Shish-ka-bobs & Corn on the Grill

Bring on the shish-ka-bobs!

These were phenominal with just a little salt & pepper! MMMMM!
From our garden we picked tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant and we added onion and anything else we could find that would stay on a skewer!

Quark (curd cheese) for desserts

Homemade Quark (Curd Cheese)
Ingredients
1/2 cup cultured buttermilk
3 1/2 cups full cream milk
Method
1. If your milk is not pasteurised you should bring it to the boil, then allow it to cool to room temperature (covered with a lid). (
Jess:I used mine right out of the fridge)
2. Stir the buttermilk into the milk in a container you can cover, or make the mixture in the insert of your yoghurt incubator.
Jess:(Or just put the buttermilk in first, then add milk and do NOTHING! HAHAHA!)
3. Put the container in your incubator, or wrap it in a towel and keep it in a warm place. One option is to preheat the oven to 50 ∘C and turn it off before placing the container inside.
Jess:(Or in Davis just put it outside in 100 degree weather for 24 hours!- on the asphalt pavement for an hour to get it going seemed to do the trick)
4. Allow the culture to proceed for ~24 hours, or until the curds and whey separate.
At first the milk will look grainy, and eventually the curds will float on the whey. The grainy stage is probably sufficient, but might give a lower yield.
Jess: This looks SO awesome!!
5. Dampen a clean tea towel and use it to line a sieve. Place the sieve over a basin. Pour the curds and whey into the strainer. Bring the tea towel together so that it covers your quark and do it up with a rubber band. Place the entire draining apparatus in the fridge.
Jess: Basically, use a thin dishtowel, you know, the kind you would usually hate because they don't soak up well but make a great palat for artwork? Yeah, just lay it in a collander over a bowl and dump the weird mix in! Don't forget to bring up the ends to the dishtowel together like a little gold sack. I tied mine together with a hair tie. I'm sure Julia Childs never thought of that!

6. Allow to drain in the fridge overnight, or for 24 hours. The drained quark should have a consistency similar to sour cream, but it has a more sour taste.


And when you make the cake, do make sure to borrow an awesome red springform pan from a friend. I think it improves it's "wow-power" and the taste of course!

Fun Kid-Snack

I always dreamed of being a cool mom.

As long as cool didn't mean taking a jillion hours for one little smirk from my darling sweetpea. Instead, I opt for this 10 second giggle-maker:

Yep, just little cheesy people.

German Strawberry Torte

This time it actually could sit on a plate without wandering off. I have learned how to actually GELATIZE the gelatin. Thank you to the Gehmliches and Bells for being guinea pigs for my experiment. Let's face it, the first time it tasted good but the texture totally left something to be desired. The 2.0 version was done in time to be worthy of a taste by a cooking/baking She-Ra and her husband at their goodbye party. Thank you Tyler for saying it was the best tasting thing you've ever put in your mouth. It made my whole year.

Now the amazing torte making process will be available to all:
Day 1: Mix buttermilk and milk into huge jar. See previous post on making QUARK. Set on asphalt all day, and wrap in blanket in warmest spot in house all night. (this takes seriously 5 minutes)

Day 2: Put goopy cheese mixture into kitchen towel that's lying over a collander. Leave it for 24 hours.

Day 3: This is the long day. It takes a whole hour. For you it will be less since I was nice enough to actually measure out the grams into cups for you American Kitchen Divas for most of the ingredients. I haven't perfected it yet though, so if you want to be fool proof just measure out the grams.

Here's the recipe ingredients, then I'll walk you through the non-insane way of making this yummy treat. Get out the following items:

For the bottom crust:
1 stick BUTTER (125g), softened/melted
1/2 box NILLA WAFERS(45 cookies- I counted)(125 grams) (I didn't have Lady fingers!)
2 TB grated chocolate

For the filling/middle:
1 LBS. STRAWBERRIES (3 cups)(or 500 grams/ half Kilo) (TIP:when you wash them, let them just sit in cool water then rinse. If you let water run over them, it softens the skin and the berries get soft)
1 box Knox GELATIN (Knox comes in boxes with 4 packets & you will use a whole box)
600 grams/ 24 oz/ about 2.5 cups of PHILADELPHIA CREAM CHEESE(we're talking a tub from Costco!)
2.5 cups (250 grams) QUARK(which you made)
1 cup (125 grams) powdered sugar
2 LIMES- before juicing, grate the outsides into a huge mixing bowl with a grater, then squeeze juice into a bowl
250 ml WHIPPING CREAM (in liquid form in cartons near the milk),
SPRINGFORM PAN lined with baking paper
food processor or blender

For topping: 500 g (1 pound) of strawberries, sliced

First grind up cookies in food processor and mix with melted butter. Press mixture into bottom of springform pan. Put into fridge to cool.

Then grate your lime peels into a huge mixing bowl. Then slide limes in half and press the juice from your limes into a small sauce pan.

Take one pound of your berries (the other lb. is for the topping, remember?) Puree half of that pound and put in mixing bowl. With the other half of that pound, just dice the strawberries into small chunks. If you can get any juice from the strawberries at this point, mix it in with the lime juice in sauce pan.

Bust out the gelatin. Add 1/4 cups water to juices in saucepan. Cut tops off all 4 packets and sprinkle them simultaneously on to the juice in the saucepan. DON'T MIX THEM. Just let it ALONE for 5-10 minutes so that the gelatin can expand. Make sure there's no powder just hanging out on top dry. Add a tablespoon of water over top if need be.

In the mean time, dump the quark, the cream cheese, the pureed strawberry (NOT THE CHUNKS!) powdered sugar, and lime peel gratings into big mixing bowl and mix away!

Now go back to the gelatin and turn on some MED heat. Stir CONSTANTLY to help it all dissolve. Add 2 TB of the whipping cream and stir it in. As soon as it's to a boil take it off the heat and let it sit for 5-10 mins to cool off. It may have a little skin on top but you can mix it back in. It should be liquidy.

Now mix in the gelatin stuff in with the other creamy mixture in the big mixing bowl (the one with the quark, cream cheese, etc). Now add the 1/2 lb. strawberry chunks/cubes.

In food processor or blender, dump in rest of all the whipping cream and mix it till it has stiff peaks. Fold this whipped cream under when adding to creamy mixture in mixing bowl.

Pour thick creamy mixture into springform pan, COVER, and let it cool overnight. (I just used a dinner plate to cover it and that was fine!)

Next day: Consider removing spring form pan momentarily to pre-slice to torte with dental floss before adding strawberries. Gelatin is thick and you may be afraid to remove pan's outer ring because you think it will tear it. You can avoid this tearing by loosening a bit with a plastic knife, or perhaps applying warm washcloths to outside of ring before removing.

Return springform to the torte to add strawberries. Slice remaining pound of strawberries and lay in cool pattern all over the top of the torte, laying berries on their sides.

When it's time to serve, gently remove from springform pan and wow your guests with this amazing dessert!

Totally Awesome Recipes

I have to brag about my cooking. I actually like it! I even went out for dinner the other night and it was hard paying for something when I can cook something better at home! I can't take the credit, though. It all goes to this totally awesome magazine I picked up in the checkout line. I was a little worried that I wasted my money. I never by magazines. But after the first couple of nights cooking from it, it was the best $ I have ever spent. All the recipes are really simple, include lots of seasonings/herbs and such (why it tastes so good), each recipe has a picture of what the dish looks like, and best of all take less than an hour to do from start to finish (some even less). I've been telling all the ladies at playgroup. Some of the ladies looked a little confused when I told them what magazine it was and today I just tried to look it up to get a picture of the cover for this post and now I know why I got the looks. I guess the one I grabbed is a special edition and not the normal monthly magazine. I can't even find the magazine on their site. So if you go looking for it, this is what it looks like and it says "Specials" in the bottom left corner as well as on the spine. I bought mine at Wal-mart for less than $10 and it is only going to be displayed until October 16th.

Seriously, go grab it! Love, love, love it!

Oh, and get this...David actually told me that if I keep cooking this way he's okay with eating chicken more often. If you know David and his appetite, I had to have beef almost every other day for him to satisfy his hunger. It has to be pretty amazing to get a statement out of David like that!

Chilli's Molten Chocolate Chip Cake

My internet is going SUPER slow, but I want to post this while I'm thinking about and before I forget! When I searched, I just found a list of ingredients needed, but no real measurements or anything. I basically just watched this video of this very happy guy below! I'll also post pictures later too, once my internet is working better!



Here is a link to a video that demonstrates what to do. I just saw in a recent summer Family Fun magazine a different way to make it, but this Chilli's version is much easier.

Yum! Yum! Enjoy!

My Favorite Chili Recipe

Emily's Chili

1/2 or 3/4 lb beef
fistful dehydrated onion, or one chopped onion
1/4 tsp garlic powder or 1 clove minced garlic

1/4 c chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
1 can kidney beans
1 can black beans
1 can corn (take out a small bowlful for Guy to eat, the rest is for the chili!)

Throw the first three ingredients in the crockpot, turn it to high. Cook several hours (2 or 3 or until brown), then break up with a spoon. Take out grease if you care.

Add in the rest of the ingredients, cook on low 3 or 4 hours or until dinner time. You really can't go wrong unless you leave it on high for 8 hours and burn everything.

Serve with your favorite cornbread, fried tortillas, or corn chips.