Making my own sauerkraut, and gratin potatoes

Last weekend I started a batch of sauerkraut, and yesterday we ate it with dinner.

It was my first attempted at fermenting kraut, and the results were certainly edible, but not outstanding. To be honest I'd prefer grocery store kraut out of a bag to that batch.

I'm not giving up, I learned some things and will do it a little bit different next time. For one thing I'll use less salt.

The side dish that I made to go with the sauerkraut turned out absolutely fantastic though; so I'm very happy about that. I made a potato gratin, with Yukon gold potatoes that, quite frankly, had one foot in the compost heap. Once they were peeled though they seemed OK, smelled nice - so I gave it a go. Slice them thin with a mandoline or V-slicer, and layer them in a buttered casserole dish. I used thin mushroom slices and grated Parmesan cheese, with a bit of cheddar and some grated mozzarella that I had to use up. Then about 3 or 4 ounces of heavy cream and into the oven for 45 minutes covered with foil. I switched the over to broil, took off the foil and gave it another 10 minutes. Let it cool for 10 minutes and you're ready to serve.

Easy cheese

Would you believe me if I told you that you could make really yummy cheese right now with stuff that you probably have in your refrigerator?

Do you have some milk, an acid (lemon juice, lime juice, vinegar, vitamin C?) and some seasonings? Do you have an old t-shirt? Then you're ready. Seriously!

What does it taste like? Sort of like a mix between Boursin and cream cheese. It's really good on warm bead.

I'd been wanting to try making mozzarella, but for that you need 2 things that are not found in the typical kitchen, a mozzarella culture and rennet. So I figured that one of these days I would have to try that, and I sort of put the whole idea on the back burner.

Then a few days ago I made a really excellent sweet potato curry, and it got me thinking about some other Indian dishes I enjoy, and I was looking up something to try when I came across a post talking about how easy it was to make paneer. Paneer is the cubed, white cheese often found in some Indian dishes. Reading the recipe, I discovered that I could make it with nothing more than some sort of acid to curdle the milk. Score!

So I tried it; and it was really good. My Indian dish didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, but the cheese part was good; and I took the extra cheese and spiced it with garlic powder, salt and chives and let it sit a day in the fridge. We spread that over warm flatbread and I'll tell you what, I could eat that all day long. It would be killer on bagels too.

Is it really easy? Totally easy!

Take a half gallon of whole milk, put it in a pot and heat it over medium heat until it just starts to boil. Slowly pour in your acid. I used vitamin C granules; but you could use lemon or lime juice - I even saw one recipe that used buttermilk. Immediately the milk will start to curdle. I know what you're thinking - why am I spoiling perfectly good milk? You'll just have to trust me, almost all cheese starts this way. How will you know when you've added enough? The whey will be almost clear. It doesn't take much; 3 pinches of my powdered vitamin C. Let it sit for 5 minutes, then line a colander with cheese cloth if you have it, or a t-shirt or bandanna or something like that if you don't. Pour it out, then rinse the curds with cold water for a few minutes, to both wash off the acid and cool them down. Then gather up your ball of curds and squeeze all the liquid out of it that you can. Set a weight of some sort on top of it and park it in the fridge for half an hour. Pour off any liquid that collects and you're about ready to go.

Mine was pretty crumbly at this point, so I kneaded it with just a tiny bit of flour, and let it rest in the fridge for another hour and it seemed to firm up quite a bit. It's ready to eat as is, or you can season it. Chives, salt and garlic powder worked great for me, but it's really a blank slate - go nuts. Nuts? Mmmm, chopped walnuts and honey! That's what I'm going to make tonight.

Edit - made the honey walnut version; it's excellent. This is the yield from about 1/3 of a gallon of whole milk by the way.

Fondue for small gatherings

When was the last time you had folks over for fondue? Odds are it's been way too long.

And why is that? It's such a great match to small gatherings. It's fun, encourages conversation, and even bad fondue is pretty good. The only downside I can see is that some of the really good fondue cheeses are very expensive, but there are always alternatives for those with some creativity.

You don't even need a fondue set if you're really casual about it - a couple small pots over low heat and some bamboo skewers would work almost as well.

I recently had a small gathering with 4 pots; I made the oil/meat pot and the cheese/bread pot - our guests were fabulous enough to bring 2 chocolate pots with an over-the-top collection of dippings.

For the meat; couldn't be easier. Chunks of chicken, pre-skewered, white meat on one side of the dish, dark meat on the other. Chunks of beef, some NY strips I had handy. Lastly, some fresh local shrimp. They were big enough that I cut them in half. Cleaned, shelled and de-veined, of course.

Resist the temptation to put 2 pieces of meat per skewer. You won't be able to heat more than a few inches of oil in the pot to the needed temperature, so you've got to make sure the meat stays submerged.

The cheese was a little disappointing. I'm having trouble with it breaking. I'm not sure if that's because I'm doing it too hot, or not hot enough. I used an acid (a sauvignon blanc) and some cornstarch in the cheese, as suggested by my man Alton Brown, and it started out OK, but then it got a bit grainy. But guess what? Still yummy.

And the chocolate that our guests brought? 2 varieties; milk chocolate and white chocolate. I'm not a fan of white chocolate, but I have to say, this one, heavy on the vanilla - was really good. Especially on Oreos and pretzel rods.