Fromage Blanc. Sunday July 12, 2015

On Friday as I was trying to fight off a winter chill, I decided to stay nice and warm inside the house and make cheese. As well as topping up my halloumi supplies, I decided to experiment with a soft cheese, Fromage Blanc. It was a very simple to make, merely a matter of warming the milk, adding culture and rennet and then letting it sit all day. I then drained it in cheese cloth all night and by morning, it was ready.

It is a slightly sour flavour, creamy in texture so it makes a good spread for bread.

I tried it spread on some toasted rye sourdough with some sweet chilli sauces and it was very tasty. I think it would be really nice with jam too. I wonder if it would work in a cheesecake as it has the consistency of cream cheese but without the fat content. ....maybe next time.

The best of bartering - Cheesemaking Lesson for a bottle of The Retiring, an artisanal gin. Saturday June 6th 2015

Yesterday I had a cheesemaking day with a difference. A work colleague retired a few months ago and I had promised to give him a cheesemaking lesson one day in winter when the garden harvest was over.  Our paths crossed last week so we arranged to meet yesterday for a big day of production. My plans were almost foiled by the milk truck arriving at 8.30am. That meant me hot footing it up to the vat with several bottles to fill before all the milk disappeared off to the factory.

This is the first time I have actually taught anyone to make cheese and it was a bit hard to decide which cheeses to make to teach to not have too much time to kill in between steps but that also taught some of the basic processes. After a lot of deliberation, I decided on Parmesan, Camembert and Ricotta and the timing was pretty much perfect. Five hours later after much talking, timing and curd cutting and stirring, we had Parmesan into its final stage of pressing, Camembert halfway through its 5 hours of flipping, Ricotta drained and ready to use. I sent Bert home with some ricotta and a few Camembert to flip on his own and then sit back and have the pleasure of watching the mould grow over the next week or so.He also took some bottles of milk to try to make some Fetta at home. 

This is what mine look like this morning.

Camembert

Parmesan just out of the press

and into a saturated brine for 24 hours

And the Ricotta into an Egg and Bacon Pie

And my reward?    Only a bottle of the gin judged to be the best Tasmanian gin by the staff at the bar at the fabulous MONA (Museum of Old and New Art)!!! Bert hasn't been idle in his retirement but has started making a beautiful artisanal gin called ,appropriately, The Retiring. Guess what we had with our dinner last night! 

The Retiring Gin

And after he left,just to finish off the day, I made some Cherry Chocolate ice cream with the cream I had skimmed off the milk used in the Parmesan .

Today has been wet and drizzly outside all day so a perfect day for staying in the Preserving Patch Kitchen. I have been busy making some Jostaberry and Gooseberry Jam

And a nice crusty loaf of bread to go with it.

Harvest of the Sea. Sunday May 24 2015

I suddenly realised the other day that I hadn't done a blog post for some time after such a good start to the year.

The autumn garden harvest is finally finished so as the weather has been spectacularly beautiful this weekend, I decided to go fishing. Vegetarians stop reading now!  I thought my kayak fishing for the season had finished but couldn't resist the temptation when the forecast was for calm and sunny days and decided to go for one more trip before putting the kayak in the shed until late spring. Rocky Cape National Park , where I have had a bit of previous success ,was my destination. The day was frosty but with no wind. It was just beautiful on the water today.

Yesterday I caught three Australian or cocky salmon and one less tasty blue throated wrasse or parrot fish. The salmon went straight into the freezer for another day and I filleted the parrot fish to use tonight.

Today ,even though the day was calmer, the fish weren't biting and I was almost ready to give up and come home when I suddenly landed a squid. That made the trip worthwhile so it is Squid ink Risotto on the menu for tonight ( with the parrot fish which is not so tasty on its own).

 From this....to this

A great new idea for excess zucchini....not mine. Sunday April 12 2015

I was watching a cooking show on SBS TV the other night featuring an English young lady with bright red lipstick. She was touring the Amalfi coast in Italy and gushing over all the simple Italian family cooking with all the local produce. Beautiful scenery, good food. But then when she came to make something for the people she had visited, she came up with a brilliant substitute for pasta. Ever tried julienned zucchini briefly cooked with a tomato sauce? Sounded like a great way to use up some of the last of the summer's zucchini  that I have left in the garden so last night I gave it a try.

Simply julienne zucchini lengthwise through a mandoline and there you have the basic strips of " pasta" only this is just vegetable nothing else. 

Make up a sauce of sautéed onion garlic and tomato. Add the zucchini for the last minute or so of cooking and voila! Bellissimo!

Tonight I am trying it with a mince sauce.

A peck of Peppers. Easter Sunday April 5th 2015

I have no idea how much is a peck. Neither are these pickled but they are peppers. Tasmanian native peppers that is. Tasmannia lanceolata. There is a bumper crop this year and we have just been to our mountain hideaway for a couple of days where there are thousands of pepper bushes. Only the female bushes fruit so this has been a good time to identify some that are female for taking cuttings to propagate in the future. This tree was not far from our hut and absolutely laden with big berries. Lots of the other bushes had smaller fruit.

So it didn't take me long to pick this lot. Now they are in the dehydrator, drying out so that they keep for many months. Yesterday I chopped up a few to have in our lunchtime omelette. Not too many as they are very HOT.

I like to put them in my Pyrenees pepper cheese when I make it so that will have to be on the agenda sometime soon. Otherwise they can be used as a substitute for ordinary black pepper. A slightly different flavour but tasty all the same.

Foraging in the fields. Tuesday, March 31 2015

Last week we had a nice drop of rain and I noticed a few white spots in the neighbours paddock as I drove past. So on the weekend, I went a-wandering around a few of the paddocks here, hopeful that I might get lucky and find some mushrooms. Well find them I did! For the first time in about 5 years, I found lots of them! I think it must be a combination of conditions. Perhaps a long dry summer with early autumn rains when the daytime temperatures have still been reasonably warm.

On Saturday I picked a dozen or so in the paddock where I last found them in abundance in 2010. Then on Sunday I tried another paddock where the dairy effluent spray has been going and I picked over 2.5 kg! Yesterday in the late afternoon, I went and had another look in the same paddock and picked another 800g! So this week we are having mushrooms in many incarnations for dinner. Beef stroganoff, mushroom and broad bean pilau, mushroom and tomato frittata so far. I also cooked up quite a few and have frozen them for other meals in the future. Yum!

Can't beat the taste of fresh mushies!

Just Peachy. Tuesday 24th March 2015

Last weekend I was finally able to start my harvest of a laden peach tree in my orchard. I have been watching eagerly for several weeks, waiting for them to colour up and soften. I noticed that. Birds or possums were starting to have a nibble on some of them so that was my cue to start the harvest.

First up, out came the preserving unit and by the end of the weekend I had bottled a dozen big jars.

Then I stewed some peach slices and puréed them. This lot was turned into peach leather and a little experiment as dehydrated cooked peach slices.

I also tried some dehydrated raw peach slices which took much longer than the cooked ones and didn't have nearly as much flavour. In the end my taste tester Max and I decided the leather was a better end product.

With more purée, I made a peach ice cream. It lacked a bit of flavour so I added some passionfruit pulp and vanilla essence. This was a custard based ice cream and in hindsight, I think a yoghurt base would have given it a better flavour. There are plenty more peaches on the tree so that can be next weekends experiment.

Then on Sunday, I stoned and chopped about three kilos and made a big batch of peach jam.

There are still plenty more to harvest so I think I will bottle some more last weekend, stew some for the freezer, and of course eat some fresh ones.