Catching Up

I've had pictures from three cooking expeditions on my camera for quite a while. So this post might look like I've been butchering-bakering-&-candlestickmakering up a storm, but actually this collection goes back at least a week or three.

First: The Birthday Gift That Keeps On Giving

I believe I was turning 29 when Steve and Rachel gave me two bags of rice, a Japanese red rice and a black sweet rice. I've cooked almost all of the red rice, but the black sweet rice is a little harder to use in savory dishes. I was happy to learn that you could make a rice porridge out of it from my Moosewood Cookbook. The rice is still a little crunchy (actually, squeaky is a better word for it), and this makes a great dessert. It also happens to be vegan, which I don't usually think about too much, but comes in handy every once in a while. No cows or rices were harmed in the making of this porridge.


Second: My Own Personal Dannon Factory

I've been eating a lot of plain yogurt lately, and a recent article in the NYTimes had me thinking that it might not be too hard to make my own. Turns out, it's not hard at all.

There are websites and recipes galore, and they're all more or less the same. Basically, you heat milk till it's nearly boiling, let it cool about forty degrees, mix in a batch of existing yogurt (with live bacteria cultures), pour it into containers, and keep it warm for the next several hours while the bacteria go crazy. Then refrigerate and enjoy over the next week or so. I let my yogurt go about six hours in the fermenting stage, which is a little longer than most recipes call for, but results in a yogurt that's a little thicker and tangier. Now if I could only find a good granola recipe...



Third: An Apple Pie a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

Nothing too fancy here, but I had some leftover Granny Smiths and a couple pie crust balls in my freezer and decided to put together an apple pie (à la mode).