Cooking With Hanzipan

So. I spotted this 1/2 gallon of homogenized whole milk at Twelve Mile the other day and thought “Ah hah!” and immediately started dreaming of homemade ice cream and butter. It wasn’t until after I got it home that I realized ice cream and butter want heavy cream + whole milk. Darn. The milk was threatening to expire while I spotted this cheese recipe on Little House in the Suburbs (which is a great little blog to peruse through). It sounded good, easy and it was guaranteed to take this expired milk off of my hands and out of the fridge.

The cheese turned out…. well…. it’s cheese. I added salt and some agave to it to give it some sweetness. Dad described it as those little crumbles in cottage cheese without any of the liquid. That’s pretty accurate. I think that it even takes away some of the moisture in your mouth when you eat it it’s that dry. Oh well… live and learn, right? It was totally worth it for the experience.

After I added the vinegar and it was a-curddalin’. The dry cheese ball now resting peacefully in the fridge. I wonder if it would be good melted?

1/2 Gallon Whole Milk (Goat or Cow)
1/4 cup white vinegar or 1/4 cup Lemon juice
Salt to taste

1. Put milk into stainless steel pot and heat over medium until between 190 and 200 degrees.

2. Slowly stir in vinegar or lemon. Remove from heat and allow to curdle and cool until it’s not too hot to touch.

3. Pour cheese into cloth lined bowl. Pull together the 4 corners of cloth and twist around a spoon. Hang dripping cheese for a few hours.

4. Salt to taste and check consistency. I like a fairly hard cheese, so I hang it in the fridge overnight. That’s about the max.

5. Untie, (add any garlic or herbs or more salt, if you like) place in airtight container, and chill. Depending on how long you hung it, it should be about 12-16 oz of cheese.

I’m an impulsive baker. The only time I’ve ever planned to bake something before I started mixing things together was Thanksgiving when I had to plan around a huge hank of meat that would be taking over the oven for hours. Anyway, my point is that for baking they always tell you to use softened butter. Most people soften it either by sticking it on the counter for an hour (boooorrriinngggg) or nuking it for 20 seconds (which never works well, it always gets melty in places). I found this quick way to soften butter via Craftzine.

Images and instructions courtesy of elise.com.

My birthday fell on a Monday this year which meant that any sort of special food/things were pushed to Thursday. We had some friends over and I made a casserole, an artichoke dip and an amazing chocolate cake… busy busy busy! I’d promised myself that I’d make a cake and, while it wasn’t the one I was planning on originally, I did wind up making a really good Chocolate Stout Cake from Smitten Kitchen. I used really strong liquid coffee instead of instant and it worked really well. This cake keeps getting better the longer it sits around in the kitchen too! Oh man, I’m going to have to go have a piece now…

Chocolate Stout Cake

This recipe was originally intended to make a layer cake of 3 8-inch rounds. Upon many reviewers’ suggestions, I halved it and it fit perfectly in a bundt pan. The halved amount is below, and the icing replaced with a simple ganache.

1 cup stout (such as Guinness)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream*
6 ounces good semisweet chocolate chips
6 tablespoons heavy cream
3/4 teaspoon instant coffee granules

Cake prep:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter or spray a bundt pan well; make sure you get in all of the nooks and crannies. (Some people even go so far as to brush the inside of their bundt pans with melted butter–you cannot be too careful!). Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Transfer cake to rack; cool completely in the pan, then turn cake out onto rack for drizzling ganache.**

Ganache:
For the ganache, melt the chocolate, heavy cream, and coffee in the top of a double boiler over simmering water until smooth and warm, stirring occasionally. Drizzle over the top of cooled cake.

101 Cookbook’s mushroom casserole is so very tasty! I like to substitute wild rice for half of the brown rice the recipe wants. Here’s the recipe taken from 101 cookbooks, make sure you visit her site to see what other tasty things she has:

Mushroom Casserole Recipe

Use any cooked grain you like. Feel free to use low-fat cottage cheese or sour cream if you prefer.

1/2 pound (8 ounces) brown mushrooms, cleaned and chopped
1 large onion, well chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 cups cooked brown rice, room temperature
2 large eggs
1 cup cottage cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
a bit of fresh tarragon, chopped

Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Rub a medium-large baking dish with a bit of olive oil or butter and set aside. The pan I use is slightly smaller than a classic 9×13 baking dish - just grab for something in this ballpark.

In a large skillet over medium-high heat saute the mushrooms in a glug of olive oil sprinkled with a couple pinches of salt. Stir every minute or so until the mushrooms have released their liquid and have browned a bit. Add the onions and cook for another 4 or 5 minutes or until they are translucent. Stir in the garlic, cook for another minute and remove from heat. Add the rice to the skillet and stir until combined.

In a medium bowl whisk together the eggs, cottage cheese, sour cream, and salt.

Combine the rice mixture and cottage cheese mixture in a large bowl, stir until well combined and then turn out into your prepared baking dish. Sprinkle with 2/3 of the Parmesan cheese, cover with foil and place in oven for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 20 or 30 minutes more or hot throughout and golden along the edges. Sprinkle with the chopped tarragon, and the remaining Parmesan and enjoy.

Serves about 6.

I also used 101 cookbooks’ baked artichoke dip recipe. I feel like there was something missing from it… something earthy to balance all of that artichoke, but it did wind up being pretty darn good, fresh from the oven. I think next time I’ll use the Quattro Formaggio cheese blend from Trader Joes instead of Parmesan, press the artichokes to get some of that extra moisture out and use a little less yogurt. This recipe was also taken directly from 101 cookbooks:

Baked Artichoke Dip Recipe

Sometimes silken tofu can be hard to find. No worries, I’ve had success using medium firm regular tofu as well - just stay clear of the firm and extra-firm varieties. For some added nutritional punch and color quickly saute a couple handfuls of spinach in a bit of olive oil - toss it in the food processor with the artichokes, tofu, and garlic.

2 (14-ounce) cans water-packed artichokes, well drained
4 ounces organic silken tofu
3 large cloves garlic
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
2/3 cup plain (or Greek) yogurt
1/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt, or more to taste
pinch of cayenne pepper

more Parmesan to sprinkle on top

Preheat oven to 350F degrees. In a blender or food processor puree the artichokes, tofu, and garlic. In a separate medium bowl whisk together the parmesan cheese, yogurt, salt, and cayenne. Stir in the artichoke puree and pour mixture into a medium-sized baking dish (or multiple smaller dishes). Sprinkle the top with more Parmesan. Bake uncovered until heated through and the cheese on the top starts to brown, about 45 minutes.

Makes 2-3 cups of artichoke dip.

The first baking post. A while ago the Hanzipan team got together for a weekend of mad cookery. We just so happened to make some Lemon Poppy Seed Butterfly Cupcakes from the book Cupcakes! They took zest from four lemons but it was ohhh so worth it!

Starzipan modeling the tasty tasty cupcakes. They were gone well before noon the next day.

And then Star had the idea to make some mozzarella cheese. She’d gotten a kit a while ago and hadn’t used it yet. Can you think of a better time to make cheese than that one? No, I didn’t think so. Anywho, I know these pictures look familiar but I really wanted to document the occasion properly on this wee blog!