Tuesday Twister – June 30, 2009

My Tuesday Twister posts are my weekly round-up of what’s going on in my kitchen and our lives, as it pertains to food. So here we go – I’ll catch you up on what’s twisting in the kitchen this week!

Rich Soaked Oatmeal – Lately, I’ve taken to soaking oats overnight in half the liquid needed for cooking (along with a glug of whey or Kombucha) and then in the morning, adding the rest of the liquid in the form of milk for the cooking. The resulting oatmeal is rich and sweet and soooo delicious! We also add chopped (soaked) nuts, raisins, unsweetened shredded coconut, cinnamon and some green leaf stevia powder. I’ll add a recipe for this soon!

Traditional, Homemade Corn Tortillas (in progress) – Following the recipe at Cheeseslave, I made the dough for traditional corn tortillas. This involved boiling and then soaking whole corn in pickling lime. It soaked for a week before I got back to it – which is good: the longer the better, I gather! Then I went to make the tortillas and I’m stuck. Or I should say, the dough is stuck. I cannot figure out how to roll it out so it will stay in one piece when transferring it to the cast iron skillet for cooking. Is my dough too wet? I’ve used plastic bag barriers, cutting boards for pressing them flat and round (which works great), but when I go to get them in the pan, I cannot. Any suggestions? I could sprinkle some corn flour for rolling out. I’ll try that today. We’d sure like to eat the tortillas! I rolled out some of it on the back of a baking sheet and made some crackers, which were super good, although they stuck to the pan, too. There was a little bit of an aftertaste. I cannot say that it was offensive, it was just different. Which leaves me wondering: is this the way traditional corn tortillas are supposed to taste? or did I not rinse the lime off well enough?

Feta Cheese in Olive Oil Brine – I made this feta cheese, which doesn’t require refrigeration and is stored in quart size jars covered in olive oil. This coming Friday, after it has aged for one week, we’ll be able to test it! As of this morning, after milking, I have three gallons of milk in the fridge waiting to be turned into… something. More feta? Trying mozarella? I don’t know if I’m up for trying mozarella today, too many phone calls to make and too many other things to do. So perhaps another batch of feta. I could also get some yogurt going, again. I didn’t keep my first attempt going.

Continual Batching of Beef Stock – We got the call; our 1/2 grass-fed beef will be ready to pick up this week from Oakland Lockers. Embarassingly, I had many packages of beef bones taking up space in the freezer! Gotta free that up, so I’ve been making batches of beef stock continually in the crockpot since last Thursday. Each evening, I put bones and water and raw apple cider vinegar in the crockpot and cook for 24 hours. The next night, I start the next batch. Almost one whole shelf of the freezer is free now. The bones are full of meat, which has provided the most tender, flavorful main dish components all these days since late last week. I’ve cooked rice in stock twice and it is to-die-for! The rest of the stock is going in the freezer for later use. It doesn’t take up as much space this way.

Fantastic Brown Rice and Goat Milk “Sour Cream” – Along with the soaked oatmeal, I’ll be sharing recipes for fantastic rice and how we get an easy sour cream from our goat milk chevre. We’ve been swooning over all of them!

So, that’s it for me – what’s twisting in your kitchen? I would love to hear!