Merry Christmas!!
#sharethegift
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Sharing the Gift
In the midst of a world where gloom and unhappiness seem to permeate the news, it's nice to know there are still people out there making messages meant to bring cheer.
Merry Christmas!!
#sharethegift
Merry Christmas!!
#sharethegift
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Mexican Cajeta
This is Ginger, our "champion" milk goat.
And this is Amber, who is also a good milker, but only produces about half of Ginger's volume.
Between the two of them, they can produce over a gallon and a half of milk daily. With our large family, this is great, because the kids (human kids) can have as much milk as they need. But sometimes, we experience something of a backlog.
There are times when our refrigerator contains roughly nine 2-quart jars in various stages of fullness. That is when I find myself looking for ways to use up goat milk, just as I sometimes find myself searching for ways to use up eggs, when our chickens are extra-productive.
One great way I've found to use up excess goat milk is making cajeta, a Mexican caramel usually made from goat milk, rather than cow's milk. It is a reduction and caramelization of a milk and sugar mixture, which can function as either a sauce or a candy, depending on how long it is cooked. My recipe is a tweaked combination of a few recipes I have found, starting with one at Everything Goat Milk.
Ingredients for about a cup of cajeta:
1 quart goat milk
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 Tablespoon cornstarch (optional, but I use it)
1/2 teaspoon Mexican vanilla, added just at the end (Other flavorings can be used.)
Additional equipment needed:
First, in a small amount of the goat milk, thoroughly mix the baking soda and cornstarch, being sure to eliminate any lumps.
Pour the rest of the milk into the large metal pot and dissolve the sugar in it. After the sugar is dissolved, stir in the baking soda mixture.
Bring the mixture to a boil over medium to medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Adjust the heat so the mixture will continue to boil steadily, without boiling over.
Keep stirring.
Turn on your Netflix reruns of "Murder, She Wrote", "Mythbusters", or whatever strikes your fancy.
Keep stirring. Delegate stirring to a Master Kitchen Helper for a while to give your arm a break.
Return after your Master Kitchen helper complains that the heat is just too much, and keep stirring.
After a while, the mixture will thicken and develop a caramel color. At this point, any haphazard stirring you may have been doing must stop. It is serious now. If you do not ensure you are stirring all along the edges of the pan or across the entire bottom of the pan, your mixture may stick and burn.
Keep cooking until you have reached a consistency you like, whether a sauce or a candy, remembering that it will thicken as it cools. Mix in the vanilla or whatever other flavor you have chosen to use.
According to Pati's Mexican Table, the cajeta makers at La Tradicional de Salago in Celaya, Mexico, can tell cajeta is done when the mixture makes a pattern of waves on the wooden spatula as it is removed from stirring the mixture. In addition, if the spatula is run across the bottom of the pot, the actual bottom of the pot should be visible, if only for a brief glimpse.
When I go by the measure of the waves on the spatula (or in my case, the wooden spoon), I find it produces a candy consistency cajeta. This is, according to my husband, who spent much of his youth off and on at his grandparents' house in Mexico, genuine cajeta. When I ignore the waves on the spoon and just look for the tiniest glimpse of the bottom of the pot, it produces something more like a sauce, which is more convenient to use as a topping or to put on toast, but not the kind of cajeta usually made down where he comes from.
If you have made a large batch, you can preserve it using jars and canning lids. Pati's states that the Mexicans simply cap the jars, then turn them upside down to create the seal. I've tried that, and it did seal, but I felt a little nervous about the safety. The next time I did it, I put the jars in a water bath, just to make me feel better. (Scientifically, though, why would the water bath help? The jars should have already been sterilized, and the cajeta has been raised to roughly 230 degrees Fahrenheit, much higher than the 212 degrees at which water boils. It just helped me psychologically.)
My favorite way to enjoy candy cajeta is on a spoon. Just take a spoon, scoop on a little cajeta, and suck on it like a lollipop. My kids will even accept this as a substitute for a "normal" dessert, and it's great for bribing Master Kitchen Helpers to do their schoolwork when they are reluctant to do so.
Naturally, it is possible to follow a similar procedure with cow's milk and create a caramel product, and those who do not have access to goat milk are welcome to do so. It probably even tastes good. But it won't be cajeta.
By the way . . .
Because of the long cook time, it sounds attractive to make cajeta in a crock-pot, and stories of people doing so intrigued me. However, when I tried it once, I walked away with "We Are Never, Ever Getting Back Together" stuck in my head. (As in, I am never, ever, ever trying that again. Like ever.) It is much more difficult to control the quality of the product, and after a certain point, it kept me tied to my kitchen in 20-minute intervals long after I would have already finished my stove-top cajeta and had it poured safely into canning jars to seal. In addition, because stirring the solution in the crock-pot left small amounts on the sides of the crock-pot, it produced a carbonized smell, instead of the comforting smell of warm milk happily caramelizing. By the time I called it a failed experiment, the product had not thickened to my satisfaction, and it tasted burnt. To top it all off, I ended up scrubbing the soaked crock-pot with a metal scrubber for longer than an entire "Murder, She Wrote" episode. That was definitely enough of that.
And this is Amber, who is also a good milker, but only produces about half of Ginger's volume.
Between the two of them, they can produce over a gallon and a half of milk daily. With our large family, this is great, because the kids (human kids) can have as much milk as they need. But sometimes, we experience something of a backlog.
There are times when our refrigerator contains roughly nine 2-quart jars in various stages of fullness. That is when I find myself looking for ways to use up goat milk, just as I sometimes find myself searching for ways to use up eggs, when our chickens are extra-productive.
One great way I've found to use up excess goat milk is making cajeta, a Mexican caramel usually made from goat milk, rather than cow's milk. It is a reduction and caramelization of a milk and sugar mixture, which can function as either a sauce or a candy, depending on how long it is cooked. My recipe is a tweaked combination of a few recipes I have found, starting with one at Everything Goat Milk.
Ingredients for about a cup of cajeta:
1 quart goat milk
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 Tablespoon cornstarch (optional, but I use it)
1/2 teaspoon Mexican vanilla, added just at the end (Other flavorings can be used.)
Additional equipment needed:
- Large metal pot, preferably without non-stick coating, which doesn't always hold up well under caramelization. Remember, milk and sugar mixtures can expand at times during the cooking process, so allow for plenty of room in the pot.
- Wooden spoon with flat end
- iPad with Netflix application
First, in a small amount of the goat milk, thoroughly mix the baking soda and cornstarch, being sure to eliminate any lumps.
Pour the rest of the milk into the large metal pot and dissolve the sugar in it. After the sugar is dissolved, stir in the baking soda mixture.
Bring the mixture to a boil over medium to medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Adjust the heat so the mixture will continue to boil steadily, without boiling over.
Keep stirring.
Turn on your Netflix reruns of "Murder, She Wrote", "Mythbusters", or whatever strikes your fancy.
 |
| This time, it was "Murder, She Wrote". |
Keep stirring. Delegate stirring to a Master Kitchen Helper for a while to give your arm a break.
Return after your Master Kitchen helper complains that the heat is just too much, and keep stirring.
After a while, the mixture will thicken and develop a caramel color. At this point, any haphazard stirring you may have been doing must stop. It is serious now. If you do not ensure you are stirring all along the edges of the pan or across the entire bottom of the pan, your mixture may stick and burn.
Keep cooking until you have reached a consistency you like, whether a sauce or a candy, remembering that it will thicken as it cools. Mix in the vanilla or whatever other flavor you have chosen to use.
According to Pati's Mexican Table, the cajeta makers at La Tradicional de Salago in Celaya, Mexico, can tell cajeta is done when the mixture makes a pattern of waves on the wooden spatula as it is removed from stirring the mixture. In addition, if the spatula is run across the bottom of the pot, the actual bottom of the pot should be visible, if only for a brief glimpse.
When I go by the measure of the waves on the spatula (or in my case, the wooden spoon), I find it produces a candy consistency cajeta. This is, according to my husband, who spent much of his youth off and on at his grandparents' house in Mexico, genuine cajeta. When I ignore the waves on the spoon and just look for the tiniest glimpse of the bottom of the pot, it produces something more like a sauce, which is more convenient to use as a topping or to put on toast, but not the kind of cajeta usually made down where he comes from.
If you have made a large batch, you can preserve it using jars and canning lids. Pati's states that the Mexicans simply cap the jars, then turn them upside down to create the seal. I've tried that, and it did seal, but I felt a little nervous about the safety. The next time I did it, I put the jars in a water bath, just to make me feel better. (Scientifically, though, why would the water bath help? The jars should have already been sterilized, and the cajeta has been raised to roughly 230 degrees Fahrenheit, much higher than the 212 degrees at which water boils. It just helped me psychologically.)
My favorite way to enjoy candy cajeta is on a spoon. Just take a spoon, scoop on a little cajeta, and suck on it like a lollipop. My kids will even accept this as a substitute for a "normal" dessert, and it's great for bribing Master Kitchen Helpers to do their schoolwork when they are reluctant to do so.
Naturally, it is possible to follow a similar procedure with cow's milk and create a caramel product, and those who do not have access to goat milk are welcome to do so. It probably even tastes good. But it won't be cajeta.
By the way . . .
Because of the long cook time, it sounds attractive to make cajeta in a crock-pot, and stories of people doing so intrigued me. However, when I tried it once, I walked away with "We Are Never, Ever Getting Back Together" stuck in my head. (As in, I am never, ever, ever trying that again. Like ever.) It is much more difficult to control the quality of the product, and after a certain point, it kept me tied to my kitchen in 20-minute intervals long after I would have already finished my stove-top cajeta and had it poured safely into canning jars to seal. In addition, because stirring the solution in the crock-pot left small amounts on the sides of the crock-pot, it produced a carbonized smell, instead of the comforting smell of warm milk happily caramelizing. By the time I called it a failed experiment, the product had not thickened to my satisfaction, and it tasted burnt. To top it all off, I ended up scrubbing the soaked crock-pot with a metal scrubber for longer than an entire "Murder, She Wrote" episode. That was definitely enough of that.
 |
| More nannies and kids, just for the fun of it. These ones we do not milk. |
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Tibetan Flatbread
Normally, a hot summer is not sufficient incentive for me to give up baking bread. But for some unknown reason, I found myself one day this summer in desperate need of bread, but completely unwilling to turn on my oven. To top it off, I was too exhausted to want to spend the time it would take to make tortillas.
Ingredients:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon olive oil (I've had even better results with 2 Tablespoons!)
1 cup + 2 Tablespoons water (This is divided.)
There are a few things I should note about the ingredients. First, the olive oil should be pure olive oil, rather than extra virgin, as it can withstand high heat better without burning. Also, this flour mixture is not set in stone. If you only have all-purpose flour at home, feel free to use 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour. I have found my family enjoys this recipe best when I use 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, and 1/2 cup flour ground from oat groats. I'm curious what would happen if I tried this recipe with even more oat flour and less all-purpose flour: how much of a role does gluten really play in this recipe? But that's a question to be answered another day.
First, combine the dry ingredients--flours, baking powder, and salt--in a mixing bowl. Add the 1 cup of water. With more whole wheat flour, a little more water may be desired: you want the result to look like more like a batter than a dough, nice and gooey.
Next, take a COLD 12-inch frying or saute pan (one which has a lid) and add the olive oil, spreading it around to ensure it covers the entire pan.
Pour the batter/dough into the pan and spread it around more or less evenly. Then take the 2 Tablespoons of water and pour them in around the sides of the dough. (I know you were wondering where they fit in!)
You may be looking at this and thinking, "Wow, that's a lot of oil and water just sitting around my cold dough. Do I really want all this stuff in there?"
Yes, yes you do. You see, as the bread cooks, all this stuff is going to be used to create steam and be absorbed into the bread, which gives it an absolutely luscious taste far beyond anything you thought you could create with flour, baking powder, and salt.
Put the lid on your pan and cook it over medium high heat for 10 minutes. Then flip the bread over, cover it again, and cook it for 5 more minutes.
You can let it cool some in the skillet, which I think produces better results, but if you are really in a hurry, you can pull it out on a cutting board and let it cool there.
Cut it and serve!
The olive oil makes it so tasty that no butter is needed, in my opinion, but it does taste good with either honey or jam.
This has actually become a staple in our house this summer, as a fast bread I can make to serve with our summer garden vegetable soups or as a quick breakfast bread. There are never any leftovers.
One day I hit upon something which we decided was sheer genius: we call it Tibetan Flatbread, Pizza Style, although it is probably closer to focaccia style. After the bread had cooked the first 10 minutes and was flipped, I sprinkled on some grated mozzarella cheese, some Parmesan cheese, and some Italian herbs before covering the pan and cooking for the last 5 minutes. After it finished, I slightly tilted the lid to allow for some heat to escape and waited for 15 minutes or possibly even longer. (I was waiting for people to come back in after morning chores.) It was an instant hit--so much so that I made it twice in the same day! I'm sure this could be expanded to make actual pizza, with sauce, etc.
I'm not sure making bread gets any simpler than this!
"There's got to be some kind of flatbread aside from tortillas I can bake on the stovetop!" I exclaimed and turned to the Internet.
Sure enough, I found several different recipes for stovetop breads, but the one which intrigued me enough to get me out of my chair and into the kitchen was a recipe for Tibetan flatbread.
Ingredients:
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon olive oil (I've had even better results with 2 Tablespoons!)
1 cup + 2 Tablespoons water (This is divided.)
There are a few things I should note about the ingredients. First, the olive oil should be pure olive oil, rather than extra virgin, as it can withstand high heat better without burning. Also, this flour mixture is not set in stone. If you only have all-purpose flour at home, feel free to use 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour. I have found my family enjoys this recipe best when I use 1/2 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, and 1/2 cup flour ground from oat groats. I'm curious what would happen if I tried this recipe with even more oat flour and less all-purpose flour: how much of a role does gluten really play in this recipe? But that's a question to be answered another day.
First, combine the dry ingredients--flours, baking powder, and salt--in a mixing bowl. Add the 1 cup of water. With more whole wheat flour, a little more water may be desired: you want the result to look like more like a batter than a dough, nice and gooey.
Next, take a COLD 12-inch frying or saute pan (one which has a lid) and add the olive oil, spreading it around to ensure it covers the entire pan.
You may be looking at this and thinking, "Wow, that's a lot of oil and water just sitting around my cold dough. Do I really want all this stuff in there?"
Yes, yes you do. You see, as the bread cooks, all this stuff is going to be used to create steam and be absorbed into the bread, which gives it an absolutely luscious taste far beyond anything you thought you could create with flour, baking powder, and salt.
Put the lid on your pan and cook it over medium high heat for 10 minutes. Then flip the bread over, cover it again, and cook it for 5 more minutes.
 |
| This is what it looks like after it's been flipped. |
Cut it and serve!
The olive oil makes it so tasty that no butter is needed, in my opinion, but it does taste good with either honey or jam.
This has actually become a staple in our house this summer, as a fast bread I can make to serve with our summer garden vegetable soups or as a quick breakfast bread. There are never any leftovers.
One day I hit upon something which we decided was sheer genius: we call it Tibetan Flatbread, Pizza Style, although it is probably closer to focaccia style. After the bread had cooked the first 10 minutes and was flipped, I sprinkled on some grated mozzarella cheese, some Parmesan cheese, and some Italian herbs before covering the pan and cooking for the last 5 minutes. After it finished, I slightly tilted the lid to allow for some heat to escape and waited for 15 minutes or possibly even longer. (I was waiting for people to come back in after morning chores.) It was an instant hit--so much so that I made it twice in the same day! I'm sure this could be expanded to make actual pizza, with sauce, etc.
I'm not sure making bread gets any simpler than this!
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