Delicious on my best homemade chocolate ice cream, here’s an easy chocolate syrup which features mineral-rich and tasty maple syrup as well as my new favorite kitchen ingredient, Artisana’s coconut butter.

• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup pure maple syrup, Grade B
• 2 tablespoons coconut butter
• 4 tablespoons water, or more for desired consistency

Blend all ingredients together in food processor or blender. Serve immediately – this is when it drizzles best. Chill leftovers. When serving again, let it come to a cool room temperature and give it a quick stir to smooth out the texture. Enjoy!

See all basic recipes.

In the past, I’ve used the cream part of coconut milk (not light) to make frosting, and that works pretty well. Except that at room temperature, it gets too soft and doesn’t hold up.

The answer: Artisana Coconut Butter. Not the most frugal option, BUT definitely the best. In my opinion, it is worth every penny!

This frosting holds up at room temperature, and yet is semi-soft when right out of the refrigerator. It is the perfect balance of creamy, smooth, spreadable, and semi-stiff. I don’t expect I’ll ever make another type of frosting. That’s why I’m including this recipe in my new series, Basic Recipes.

The recipe, as stated, will generously frost one 8-inch square Chocolate Sourdough Cake (another yumm). It will adequately frost two 8-inch square cakes.

This frosting makes an awesome sweet dip for your favorite fresh or dried fruits!

The amount of maple syrup may be lessened to your desired sweetness. However, as it acts as a liquid, lessening it will affect the consistency, making the frosting more stiff. I believe there’s room to play here. Also, the milk may be lessened or omitted to make a more stiff frosting. Enjoy!

See all Basic Recipes.

Yield: about 1/2 cup

• 1/2 cup Artisana Coconut Butter – or other raw coconut butter/cream
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup maple syrup, grade B
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 to 4 tablespoons raw milk, to thin to desired consistency

Blend all ingredients in food processor or Vita-Mix until smooth, adding the milk one tablespoon at a time. Let the food processor run long enough to gently warm and smooth the frosting (one to two minutes in a cooler room temperature when the coconut butter will be quite hard; less in warmer room temperatures). Spread on cooled cake. (Optionally, let the frosting cool a bit, too. But it shouldn’t be hot anyway, it should just be mildly warm at the point where it gets smooth.) If too firm when chilled, allow to warm up in a water bath until spreadable.

Variation: Basic Vanilla Frosting – Coconut Cream.

© Copyright 2009 by Wardeh Harmon.

The Gallery of Thanksgiving Sides is coming up on Thursday, November 19 – think about what Thanksgiving side dish you’d like to contribute!

This post is part of Real Food Wednesday, this week hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

We’re on a quest to find the perfect homemade creamy salad dressing. We’ve enjoyed almost every trial version. I’m not sure I’m done with the recipe, but this will show you where I am so far. And, you know what, I’d love to have your suggestions on how to improve this and make it more tasty!

The base of this recipe is either: chevre, yogurt cheese, kefir cheese, or sour cream (or “sour cream” made from chevre). Those all have different consistencies – the key is to add raw milk to whichever one you’re using to get it to the consistency you prefer. The recipe below reflects a thinner consistency, which is what we like because: 1) it lasts longer and 2) it is easier to pour.

The yogurt cheese or kefir cheese will make the dressing more tart, so you might want to decrease the apple cider vinegar and/or add a bit of raw honey. The chevre and sour cream make our favorite dressings, though we like the yogurt or kefir based dressings very much, too.

What I like about this recipe is that it is very versatile. And it goes with saying (though I’m going to say it) that herbs and spices differ greatly in quality and flavor. I am always very happy with the dried herbs and spices I get from Azure Standard; the brand is usually Oregon’s Wild Harvest. These herbs/spices far surpass the grocery store herbs. Other options for you would include a health food store with good turnover or Mountain Rose Herbs.

Lindsey recommended adding chives to a creamy, ranch-style dressing. I have yet to get some chives. They are on my list for my next Azure order. I placed an order yesterday but forgot to add the chives and now it is too late.

On to the recipe…

• 1 cup chevre, yogurt cheese or kefir cheese PLUS 1 cup raw milk –OR– 1-1/2 to 2 cups sour cream
• additional raw milk, for consistency (I use 1/4 to 1/2 cup)
• 1/4 cup raw apple cider vinegar
• 2 teaspoons herbed seasoning salt, herbamare, or 1 teaspoon sea salt (plus more to taste)
• 1 tablespoon organic dried dill
• 1 tablespoon organic dried parsley
• a pinch of black pepper
• additional ingredients – garlic, more herbs, etc.

Whisk all ingredients together – in food processor, blender, or with a whisk by hand. Store in an air-tight jar in the refrigerator. Makes 2 to 3 cups, depending.

Please share your favorite salad dressing recipes in the comments. I’d also love to hear your suggestions for how you’d make this dressing better.

This post is part of Pennywise Platter Thursday at The Nourishing Gourmet, Fight Back Friday! at FoodRenegade, and A Gathering of Homemade Dressings at Kitchen Stewardship. Making your own salad dressing is not only better for you (have you read any labels lately?) but you’ll save money.

Just warning you, the process is a little complicated.

Put about 1 cup of chevre in the food processor, add a tablespoon of raw milk, and blend until smooth. Add more milk and blend, tablespoon by tablespoon, until the “cream” is the right consistency. Chill or serve immediately.

See how hard that is?

I think you can do the same thing with yogurt-cheese (labni/labneh/labani) or kefir-cheese, too. Has anyone tried this before?

The reason I love this is because we get very little cream from our goat milk, due to its being naturally homogenized. Although a little cream rises to the top if the milk is left undisturbed in the fridge for a few days, it is not that much, nor do I have that much time to wait. Yet I am able to make a batch of chevre from whole milk every other day – which gives me plenty of cheese to turn into this “sour cream.”

The other way to get sour cream from chevre is not to let the whey drip out as long. (This also works as a mayo substitute!)

I’m submitting this post in Fight Back Fridays! – how are you fighting back for real food?

I would like to share what you know with the great and inspirational readers of gnowfglins.com. Send your favorite kitchen tip(s), accompanying photos, and your website address (optional) to: tips at gnowfglins dot com. 

Jerri at Homesteader Supply shared this technique with me. It works, it really does. And the butter is to-die-for! Wow! From a quart of cultured milk, I got 4 tablespoons of butter. Not alot. But super duper good butter, even so! It gets me excited that if I ever get a cream separator, I’ll be able to use this process with great yields – because I’ll start with cream instead of milk.

What’s happening with this method is that instead of taking straight cream and turning it into butter (culturing is optional), you take whole milk, culture it, and churn the milk – but because the milk is only  4 to 5 percent cream, that’s all that turns into butter. The rest you capture and save to use later, as cultured milk.

The Recipe: Cultured Butter from Cultured Goat Milk (Not Cream)

Yield: about 1/4 cup of butter from 1 quart of milk, depending on butterfat content of your milk.

Take one quart of raw goat milk, its temperature doesn’t matter. (I used milk still warm from milking.) Add about 1/8 teaspoon of mesophilic MM or mesophilic MA culture. Mix it up so the culture distributes fully. Cover with a cloth and secure with rubber band or ribbon. Leave out until thick, about 24 hours. It should taste like sour cream. Transfer to refrigerator to chill all the way.

Put 2 cups of the cultured milk in mixing bowl of mixer or in blender (don’t use a Vita-Mix, it will get hot). Add 1 cup of cold water. Turn on mixer or blender and let it run. In my Bosch on speed 3, I had to let it run 20 minutes while watching for clumps of solids floating in liquid. If it is pasty, not solid, let it go longer. When the butter solids are formed, pour all the contents through a fine strainer, catching the liquid in a bowl beneath. Save the liquid for later use, for soaking or baking.

Wash the butter solids under cold running water. It will thicken and harden from the cold water. Rinse until water runs clear. Transfer to a bowl and mash it with a spoon to release the rest of the water. When no more water comes out, the butter is done. Salt to taste and store in the refrigerator for up to one week.

About Goat’s Milk and Separating Cream

I’ve been researching this – hoping for a non-mechanical solution to getting cream from our goat’s milk. But I’m not finding anything useful. At Mother Earth News, a writer suggested putting a gallon of milk in a shallow pan in the refrigerator for 24 hours to allow cream to rise to the surface. I would love to do this, but I have not the fridge space. Other methods that work for cow’s milk, where the cream rises to the surface of whatever jar and gives inches of cream, do not work for goat’s milk. This is because goat’s milk is naturally homogenized – the fat particles are the same size as the rest and they stay mixed together.

So I am waiting for a cream separator. Actually, I’m waiting for a good deal on one and antique is fine as long as there are no tin parts! I prefer a hand crank, just cuz someday I might not have much electricity available. If anyone wants to buy me one, I won’t refuse.

I once asked a friend who used to live among the Amish to share how she made cheese, since I didn’t have internet then it was my primary resource of info. She wrote it on little paper that I keep in my recipe box. Here are Bethany’s recipes in her own words. – Christina

Ricotta: (freezes well)
Heat up goat milk to at least 180 degrees then remove from heat and slowly stir in vinegar or lemon juice at the proportion of 1/4 c. to 1 gallon. The curds should separate and float to the top within seconds. If not add a little slug of more vinegar. Let it cool some and strain the curds into a collander. I usually save the whey to use in breads, soups or feed it to the chickens or cat.

Raw Goat Cheese:
I use the older milk at least several days old. In order to leave some room at the top of the jar for expansion, I skim the cream. We use 1/2 gallon mason jars and I take several inches from the top and then set the jar in a warm place until it separates (the milk). I pour this into a colander lined with cheesecloth. I sprinkle some salt on the cheese, maybe 1 tsp. or more per 1 gallon batch? Then I put a cover on it and let it strain for a day. Next I cinch up the cheesecloth with a big twisty tie and hang the cheese over a pan to drip for a day or so. You’ll get the hang of it. I like to put more salt and herbs into this cheese and eat it on salad or bread or crackers.

Raw Yogurt:
Get some plain yogurt from the store. I like Brown Cow. Use the fresh warm milk. Put a heaping tablespoon of yogurt into a very clean quart jar. Strain fresh milk into jar at 1/4 full and mix milk and yogurt well (opt. mix vanilla and honey in as well, usually has good results), then fill jar up with milk. Set in a warm place or find any inventive way to keep it warm for 8-12 hours then get it cold. I always make a 1/2 pint of yogurt with every batch to have fresh starter, keep your starter plain.

Yogurt Cream Cheese:
Strain yogurt through several layers of cheese cloth and leave until thick like cream cheese.

Sour Cream:
Skim cream off of milk, mix 2 tablespoons of yogurt into 1 scant pint of cream and let sit in a warm place until thick.

Have fun!

Thanks for sharing these recipes and tips, Christina!

I would like to share what you know with the great and inspirational readers of gnowfglins.com. Send your favorite kitchen tip(s), accompanying photos, and your website address (optional) to: tips at gnowfglins dot com. You’ll be credited as the author/owner of the information submitted. Please understand that I may not post all tips. By sending me your tips, you are granting me permission to include them in gnowfglins.com publications. Of course, you may revoke your permission at any time.

Following the tip on warming milk in a crock pot, I pour two cans (14 ounces each) of whole coconut milk (not lite) into a crock pot and turn the setting to high.

I stir in 2 tablespoons of agar agar. I have not been able to find the powder, so I used the flakes; the first time I made it, though, the flakes didn’t dissolve completely but instead swelled and gelled, which gave the finished product a bumpy texture. The second time I made the yogurt, I ground up the agar agar flakes in my Vita-Mix into a finer flake—it never really got what I would call powdery. The result was a much smoother, creamier texture. The agar agar made the yogurt set up pretty firmly, so you could probably get away with just 1 tablespoon. I am going to try that next time.

In addition to the agar agar, I stir in 2 tablespoons agave nectar [use any sweetener you desire], and I heat the milk until it is about 150 degrees. A lot of places I visited on the Web said that it probably isn’t necessary to heat the milk to that extent because, as a canned product, it has already been heated. But I did it anyway because I thought it might help the agar agar dissolve better.

While the milk is heating, I sterilize everything I will use for the rest of the process—a quart-size Mason jar, candy thermometer, whisk, tongs, 1 cup glass measuring cup, even the interior of my Vita-Mix wet container—with scalding water and set it aside on a scalded plate. So when the temperature of the milk reaches 150 degrees (as registered on a see-through candy thermometer), I turn off the crock pot and allow the milk to cool to between 105 and 110 degrees.

When the temperature is right, I remove 1/2 cup to 1 cup of the milk with the measuring cup and pour it into the wet container of my Vita-Mix so that I can grind up the probiotic capsules I initially chose to use for yogurt-making (Dr. Ohhira’s Essential Formulas Inc.’s Probiotics 12 PLUS Original Formula). This probiotic is not specifically intended for yogurt-making, but it was recommended as a possible dairy-free culture (something that is really hard to find!). I would like to look into the possibility of finding a powdered culture that I could use instead, in which case I would skip this step with the Vita-Mix and simply stir the culture into a small amount of the milk before adding it back to the whole batch.

Note: The first time I made yogurt, I tried every way I could think of to break open, dissolve or otherwise eliminate the hard outer coating of the capsule to get to the probiotic inside (the actual probiotic is in a moist, fermented form—not a powder), but nothing worked effectively. So I decided to grind up the capsules (I use two in each batch of yogurt) in the Vita-Mix with a little of the milk. It worked, but I was afraid to process it too long for fear of heating it up too much and killing the good bacteria.

After the culture is incorporated, I add a teaspoon of vanilla extract (optional) and pour the entire mixture into the sterilized Mason jar. I cover the jar with plastic wrap and place it into a towel-lined insulated cooler, along with one other large jar (or two small ones) filled with boiling water (the jars with water should not touch the yogurt jar directly, but all of the jars should be insulated by wrapping them in dish towels). Then I close the cooler lid and allow the yogurt to incubate for about 5 hours.

I read about people incubating their yogurt for as long as 8 hours using this and other methods, but I was going for a more pudding-like effect without a lot of tang or tartness. Both times I have made it, the yogurt has had a nice, mild coconut flavor that has mixed well with fruit or even just stirred into oatmeal or other cereal. I’m going to try to tweak a few things until I get it down to just the right process and result. Also, I think I might try to double the batch so that it doesn’t disappear so fast around our house!

I think it is great that Sonya pieced together different techniques to make a new kind of healthy yogurt for her family. Anyone game to try it? Let us know what you think!

I’m submitting this post in Fight Back Fridays! – how are you fighting back?

I would like to share what you know with the great and inspirational readers of gnowfglins.com. Send your favorite kitchen tip(s), accompanying photos, and your website address (optional) to: tips at gnowfglins dot com. You’ll be credited as the author/owner of the information submitted. Please understand that I may not post all tips. By sending me your tips, you are granting me permission to include them in gnowfglins.com publications. Of course, you may revoke your permission at any time.

I just have to comment to anyone out there making cream cheese from raw milk that using a batch of raw buttermilk makes the best cream cheese. It smells exactly like store bought and tastes maybe a bit milder. I have tried many different ways of doing this as up until recently we were a raw milk dairy. Boy, do I miss my raw milk. Hope this is helpful to someone.

Thank you, Alicia!

I would like to share what you know with the great and inspirational readers of gnowfglins.com. Send your favorite kitchen tip(s), accompanying photos, and your website address (optional) to: tips at gnowfglins dot com. You’ll be credited as the author/owner of the information submitted. Please understand that I may not post all tips. By sending me your tips, you are granting me permission to include them in gnowfglins.com publications. Of course, you may revoke your permission at any time.

The recipe is flexible; a couple of the ingredients are optional. Can’t beat that! I’m sure it could be livened up with cilantro or cayenne pepper.

• 4 cups cooked black beans (see How to Cook Dry Beans)
• 1/2 cup pure water
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast (optional, but recommended)
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (optional)

Combine all ingredients in bowl of food processor. Blend until well mixed, but leave a little chunky. Refrigerate.

© Copyright 2008 by Wardeh Harmon