Bread and others

Urgh, what a horrible start to the holidays, the whole family sick, with a range of ailments, and the weather in true autumn fashion coming up with a taste of winter! Wet and cold.

In the past days I have had some successes, disasters and near misses on the food front.

My Camembert, which I had done successfully previously, turned into something slimey and stinky! Admittedly, I didn't follow instructions, in fact I was all over the place so I'm not really surprised.
But my first attempt at Goat Fetta come up alright despite not having exactly the right culture. But I will have to experiment with the brine concentration: the recommended 15%  is WAY TOO salty for my liking. I used it in the evening as a base for a mushroom and ham pasta sauce and it melted, just like the bought one.
While waxing the last batch of Havartis I nearly caused fire, but fortunately had a wet tea towel at hand. Lesson learned: never do this task at the end of a long and hard day. Full attention required.

Next up: Pretzels. my lovely daughter and in-house food critic had demolished my supply of bought ones. So I decided to try making them myself, and as a first effort they were VERY edible. Even though, as they were a bit chunkier than the store ones, my daughter could only eat half of one, and declared the store ones were better. Got to try a few more recipes and I feel confident that I will find one that will get her full approval.

And then, as if I didn't have enough on my plate, I thought I'd try starting a sour dough starter! Did it, and was reasonably casual following the recipe, but did end up having some kind of a starter after 3 days. So yesterday I thought Right, let's try this and got the Dean Brettschneider baking book out and started.

GordonBennett, this took forever and a day!
And in the end I had forgotten the kneaded dough in the cold oven. When I remembered it had risen nicely and tripled in size! But, upon consulting the book, I realized unless I wanted to make this a night in the kitchen, I wouldn't be able to do it properly.
To not waste a bowl full of dough I just shaped two kinds of loaf, one plain and one with seeds and plonked them in the oven for 30 mins. This morning we tasted them, me the seed version, her the plain and she was thoroughly happy munching away on it for breakfast!

And last, but not least, I had made guacomole out of some free avocados and frozen them. This time in smaller packets, so once defrosted it won't go off faster than we can eat it.

Feeling utterly exhausted at the range of activities, but very happy and satisfied about it too!

Next? Nothing new. Indeed, this week I'm intending of not making any cheese and just reaping the rewards for a little.

It's been a while...

... and I have been busy.
By now I'm onto my 5th batch of Havarti cheese, and I think I might be making it fast enough to actually have a batch ripen to the recommended full 6 weeks! My daughter just loves it, and even has age preferences: she prefers the 4 week old one over the two week one, but still scoffs the lot!

And now she's discovered Rhubarb. She truly is an appreciative audience for my home cooking, baking and making stuff! Our neighbour was so good to give us a few stalks to try, as my efforts of homegrown rhubarb have ended miserably. It was delicious and once I've got a good spot for it ready she'll dig out a tuber for me to plant. In the meantime we're enjoying any donations she leaves in our letter box!

Next up sausage making: I'll be mincing up the next batch of rabbits, got some pork fat and sausage casings in the fridge and a gorgeous recipe to try out. 

I've been meaning to make sourdough bread to go with my cheese, but haven't started the starter yet.

But on the upside, my Chevre production is going well and most people that have tried it like it very much. Doing swapsies with the neighbours, as apart from me, no one will eat it here. Next to try will be goat's Feta.

Results when and where they happen.
TTFN

Chevre

Result: 6l of goat's milk, collected over the past week, and decidedly tasting of goat became 1 kg fresh Chevre.
I drained it over night and it still has a very moist quark like consistency. I've frozen 2 portions and keeping the rest in the fridge to test and monitor how the process. At the moment it could easily be used as a quark substitute, but only in savoury recipes as the goat taste is there. Not in an offensive strong way, but just enough to mark it different.
On a positive side note: yesterday Mr.11had Weetbix and used some of the 2 day old goat's milk and didn't notice any difference!! Of course I didn't tell him, don't want to get his back up. And this morning my hubby used the fresh milk to make his Mocca and was pleasantly surprised by the LACK of goat flavour!

After making a Pannettone and a batch of Pork mince pies I felt shattered yesterday, but it has turned out to be a very productive day!
And as it's not raining anymore I will have to go out and dig a post hole!

TTFN

FOOD!

Just a quick update, as I have started another cheese, today I'm trying to make a Chevre. At the moment it's sitting in the cupboard for another 2 hours before I can see whether it has properly set.

A couple of pics of my last exploits:
the waxed Havarti. Which is now down to its last quarter!
I had some yesterday, at 14 days old, and it was quite yummy!!

 

And for a birthday lunch for my hubby I had done one of our ducks.

Goodness what an ordeal!! 

And yes, that's my epilady, used to get the last of the downy feathers out! 

As a reference: the carcass weighed 1kg exactly, and was enough for the four of us: the kids enjoyed the legs and we feasted on the breast. I had made a stuffing of 2 onions, 1 apple, 4 rasher of streaky bacon cut into 1cm bits and added some Thyme. I had also covered the breast and top of the bird with bacon rashers and cooked it like a chicken for about 1 1/4 hours in a covered dish. it was stunningly moist, 5 more minutes and it would have been dry! As side dishes I made Spaetzle with crispy bacon bits ( yes it's a theme) and poached pears in spicy red wine. And a gravy made from the duck juices and the pear liquid!

As everybody enjoyed and finished their meal I'm particularly pleased with this effort.

Cheese today!

Actually yesterday. I started making a Havarti cheese. While I wait for it to dry before I can apply the wax I had cut it into quarters. This way I can test it throughout the weeks and find out which time frame works best for us. If it doesn't go off of course in the process!
And here are the quarters, I'll add more pics once it's waxed!

I have been cooking, but...

....not trying out anything new or fancy pancy.

But, for a pre-Christmas barbecue I had made a rabbit terrine. And I have to say, despite my initial misgivings about it's visual appeal, it tarted up quite nicely, and everyone gave it a good shot.
It's from a french recipe and uses copious amounts of wine and herbs for the marinade.I can't post the reaction of my taste buds, but I certainly will use the ingredients when I'm going to make my rabbit sausages!

 

And this is where I got the recipe from:

Bon Appetit!

Eggs!

We've got lots of chickens! At the moment we have 3 1/2 trays of eggs sitting in the fridge sitting. And I'm worried it's not enough:
Yesterday I backed four portions of Lemon-Sour Cream cake from my trusty Edmond's Cook Book.
Today we had soft-boiled eggs with Asparagus and Toast soldiers.
That used up 2 dozen of eggs.
The children seem to be coming down with acute cases of hollow legs!
I'm scared.
How will I feed them?
At least I know that they are 100% free-range, the other day I got a bloody nose stomping through the bush looking for them!
The neighbours suggested selling my surplus eggs to the Lodge down the road, I don't think I'll have any surplus while the kids are having growth spurts.
Other than that, not much exciting, new or different on the food front.
Keeping busy raising the animals, so in 3-4 months time it'll be rabbit recipe time!

TTFN