Fried Green Tomatoes

 

Frost! We had frost last night! It took most of our tomato plants and left us with many, many, many green tomatoes. They will ripen off the vine, most of them anyway. The ripe San Marzano and Ailsa Craig tomatoes will be used for seed, since we will be growing them again next year.





We had so many green tomatoes that we decided to fry a few of them.


First I sliced up some green tomatoes and some zucchini. I used San Marzano and Ailsa Craig tomatoes. I think the Ailsa Craigs were juicier and just better for this particular purpose.


I mixed up some cornmeal and flour, about half and half, added salt, pepper and onion powder. In another bowl I mixed a couple of eggs with some water and beat them until they 
were foamy.


I put the slices into the egg, then into the cornmeal-flour mix. Some people (hubby included) like to "double dip" for frying. "Double dipping" is putting the wet veggie into the the egg and flour twice - egg, flour, egg, flour. I don't like to do this as it fills the eggs bowl with dried stuff and just makes a big mess.

Turn the slices over and fill the holes with the dry mix. Put them into the hot oil in the pan.


Fry the battered tomatoes and zucchini in the oil until they are a golden brown. Fry them as long as possible to cook the vegetables until tender.


Mmmmm! Fried green tomatoes and fried zucchini!

Let them cool a bit before you try to eat them. They will be very hot!! You can pick them up right off the plate and eat them with your fingers, or you can be fancy and eat them with a fork on their own little plate. You can also serve them as a side dish with dinner.

Making and Using Quark Cheese

The delicious soft cheese that I made in my previous soft cheese post is called "Quark". I made quark and didn't even know it!

Here are the directions. I am going to start another batch today!

Ingredients
•1 Gallon 2% milk
•8 oz cultured buttermilk

Directions
1.For making homemade quark you'll need about 2 days. With this recipe you can make about 1 kg ( little over 2 pounds quark). The quarks texture is depending on how long you drain the quark. The longer you drain, the drier the quark. If it got to dry just add some milk or whey for making it smooth again. Important: Only use very clean utensils.

2.Pour milk ( in my experience 2 % or higher works best) in a large bowl. Use a plastic bowl with lid. No stainless steel bowls! Add buttermilk and stir, using a wooden spoon.

3.Cover bowl with lid and let stand at room temperature (72 F) for 2 days. Do not move the bowl to achieve best results.

4.After 2 days you've got soured milk. Place bowl (still covered with lid) on a dishtowel lined baking sheet. Put it in the middle rung of the oven. Set temperature to just under 150 F and heat for 2-4 hours or lower temp and leave overnight. Now the whey splits from the quark. The whey is yellowish-green in color.

5.Line a strainer with a cheesecloth and put in a bowl. Using a slotted spoon, fill quark in strainer.

6.Tie cheesecloth and strain quark by hanging it in a cool place. (the cooler the better) Keep the whey for a healthy drink if desired. Whey can also replace water in any baking recipe. It contains a lot of vitamins and goodness from the milk.

7.After the quark is drained, store it in the refrigerator for up to 6 days, depending on the room temperature where the quark was drained.

I'm off to sour some milk!

Here are a few recipes, all untried by me (but not for long!)

Quark cheesecake:
Ingredients:
•1 store bought frozen pie shell
•2 eggs
•1 1/2 cups Quark
•1/2 cup confectioners sugar
•2 Tbsp whole milk
•2 tsp vanilla extract
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 375

Whisk eggs. Using a spoon, mix in Quark, sugar and vanilla.

Pour mixture into a pie shell. Bake until the mixture is set in the middle, about 1 hour.

Let tart cool. Serve chilled. Top with berries.

Quark Crumb Bars
Uses one 9 x 13 pan

Combine in a mixing bowl:

16 ounces quark
1 egg
1 cup sugar
1 t. vanilla
1/2 cup dried blueberries, cherries or raisin
Mix well and set aside.

In a second bowl combine: (mixture will be crumbly)

1 cup butter or margarine
3/4 cup sugar
1 t. vanilla
1 egg
1/4 t. salt
3 1/2 cups white flour
Blend with a pastry blender. Measure out 2 1/2 cups of crumbs. Pat into a greased 9x13 glass baking dish. Push up about 1/2 inch of dough around the edges of the pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10 - 12 minutes

Pour quark mixture over baked crust. Spread evenly. Incorporate 1/4 t. baking powder into remaining crumbs. Spoon evenly over quark. Pat down very slightly. Bake 30 -35 minutes at 350 degrees. Cool before cutting.

Roasted Red Pepper Dip

Ingredients2 red bell peppers, halved and de-seeded
4 ounces Quark
2 tablespoons sweet chili sauce
fresh ground black pepper

Directions
Place the peppers skin side up under a hot grill until the skin is black (approx. 20 mins). Place them in a sandwich bag, seal it and leave for 10 minutes. Now you should be able to remove the charred skin really easily. Place all ingredients in a blender and process until smooth. Chill in the fridge for 2 hours before serving, that allows the flavours to develop and blend. Serve as a dip with vegetables or bread.

Quark Tirmisu
Ingredients
24 dried sponge cake fingers
500 g Quark
4 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
150 ml strong coffee
60 ml Kahlua
3 cups mixed berries
100 g chocolate, finely grated

Directions
Combine quark and sugar in a bowl. Set aside.
Combine coffee and kahlua in a separate bowl.
Prepare 6 large,clean wine glasses. In the bottom, place one large tablespoon of the quark mix. On top of this place a medium sized amount of berries, just enough to cover.
Break the sponge finger in half. Dip 4 halves into the bowl of coffee mix until soaked through. Remove and place on top of berries. Add a pinch off chocolate. Repeat until the glass is filled, at least twice.
Top off with an extra layer of quark, a few berries and a generous grating of chocolate. Repeat with the rest of the glasses and chill until serving.


Quark pasty sweet rolls

NOTE: The vanilla cream flour can be replaced by mixing together 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar and 1/4 cup potato or wheat flour

Dough
1 cup whole milk
3/8 cup softened butter
1/4 ounce dry yeast (1 packet)
1 egg
1/2 cup superfine sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 cups wheat flour

Filling
1/4 cup butter
1 large egg
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup Quark
1/4 cup vanilla cream flour

Icing
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
3 teaspoons fresh orange juice or lemon juice
1 dash water, to desired consistency

Directions
Prepare filling by mixing ingredients into a smooth paste. Refrigerate until needed.

In a saucepan over low heat, warm the milk and butter to about 40C/104°F.

In a bowl, crumble the yeast into the warm milk and butter mixture. Add sugar, salt and egg. Mix together well until the yeast is dissolved.

Add flour gradually until the dough forms a ball. Add more flour only if it's still sticky and add only a little at a time.

Knead dough for about 5 minutes until smooth and elastic.

Place a towel over the bowl and let the dough double in a warm, draft-free place for about 30 minutes to 1 hour [warming the oven to ~40C/100F works very well as a proofing box].

Turn dough out onto lightly floured work surface. Gently shape dough into rough rectangle with long side nearest you. Lightly flour dough and roll into a 16-inch x 12-inch (40cm x 30cm) rectangle.

Spread filling on the dough leaving a 1cm/.5in border on the far edge.

Beginning with long edge nearest you, roll dough into taut cylinder.

Firmly pinch seam to seal and roll cylinder seam-side down.

Very gently stretch and roll to cylinder of even diameter and 18-inch/45cm length; push ends in to create even thickness.

Using a sharp serrated knife and gentle sawing motion, slice cylinder in half, then slice each half in half again to create evenly sized quarters. Slice 3,8cm/1.5in pieces from the rolls and place into a rectangular pan using a spatula.

Cover with a towel and allow to rise for about 30 minutes while the oven warms to baking temperature.

Make icing.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200-225C/390-435F for about 13-15 minutes.

Cut apart and drizzle icing over the tops.

Making Jams and Jellies

We use a lot of jams an jellies at my house. My guys eat it on toast and pb&j sandwiches. Its good as a topping for ice cream or a glaze for cooking meats, too. The flower jellies make great gifts. A basket of homemade and unusual things from the kitchen goes over very well at Christmas!


This is bee balm (Monarda Didma) jelly, red, of course. You can make jelly from the native purple too (Monarda Fistulosa) but the colour will not be red. The colour in the jars is natural. There is no food colour added. I am hoping to make a lovely pink wine from the gallon bucket of bee balm petals I have saved in the freezer.

I have a lot of the red in the garden and I like the colour, so I am using that for the jelly. I do have some of the native purple, as well, but probably won't make jam from it this year.

I have collected a gallon of bee balm petals for wine making. I will use a little of that in addition to what I picked fresh this morning. I think the ones I picked today will be the last of the bee balm petals that grow this year. Some areas don't have any stalks or leaves anymore, either. Thanks to our dog, Buck who is a great help in the flowerbed!


You can make jelly from almost any edible flowers. Some edible flowers will make good jelly and some will not. Please taste it in a tea first to see if you like it. We like bee balm. Hibiscus is another one that makes good tea, jelly and wine. Mine are in bud now! Rose petals also make good jelly if you use scissors to cut the petals off, leaving the white bottom part behind. Its slightly bitter.

 I have a gallon of wild daylily petals in the freezer for wine. I could use a few of those to make jelly too. I don't know if we like it or not. I think I'll have some wild daylily tea today and see. I have some dark red daylilies blooming now in the garden I could use for jelly. That would have a beautiful colour! So many possibilities! Experimenting is fun!


Mint and other herb jellies are made the same way as the flower jelly. These jellies are used mostly as glazes for meat at my house. No one eats sage jelly on toast! I like the mint, myself, on ice cream and so forth but I am the only one that eats it like that. Hubby is not too fond of mint. Apple mint jelly might be good. I wonder if hubby would know it has mint in it. I would tell him, after he ate it and said it was delicious!

Recipe for flower and herb jellies:

2 cups flower petals (or fresh young herb leaves)
2 1/4 cups water
1/4 cup lemon juice
600 grams liquid pectin (2 pckges) or equivalent powder
(You may find that the liquid works better for this purpose than the powder)
4 cups sugar

So this is the basic recipe: same amount of water and flower/leaf material. Some lemon juice. Twice that total in sugar. One package of liquid pectin per approx 1 cup of water used, before adding the flower petals and sugar. You can make jelly from whatever amount you have.In a small saucepan, glass or stainless, bring the flower petals or herb leaves in the water to a boil. Cover and set aside. Let this sit overnight or for a several hours. Strain, squeezing out the all the water into the saucepan. Put the pulp into the compost. This water is called an "infusion". Bring the water to a boil and stir in the sugar until well dissolved.

Stir in the pectin and boil hard for two minutes. Pour into hot, sterilized jelly jars. You can sterilize the jars, seals and lids by boiling them or running through the dishwasher with detergent by themselves on HOT. Put on seals and rings. Set the lidded jars into a large, tall pot. Put enough water in the pot to cover the jars with an inch of water above the top. Boil for 10 minutes (start counting when the water is boiling). Remove jars from boiling water, let cool and remove rings. Store at room temperature. Refrigerate after opening.


I use a water bath canner for this but its not necessary if you have a pot tall enough. If you use the short, little jam jars you might have a pot that tall. I use a smaller pot if processing just a few little jars.

Yum! Bee balm jelly is delicious! The scent is quite strong when I open the jar! I love the smell of bee balm! I often pick a leaf in the garden just to smell it.

Using all the richness God has surrounded us with gives me such a feeling of accomplishment! I love to line up all the jellies I have just made, while they are cooling, and just look at them. A full larder is such a beautiful site! We are so blessed to live here and have all of this God given splendour!

Making Soft Cheese

 

I finally made my own cheese. Its delicious, creamy soft cheese. I didn't really mean to make cheese. What I mean is, it didn't start out to be cheese. I was making buttermilk and left it so long on the counter that it soured. You can read how to make buttermilk in a previous post.

It didn't make good buttermilk. It soured instead. I don't know why. After it had already soured, I threw in another bit of buttermilk and left it another day, but it was already too late. It had clabbered or curdled.

I left it on the counter for another full day until it had separated completely with curds on the top and a clear, greenish liquid, called whey, on the bottom. I only left it that long because I worked that day and was just too busy to deal with it. By the time I finally got around to doing something with it, the curds at the top were fairly solid. This is how cottage cheese is started.

 

My kitchen helper watched me closely from a chair by his usual perch on the kitchen table. He likes anything to do with dairy products, although we don't give him much of it. He has a sensitive digestive system.

 

I was reluctant to discard this wonderful stuff. It tasted great and smelled sweet, so I drained it in cheesecloth for a few hours to see what I had. I tied the two ends around a wooden spoon and suspended it over a bowl on the countertop.

 

Cottage cheese is made with this curd that is heated to 190 and strained. I didn't heat this up because I was just too busy at the moment making cabbage rolls, baking cookies and making lemon squares all at the same time. One more thing would have just been too much for me.

This kind of soft cheese can be made without rennet. Rennet is necessary to make many soft cheeses and any hard cheese.

 

I left it to drain for a few hours. I should have left it longer but I am just too impatient. Hmmmm... Maybe I am too impatient to be making cheese.

 

I still had the whey in a jug. Whey is great stuff, full of things that are very good for you. You can even buy powdered whey in health food stores. It can replace any liquid used in baking.

 

I put it in the freezer. I put some plastic wrap over a couple of tiny muffin pans, filled them and set them in the freezer. When they were hard, I put the frozen whey pieces together in a large freezer bag. I have got to get some ice cube trays!!

 

At this point Chisel lost interest and decided to take a bath.