I’m back from my holiday on the Eastern Shore! My husband and I had a great trip, which we had kept very casual because the weather hadn’t looked so good but it turned out to be great. We were able to walk all over town, scouting out restaurants by day and enjoying someone else’s cooking besides my own by night.
I thought I’d get some inspiration for recipes from my trip, but not so much. We didn’t go to any cutting edge restaurants, and frankly, having finally lost all my winter weight, I was in no hurry to put it back on. Two of our four meals out for me were salads, which is not like me, and while they were satisfying, they weren’t so creative that I had to look up a copycat recipe to share here.
But I did find abundant inspiration in the book I took along for the weekend, “Make the Bread, Buy the Butter” by Jennifer Reese, who publishes the blog tipsybaker.com. I picked this book up at the library on a whim, and thought the premise was interesting — the author was laid off in 2008, and used her suddenly abundant free time to start making all of her food from scratch, keeping figures on things like how much it costs to make hummus from dried beans, from canned beans, or just buying it in the grocery store. She started raising her own chickens, curing her own meats, and there is even a chapter labeled “Goats” that I haven’t gotten to yet but am quite curious about. The book was a great mix of her personal writing, her analysis of the recipes she used and their comparative costs to commercial products, and the recipes themselves.
It was the kind of book where I kept saying things to my husband like “did you know we can make mascarpone cheese with stuff we already have in the house?” or “did you know that fast food places’ onion rings are made from dehydrated chopped onions?” My husband is neither a cook nor a foodie, so he learned a lot that weekend as well.
I’ll admit, I was most taken by the recipes for things I’ve always considered as basics — mayonnaise, ricotta, yogurt. In fact, I’m ready to start making my own yogurt immediately, and I’m sharing that recipe with you here so that you can, too. This is going to be plain yogurt, so use your favorite fresh fruit, jam, or my favorite, maple syrup, to flavor it up.
Next, another two-ingredient dairy recipe for crème fraiche. Have you ever had a recipe that called for crème fraiche, and then not been able to find any, and had to substitute something else? Well now you can make it yourself! The only hard part is telling yourself that it’s OK to let dairy sit at room temperature for 24 hours. Which it is. That’s how it’s made.
And another dairy recipe: mascarpone cheese. I love mascarpone (think Italian cream cheese), but it’s ridiculously expensive in stores, and it’s a must for tiramisu or cannoli filling. Bam, now I can make my own! You might not have tartaric acid at home yet (I do because it came with a cheese-making kit I bought years ago), but it’s available on Amazon for a reasonable price, and considering you only need ¼ teaspoon at a time, it’s worth it considering how much you’ll save on commercial mascarpone.
And finally, a non-dairy recipe, for a fancy bakery-style apricot ginger bread. It takes very little time to knead, but needs lots of time for rising, and the end result will knock the socks off your company.
I hope you enjoy these recipes, and look for this book if you want to know more about cooking from scratch, and which dishes are worth it (pretty much all bread) or aren’t (homemade Danishes).
Enjoy!
Yogurt
½ gallon milk (whole is best, but your choice)
¼ cup yogurt
In a large saucepan over moderate heat, warm the milk until it is on the verge of a boil, stirring constantly to prevent the milk from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
Remove from the heat, pour into a bowl, and let cool to lukewarm. If you’re in a hurry, you can put the bowl in a larger bowl filled with ice cubes; just don’t let the milk cool completely. The goal is 110 degrees to 115 degrees to activate the cultures. If you don’t have a thermometer, you should be able to put your clean finger in the milk and hold it there comfortably for 10 seconds, but still feel the heat.
Stir in the starter yogurt into the lukewarm milk. Cover with a clean, damp dish towel and leave the mixture undisturbed in a warm place overnight. For example, turn the oven on for a few minutes, turn it off, and put the yogurt inside.
The next day, you will have about a half gallon of yogurt. If you like runny yogurt, you’re done, but if you prefer thick Greek-style yogurt, you’ll need to drain it. Put a piece of cheesecloth or white cotton, such as a clean old pillowcase, in a sieve set up over a bowl. Scoop the yogurt into the sieve and drain for a few hours at room temperature until the yogurt is as thick as you like it. Depending on the fat content of the milk and how long you let it drain, you’ll have between a quart and a quart and a half of yogurt. The whey caught in the bowl can be saved in the refrigerator for up to 10 days and be used instead of water in bread and bagels. Scoop the yogurt into a container, cover tightly, and refrigerate. It will keep for a week or so.
Crème Fraiche
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon buttermilk
Pour the cream and buttermilk into a jar, cap, and shake. Leave it in a warmish place — like beside the stove — for 24 hours, until thick. Refrigerate. It will keep for up to a week. Makes 1 cup.
Mascarpone
1 quart heavy cream or half-and-half
¼ teaspoon tartaric acid
Put the cream in the top of a double boiler over medium heat and warm to 196 degrees, stirring. Remove the cream from the heat and add the tartaric acid, stirring for 1 minute.
Remove the top from the double boiler and continue stirring until the cream begins to look thick and custardy. If it doesn’t seem to thicken at all, add the tiniest pinch and more tartaric acid.
Let it sit at room temperature to gather itself for about 30 minutes. Line a sieve with very fine-weave cheesecloth, doubled over. Place it over a small bowl and pour the cheese into the sieve. Cover tightly with plastic wrap — otherwise the cheese will pick up refrigerator flavors. Place in the refrigerator for 12 hours or more. Store, tightly covered, and use to make tiramisu or semifreddo.
Apricot-ginger bread
2½ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons cold water or whey from making yogurt
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 tablespoon kosher salt
¾ cup dried apricots, cut into quarters
In a big bowl, mix all the ingredients. Stir briefly; do not knead. The mixture will seem very wet and clumpy, which it should be.
Cover with a clean, damp dish towel and let the dough rest for 18 hours in a draft-free spot. No need to dampen the towel again and don’t worry too much about the time; a little more or less makes no difference.
Dust a clean, dry dish towel with flour. Scrape the dough into a round onto the flour. Gently nudge into a bowl, and then swaddle in the towel. Let the dough rise for one or two hours.
Preheat the oven to 475 degrees with a covered cast-iron Dutch oven inside. When the oven reaches 475, open the Dutch oven and carefully slip the dough inside. Cover and bake for 30 minutes.
Take the lid off the pot and bake for 15 to 30 minutes more, until the bread is a deep chestnut color but not burnt. Cool completely before slicing. Store in a paper bag at room temperature for up to a week.
