Breakfast is yummy with goat cheese

I tried my hand at making goat cheese again last week, and it was a great success! The first time I made it, the cheese was runny and mushy--tasty, but not what I was going for. This time it was firm but spreadable, and oh so tasty! i neglected to take pictures of the process, but here's something we put it on to devour: 

I made this fried egg sandwich for breakfast last Sunday, and it was delicious!! Ciabatta bread, fresh tomato, fried egg, slivers of cheddar, and then fresh-from-the-herb-garden basil. And of course the goat cheese.
Photo credits go to the lovely Pamela Torres, who claimed that there was no sandwich better in Portland. Little does she know! Portland breakfasts can blow your socks off!

I am in Love with Cheese

And my fix can now be satisfied at our local Cheese Bar! Oh joy! Jubilation! Excitement! This is my new favorite spot for a date, located on SE 60th and Belmont.
Jesse and I wandered over there last night--it's walkable from our house, but I think biking would be a bit better, just to get to the cheese faster.

They have a chalkboard with a rotating menu of sandwiches, salads, and a soup, and then you can also order a cheese or meat plate, olives, baguette, beer, and wine. Jesse and I went for Sandwiches #1 and #2. #1 had fontina cheese, prosciutto, greens, and tomato-balsamic dressing. #2 had sheep's cheese and arugula, both served on a demi-baguette. They were both delicious, though more of a tapas feel than a whole meal.
 And then of course we got a cheese plate. It was three European cheeses, which our waiter thoroughly explained, served with baguette slices and plum chutney. My favorite was the goat's cheese Brie-type one, of which the name has completely left me despite all the goodness.
It was all amazing. The staff was so helpful and friendly, giving us samples of beer and cheese to try, helping us find exactly what we wanted. We went home with 2 little wrapped bundles of deliciousness--one a sheep's milk from Italy that fit Jesse's wish of "something pungent," and another a creamy goat's milk that will balance the pungent one perfectly! They are safely wrapped in paper, chilling out in our fridge until a later time.
The knowledge that they are sitting there is delicious and naughty, like knowing you're going on a fancy date later. And I will be! These cheeses deserve to be dressed up for! Have a table set for them, with fancy goblets of wine and crusty breads on rarely-used special dishes.  Well, hello, Mr. Cheese. Welcome to my plate.

A Lotta Ricotta

Weekends are full of small victories for me. A new recipe tried, a book finished, a hike taken. This weekend included all of those, and a dollop of ricotta! We've been meaning to try the ricotta recipe in our cheesemaking book for awhile because it looked so easy. Bascially you take a gallon of milk, heat it up, add vinegar and salt, let it curdle, then drain the curds. Voila, ricotta!

A whole gallon of milk only makes about 1 1/2 cups of ricotta, but that's about what you'd buy at the store.  The weird thing about ricotta is that it doesn't actually taste like anything but the milk, but it's so delicious when you add it to things.

Suki helping us look for a pot.

The finished product! We cut up a ripe mango and ate it with that. Other ricotta uses are manicotti, of course (Jesse's favorite), mixing it with honey and berries, and then a recipe I just saw in Cooking Light for "Open-faced Sandwich with Ricotta, Arugula, and Fried Egg."

Mmm...

I love knowing that I can do things myself instead of buying expensive things at Whole Foods. And it's such a quick easy afternoon project!

Next up, Mascarpone or Creme Fraiche? Decisions, decisions...

Homemade Cheese, of the Goat Variety

Yup, you guessed it--we made goat cheese! Our dear friends The Beedles gave us a DIY kit for Christmas, straight from the local shops of Portland:

As you can see, our kit was for Chevre, or goat cheese, and as you can't see, it came with cheesecloth, a cheese thermometer, and the citric acid needed to curdle milk. Then we had everything else!

The hardest part was finding the goats milk, because it's not hanging out everywhere. What's more, you're not supposed to use Ultra-Pasteurized milk because that kills all of the good bacteria. And plain old pasteurized goats milk is hard to find. But we finally scored some at Trader Joe's, and brought it home dreaming of creamy goodness.

First, we carefully brought the milk to an almost-boil, then added in the citric acid, which curdled it and turned it a weird yellowish green color. But this was a good thing. We kept it at a good simmer until it really got a-curdling, and separated into curds and whey. At this point, I thought, "Little Miss Muffet must have been crazy to eat this stuff." It looked pretty gross.

Then we poured it all into a little baggie made of the cheesecloth and let all the whey drain out, leaving just the beautiful tasty curds: chevre! We mixed dill into part of it, because I have a love affair with dill. Then we let it cool.

And then we ate it! It was delicious! And we had made it all on our own!

Okay. it doesn't look like much, but it's pretty tasty!

So, just to recap, that's sour cream, butter, buttermilk, and chevre we've made in our very own kitchen. I just need to buy a goat, and we'll have a never-ending supply! I suggested it to Jesse, but he didn't go for that. Bummer. Maybe someday. We can have a family of goats, for Suki to make friends with. Our chevre kit makes 10 batches, so we have a ways to go still!

We're on a roll with the dairy items-next up, yogurt?

The Science of Butter

For Hannukah/Christmas/New Years, I got Jesse a cheesemaking book. (Really, it was for me). I've heard that making soft cheeses is really easy, and I've been so excited to try it out. We tried to make sour cream for our latkes awhile ago, and it was a bit of a runny mess. By now, though, it's solidified a little, and actually tastes like sour cream! Better than sour cream! It's amazing!

With that tasty success, it was time for another try, so I attempted butter. The recipe was really easy--take cream, shake until the butterfat separates, wash it, and add salt. While I could have used the food processor, I chose to shake it in a glass jar for 20 minutes, because I figured by the time I made the butter, I will have worked off enough calories to eat it. So I shook and shook. I got a little worried when I opened the jar and just saw whipped cream, but as I kept shaking the fat in the milk began to clump together into a big blob, leaving buttermilk behind. (So really, I made butter AND buttermilk. Two in one!)

You know those experiments in science class where cool things happen with regular ingredients? Like a baking soda and vinegar volcano? It was kind of like that. I was just shaking along, and the next time I peered into the jar there was a blob of butter there! I felt like I needed Bill Nye the Science Guy to explain what I just did. Or the president to give me a medal. Either way.

So, I washed and rinsed the butter a few times, mixed and mashed the salt into it, and then put it in the fridge! And this morning, Jesse and I enjoyed fresh butter on our bagels. And it tasted good....so good.

Happy New Years!