I can use that to start my next batch, the way I keep a small jar of yogurt in the freezer as starter?  I guess I'll find out!

I've also been making water kefir - just started this week, but that's a post for another day!

SDG!

Decluttering Help

My friend, Renée, is posting one decluttering tip per day. I'm not sure how long she's planning on doing this, but I've been finding her tips quite helpful! Check out her blog: Add More Chocolate!

SDG!

Gravy

Last night's dinner was a simple pot roast, but I changed it up a little and it was better than ever. And it didn't take much extra time or effort.

Instead of adding water to my green-with-white-speckles roasting pan, I added a carton and a half of beef stock. I put the veggies (carrots, onions, potatoes) in first and then sprinkled them liberally with salt and parsley. Then I placed the roast (still frozen because of a miscommunication with the kidlets) on top of the veggies, where it sat above the level of the broth and the juices would run down onto the veggies.

After roasting for 4 hours (I told you it was frozen), we removed everything from the pot and covered it with foil to keep warm. Normally, I serve the juice alongside the roast, but yesterday was cold (for Arizona) and rainy and I felt like making some gravy.

I got out my trusty Culinary Artistry and looked up 'beef'. We strained the juice into a pot, which I then turned on to simmer after adding some chopped shallots, basil, red wine, and a bit of salt and white pepper.

On another burner, I made a blond roux in a small skillet. (I would have made a darker roux, but my family was as hungry as a pack of wolves, so I thought it best to speed up the process a little.) Once the roux was cooked sufficiently, I added a little of the broth to the skillet to begin the process of loosening up the roux to make it easier to incorporate into the broth. Then I whisked the loosened roux into the pot of broth and served. It was the first beef gravy I've ever made, and the best beef gravy I've ever eaten.

I used to make gravy with milk shaken together with flour and poured into whatever base I was using. In order to avoid lumps, I had to stand over it and whisk it constantly (and hope I'd added enough flour to thicken it, but not too much milk to dilute the flavour). In order to get rid of the floury taste, I had to simmer it for quite awhile (whisking the whole time). It was a hot and steamy business.

By using roux, the gravy comes together much more easily and I know it won't taste floury, since the flour is cooked more efficiently in the skillet than in the base. And since the butterfat coats the flour particles, they don't clump together, which gives me a smoother gravy with less effort.

SDG!

My Grocery Shopping Philosophy

A philosophy for grocery shopping?  Well, yeah, I think we should have a philosophy for everything - grocery shopping, furniture arranging, the way we dress - everything (whoever said caring for the home was a mindless job certainly had no idea).  

So, here's my grocery shopping philosophy.  [drum roll, please; cue the choir] 

Purchase ingredients.

Whew!  I'm glad I got that off my chest!

I'd rather have my pantry stocked with flour, oil, cocoa, sugar, vanilla, and baking soda and powder and my fridge with butter, milk, cream, eggs, and yeast than with lots of packaged mixes.  With those ingredients, I can make brownies or crépes (sweet or savory) or yellow cake with chocolate frosting or sugar cookies or pancakes or tortillas or bread or crackers or biscuits or baguettes (my newest baking challenge) or pie crust or English muffins or crumpets; you get the idea and I'm getting hungry.  Making sure that I'm stocked up with the basics gives me much more flexibility than purchasing mixes.  I can go with the flow much more easily.

So, why is this a money saver?  Well, even though I've rarely seen a coupon for a dozen eggs or a gallon of milk, ingredients still end up being cheaper than mixes.  They're also healthier.  And if you find a screamin' deal  (let me know, okay?), most can be stored without refrigeration (storage costs need to be figured in, too).  Just as it's easier to de-clutter the kitchen with multi-use tools rather than lots of space-hogging, single-use gadgets, it's easier to declutter the pantry with multi-use ingredients rather than lots of single-use packaged mixes.

Using teriyaki sauce as an example: I could purchase a bottle of teriyaki sauce.  It wouldn't take up that much space.  But it's teriyaki sauce and that's all it can ever be.  Yes, I can use it in a meat marinade (recipe coming soon) or in stir fry, but there isn't much else I can do with it.  However, if I have brown sugar, garlic (something like this), fresh minced ginger, and soy sauce on hand, well, life just got much tastier.  I can use the brown sugar for granola, on yogurt, for cinnamon/raisin bread, bread pudding, pancakes, rum sauce, etc.  (Is there anything brown sugar can't be used in?)  I can add a bit of ginger to chicken soup, cookies, bread, pudding, tea for an upset tummy, etc.  Garlic goes in just about anything and we use it all the time.  Soy sauce goes well in marinades, soups, veggies, noodles, and rice.  I can still have teriyaki anytime I want to make it, but I have lots of other options, too, because I bought separate ingredients.

Now, it's not like I didn't have the ingredients for teriyaki on hand before, well, except for the ginger - that's a new thing in my fridge (I've never been much of a fan of dried ginger and the jar in my pantry is at least 25 years old, but the fresh stuff is heavenly), but by not purchasing a bottle of teriyaki, I'm saving space.  You could argue that I simply traded a bottle of teriyaki for a jar of ginger, but I can do so much more with ginger than I could with teriyaki, that I still think I've come out ahead.  But really, how much space does a bottle of teriyaki sauce take up?  Not much, but that's where having a full-blown philosophy comes in.  If I do this over and over again, searching out recipes that use basic ingredients that I have on hand for bottles, jars, or boxes of things I might otherwise buy, the savings in both space and money begin to multiply.

I'm still looking for recipes for my husband's favorite bar-be-que sauce, our favorite bourbon chicken from the greasy spoon at the mall, and orange chicken.  Alton Brown piqued my interest in making my own mustard.  I've already conquered Drew's favorite honey-mustard salad dressing, mayonnaise, hummus, and raspberry vinaigrette (all absurdly easy).  We've found fairly simple homemade ice cream and smoothie recipes.  I don't know if I'll ever find a replacement for ketchup, onion soup mix, or for canned cream of chicken soup (used in several dishes that are family favorites), but those cans, bottles, and boxes can be used in more than one dish, so I'm philosophically okay with them, at least for now.  (I have tried a replacement for the cream of chicken soup, but it wasn't worth the time it took to cook and it wasn't really a good substitute for the concentrated soup in the can - the texture was all wrong.)

SDG!

And the Results Are…

Instead of putting boiling water in the jars before pouring in the hot cultured milk, I got the tap as hot as it would go and used that.  The yogurt in the jars thickened up in the same amount of time that the crockpot usually takes and the jars stayed warm under the towel.

This morning, after spending the night in the fridge, it was thick and wonderful.  I think this technique is a winner.

Allison, I went through the grainy and thin yogurt stage and never really figured out why (sun spots?  a butterfly fluttered its wings in Hawaii?  a yogurt curse?).  I've been told that making yogurt is more an art than a science.  I'd let it sit a bit longer next time and see if that helps.  I also found that turning the crockpot on low for about 10-20 minutes if it was taking awhile to thicken seemed to help - at least, I think it did; if I hadn't turned it on, it might have thickened up on its own anyway--no way to tell.  (If I needed to do this with the jars, I'd put them either in a shallow warm water bath on the counter or set them on a heating pad set on low.)

Another tip from Elise - I poured about a cup of the half-&-half and starter mixture into a small jar and set it on the counter under the towel with the quart jars to thicken up.  When the yogurt had thickened, I put the small jar into the freezer.  I'll take it out and let it defrost in the fridge overnight and use that as my starter when I make it next.  This tip might make the starter last longer.  I was using an envelope of cultures every few batches, and using a half to a cup of yogurt itself as a starter in between.  Freezing it will help it remain fresh longer and therefore I can get more batches for each envelope of starter, cutting my costs even more.

SDG!

Yogurt Revisited

Yes, another post about yogurt!

Why do I keep reading others' yogurt recipes?  Because I just might learn something new.  Well, I think I have.

A couple weeks ago, after the yogurt was done and ready for the fridge, I discovered that I didn't have any quart jars clean.  We had room in the fridge ('Wonder of wonders! Miracle of miracles!'), so I put the whole 1-gallon crock in.  The next day, the yogurt was the thickest I've ever seen (yes, even thicker than store-bought with all its gelatins and guar gums).  We ate it from the crock in the fridge until it was time to make more (it helped that I have two crockpots - I'm 'bi-potal' according to my friend Renee).  I did the same thing with the next batch of yogurt to see if this was a fluke or a discovery - put the whole crock in the fridge, and again, it turned out super-thick.  I thought I was onto something, but unless I assumed all my readers (all 10 of you) are also bi-potal, this wasn't a tip for public consumption.

'So why am I posting this publicly?' you ask.  Good question.  This morning, I was reading Strategic Eating: The Econovore's Essential Guide by Elise Cooke (review coming soon) and she outlined her process for making yogurt.  Honestly, the crockpot is much easier as far as I'm concerned, but she included a step that put the final piece into my yogurt puzzle and that makes this a tip everyone can use.  

After adding her cultures, Elise pours the liquid into jars and then she warms the jars in a hot water bath or in a slow oven.  Well, being the tea connoisseur that I am, I know that no pot of tea is worth its weight in tea leaves unless it's been pre-heated by pouring boiling water into it (and then emptying it) before putting in tea leaves and more boiling water.  Put these two things together and I think I've found an easier way to make my yogurt yummy and thick.

I've got half-&-half heating in the crockpot now.  When it's closer to being the right temp, I'll pour boiling water into four quart-sized jars and one half-pint jar (to hold my starter for the next batch).  I'll mix my starter in, then I'll pour the cultured liquid into the hot jars, wrap the jars in a beach towel, and let the bitty cultures grow.  Once they're firm, I'll put the jars in the fridge.

I'll report back and let you know how my experiment goes.

SDG!

Playing with Yogurt

Earlier this week I made a batch of yogurt.  After 4 1/2 hours, it still hadn't set, so I turned the crockpot on low for about ten minutes and then re-wrapped it and promptly forgot about it.  Three hours later, it had set up as firm and thick as sour cream.  It was the best I'd ever made.

I tried again yesterday, doing the same thing I'd done earlier in the week (10 minutes on low after 4 hours and then letting it go for another 2 or 3 hours).  Again, it turned out just fabulous!

Now that I'm getting a better handle on yogurt, I'm beginning to research using yogurt as the basis for cream spreads, creamy salad dressings, and recipes to use it in (as a replacement for sour cream, for example).  I'll keep you posted!

SDG!

Tips

Just a couple of things I've learned lately.

1) If a permanent marker is used on a white board, it can be removed!  I tried a couple of different techniques and they both worked great to get the littles' French vocabulary cleaned off and neither ruined the board's finish.

a)  Take a dry erase marker and trace over the offending mark.  The alcohol in the marker dissolves the Sharpie.

b)  For larger messes, wash the board with alcohol-based hand sanitizer.  Works like a dream.

2)  Yogurt can be made in a crockpot.  I have a yogurt maker and love it, but it makes 7 6-oz jars - not enough for us and a bit hard to fit all those little jars into the fridge.

The recipe calls for low-fat milk, but I've discovered that half-n-half makes a great yogurt.  (Yogurt made with cream is called crème bulgare and is my favorite.  Half cream, half milk (or bought half-n-half) is just as thick, but less expensive.)  I made more than a half gallon earlier this week and we've been enjoying it immensely.  This recipe is easier than using my yogurt maker as it takes less of my time, even though the recipe takes longer overall.

Non-instant dried milk can also be added for a thicker consistency (I'm not sure how much you'd need for this recipe - play with it).  I make it plain and we add flavorings to our bowls.  I like mine with a small sprinkling of brown sugar, but fruit or granola is also delicious.

For those of you who are local, I purchase my cultures from Sprouts.  Or you can use a container of plain yogurt bought from the grocery store, as long as it contains live or active cultures.

Here's the recipe.

SDG!