63. Paneer

I stood at my stove in my own kitchen and made paneer, an Indian farmers cheese. I got help on the internet. Here's what I did:

I put a half gallon of whole milk on to boil. I let it come to a boil while I took these pictures and marveled at how I think the kitchen is clean enough but the camera always catches me in denial.

It boiled and I added a 1/4 cup of lemon juice diluted in a 1/2 cup of warm water.

I stirred.
It separated, which was actually kind of gross, like what you don't want milk to do, there I'd done it on purpose.

I poured it into a cloth napkin I'd draped over a colander. I didn't have cheesecloth and it was too late to run upstairs for muslin. I just used a clean cloth napkin.
I rinsed the little globs of cheese to get rid of the lemon taste.

Then I put the globs into a glass container until I needed it for saag paneer. I could have pressed it further and made it more of a solid, like a tofu consistency, but I was sort of pressed, myself, for time. So it was more of a ricotta-esque, only dryer, kind of cheese.

Which made me realize something, that I no longer had to hope for the best and no antibiotics/hormones in my domestic ricotta--which of course is too much to hope for. I buy antibiotic and hormone free dairy products and meat--you would too if you'd had an antibiotic-resistant infection during childbirth. But the only product I could never find that way was ricotta. So every time I made lasagna I felt a bit queasy. Paneer is not equivalent to ricotta. But it could substitute. Easily.

I also started reading up on how to make my own ricotta, for that matter. Perhaps stay tuned.

I love the feeling of learning something new and being empowered by that learning.

62. Dice Bag

Jake lost his dice bag.

What?

From high school, and college. Dice bag. As in "I play roleplaying games that require dice of multiple shapes and sides".

I blame the girls. They've started playing a cute little game called Fuzzy Heroes and the dice bag disappeared.

It is our 15th wedding anniversary. The theme is "crystal" and I decided dice fit the bill. I picked up a variety of dice online and then made a bag for him.

The first bag was drawstring, lined, made of the same fabric as the ottoman cover I made earlier this year. I liked it. It was cute. But it didn't pull all the way shut. Fail.

So I went into my stash and found a doubleknit skirt that my sister gave me for the fabric (I made her a doubleknit quilt last Christmas). I cut it, salvaged the zipper, and made a sort of pencil case-ish bag that zips shut. It's red and white striped. Pretty ugly because the lines are nothing like straight. It is, in fact, entirely made of skew lines. But the dice go in and it's small enough to stash in a drawer where it will belong: the checks, 9 volt battery, and dice drawer. Of course.

61. Harvest

*Just a handful of potatoes. Enough for a big potato salad, or for two dinner side dishes. Mystery why they didn't work. I'm just starting them over for the first time so I have years ahead of me to figure out. Plus, besides the work, they were free, so I'm not too upset.

*Carrots. Oh my goodness why didn't anyone tell me about homegrown carrots? Like tomatoes, they are amazingly better than store-bought (in comparison, basil is the same either way, just cheaper at home; cucumbers just taste like cucumbers but in more volume, etc). These carrots are little ones, purposefully, although I picked some of them early and they were teeny. But all of them are so so good. They are now the fridge snack for the week. And I'm planting more tomorrow.

*First of the sweet peppers. I've never been great at growing sweet peppers but I have two little ones in the harvest bowl in the fridge. Hmm.

*First of the beans. A handful, but I wanted them to keep producing. I may freeze them...or I'll throw them into tomorrow's deer stew. I don't know yet.

*Basil and parsley ongoing--just bits here and there in the cooking.

*Garlic. Heh. I've talked garlic before. My crops are self-propagating at this point. I have three main areas where they grow: inside the "tomato cage", right outside the cage, and along the back fence. I picked the cage bulbs tonight, and a few outside the cage. Their stems were dead and dry so it was time. The cage harvest was huge (cutting the scapes does do something after all). The ones I could tell were first year growth I scattered in the beds for next year but put the rest on the table on the back deck. I'm freezing it this year. I tried dehydrating chopped bulbs but they lost more flavor than I hoped. I know they'll stay good in the freezer. And if the cucumber harvest goes well, I'll have plenty of bulbs for garlic dills.

*Other growing things: the tomatoes have blossoms and I've picked all the suckers. The lettuce remnants are removed and the areas where they grew are ready for something else (more carrots and beans?). Cucumbers are growing and there are teeny blossoms. Jalapenos. And the 3 watermelon plants I took a chance on because Maeve begged? They're wandering around the west side of the yard. Blooming. I may hand-pollinate to be sure.