I talk about my vintage craft books a lot, but not so much about my cookbooks. I have the collections of 2 very active cooks. My grandmother and my mother. They range from a copy of the Boston Cooking School Cook Book that's over 100 years old and in a bag to keep the pages together to an awful lot of 60s cookbooks, to church community cookbooks everybody has to have.
All in all, before my collection, I had about 200 cookbooks. I've been adding to that number steadily.
I get some cookbooks to review. I also buy myself vintage cookbooks. Not every single one I see, just the ones that pertain to one of my interests in cooking. So a bread machine cookbook from the 80s or 90s I'll probably pass on, I like doing it by hand. But Pillsbury's Bake Off Breads Cook Book from 1968? Absolutely irresistible. On the cover it declares proudly "Shortcutted favorites... the best of all the Bake Offs streamlined for use with new instant dry yeast"
I'm thrilled with all the new recipes. There is one for bread made with bacon fat instead of whatever fat you usually use and with crumbled bits of bacon in it. There is also a cheese bread that I really like the look of, but I'll have to adjust the recipe somewhat because nobody in my family likes American cheese.
The part that absolutely charmed me is the spreads section. Because they were all pretty much variations on a theme but all presented as individual recipes. You know..
Festive Olive Spread
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 Tbsp milk or cream
2 Tbsp chopped green olives
Beat butter and milk until light and fluffy, stir in olives.

Honey Butter
1/2 butter, softened
1/2 cup honey
blend until light and fluffy

There are cream cheese ideas too, along the same vein. Switch the ingredient to accent, but the basic process is the same for each of them. Maraschino cherries, honey, instant coffee and sugar, orange juice.

Reminded me somewhat of one of William's favorite desserts when he was little. I'd make him chocolate cream cheese or chocolate labneh and serve it as a spread for toast with strawberries or blueberries. I haven't made labneh in a long time. Maybe sometime soon.

For her b-day, well.. we forgot to give her half her presents. Whoops. We gave them to her today, but we gave her the big one. Her very own sonic screwdriver. Once the batteries were installed, it became her favorite thing ever. Seriously. I was napping, and apparently at one point she came to the living room where Mike was playing one of the hitman games, and she pointed it at the screen and announced she was fixing it for him.
She decided she wanted to go to the zoo. Yay. I love the zoo. So we went and walked and looked at animals. After that, we met Dad and William for dinner. William got her a Star Wars lego set. There was much rejoicing. Of a very geeky kind.
We made a chocolate coeur a la creme. Well.. dome de la creme. I don't have a heart mold because it's an item with too few uses.
( coeur a la creme recipe )

Yesterday, when I asked E what she wanted for dinner, she wasn't sure. So I gave her a list of options and she decided on homemade mac and cheese.
Now, here's the thing, like most kids, it used to be that anything other then the stuff that comes in boxes with either a packet of cheese powder or a foil packet of cheese paste was disgusting to her. I wanted to give her mac and cheese that actually.. you know, had cheese in it. So I found clone recipe for the boxed stuff with the cheese paste, and made that. Every time I make mac and cheese, I change one more thing until I can make mac and cheese like mom used to make, well.. sort of. In as much as I follow any recipe.
Last night was the first time I tried baking it so it go all nice and crusty on top. IIRC, mom used to use Ritz cracker crumbs and french fried onions on top. I used a mix of sharp cheddar and seasoned cereal crumbs. I use seasoned cereal crumbs instead of panko for most panko uses. They bake up nice and crispy, usually are fortified with vitamins that don't completely cook out, and they keep as long as need them once I crush up the cereal and season it.
I also let her try a piece of the turkey I was cutting up to mix into Mike's and my mac and cheese and asked if she wanted some. She said yes, so I mixed in some turkey. It was a hit. I'm getting closer step by step.
She still thinks cooked veggies are nasty, so I made two separate casserole dishes with mac and cheese in them. The bigger one for Mike and I had frozen peas in it, and she just ate raw carrots with hers.
( on vegetables and kids )
Well.. today I'm going to crochet myself a headband using some of Paton's silk/bamboo blend.
And try really hard to get rid of my current earworm. Mike's had What's New Pussycat? stuck in his head. I've had UFO Phil's Listening Coast to Coast and his Aliens Really Stink stuck in my head.

Well, it's been about 8 hours. The package said it would be set in 4, but I had my doubts and it wasn't. That's fine, generally working from plain yogurt for the culturing it can take 8-12 hours to set.
It's set up nicely, and it smells wonderful. I didn't follow the package instructions exactly because well.. generally I won't. So here's how I did it. (my notes follow, part of this is going up as a review)
( cut for the people who really don't care )

Very cool sale.. signed copies ofAlternation for 8.00 each including shipping. Better? Craft Magazine has a coupon code for 1.50 off.

Making yogurt from scratch-
You can find really detailed instructions on Little House in the Suburbs. So the only tips I have to add are if you have a gas oven with a non-auto pilot light, that will probably be warm enough to incubate. I turned my oven on a couple times to the lowest temp for about a half hour,then turned it off, and my yogurt was thick and perfect in about 10 hours. Also, if you pick up a 32 oz starter of plain yogurt like I did, just freeze the rest, you'll be able to use it for starters for your next batches. I used 1/2 cup containers, so it's already portioned and ready to go, but you can also use an ice cube tray and freeze it, then put the cubes in a bag and just use a couple cubes for your next batch, when you use it, let it defrost at room temp, don't heat it. You want all those cultures to come back and zapping it or otherwise heating it could kill the cultures. Sweeten with whatever you like,flavor how you like, or add savory if that's what you prefer. My son actually prefers ranch dip made with non fat yogurt to the usual high fat alternatives.

Creme Fraiche is even easier. 1 cup of cream and 2 Tablespoons of butter milk in a lidded jar, shake it up to mix them, then just leave it some place warm for about 10-24 hours until it's nice and thick, chill. Or... *grins* in our case, we mixed a bit of maple syrup and the caviar of one vanilla bean in it. Sure.. it's fattening.. but it tastes amazing on that nut bread.

Well.. time to order pizza for dinner. I was planning to bake a pie in my entirely too nifty Pi pie plate, but time got away from me.

So I baked a loaf of bread, but since I was baking just to bake, I'm afraid I didn't measure ingredients. Just grabbed and went with the mood. It's a shame, it turned out *great*. It's a whole wheat loaf with olive oil, molasses, and mixed nuts chopped very fine which doesn't, looking at it, sound like it would work, but it does, and it's so good. I'm going to the grocery store tonight when Mike gets off work, so I'll pick up the ingredients to make creme fraiche to spread on it. The loaf is a free formed loaf, and the color turned out a really pretty shade of brown. Yum yum!
We haven't been to the store since I got sick, and last night came down to "Honey? When did we buy sandwich meat?" (fortunately, recently enough it was fine)

To Scarborough Fair?
( all done )

I should be working on the Sooper Seekrit Project, but.. I'm not right now because I'm not feeling inspired.
But I just started the labneh for spreading on the bread we are baking today.
Labneh is the easiest cheese in the world to make. It's just strained yogurt. It's best with homemade yogurt, but if you're like me, homemade yogurt is hit and miss. Sometimes we just don't eat enough, so it goes off. I'm using a good organic plain yogurt, so after it's done straining, I can use the container it came in for the cheese. Which we are going to mix some herbs and garlic in to compliment the herbs in the bread.

For the bread itself, I hit the bulk section of the supermarket, which is where I prefer to buy small amounts of seasoning. We are lucky, quality control at ours is high enough I haven't gotten stale herbs from them yet, and buying them bulk means I can get the same amount that's in those little jars for a whole lot less. While I was there, I checked out grains for grains I could use in the bread. I finally settled on a bit more organic whole wheat flour, and some cracked wheat for texture, so this loaf will be eggs, organic unbleached white flour, whole wheat flour, water, butter, and cracked wheat. After some quick research on the net, I found out that for the most part, people didn't write down bread recipes in medieval times, but that stone ground white flour was common in lords households, and peasants usually used rye or some other flour that was easier to grow/make, and that in times of famine, it's possible peasants also used beans and peas in their breads.I'll try a peasant type loaf later with some sort of peas or beans, and rye flour. Eggs and butter were used in fancier breads. The "trencher" breads were an upper class thing for feasts and such, and used as a disposable plate. Peasants wouldn't have used them, since trencher bread was usually 4 day old bread, and they would have used bread for meals before using it as a disposable plate. You could braid bread to make it look fancier. I'm not sure exactly what we are going to do. I know the outlines, like what we are using, but a lot of the other choices, I'll let E make. She's very fond of smaller round irregular loaves, so that's probably what we will wind up with.
We are also planning to make some Danish cookies I found a recipe for in one of my cookbooks from the 50s.

Well.. time for me to go to Michaels to pick up more polyester resin, and to the gym. If I feel up to it after baking, I may see if Mike wants to go out tonight.

I was too impatient to try baking bread with whey to wait the amount of time it takes to make a sourdough starter without yeast, so I went ahead and made up some bread today. It turned out good. E is planning to have some tomorrow with strawberry jam and the chocolate cheese we made.
( Whey Bread Recipe and Chocolate Cheese Recipe )

But not together please!
I'm addicted to shopping, but in a very specific way. I love a good deal. 15 dollar Chucks? I'm a happy girl. 5.00 brand new themed teeshirts that reflect the interests of my family? My *dad* gets compliments on his teeshirts regularly from teenagers, and it just thrills him. But those seriously great deals actually leave me feeling a bit high. I have 2 pairs of these in pink even because I found them for 9.00 a pair.
So about 8 years ago, or maybe even a bit longer, I found Darth Vader refillable mechanical pencils clearance priced for 1.00 for a 4 pack, I promptly grabbed 2 packs. Good deal. Not a great deal, then I went up to pay for them, and they rang up for 10¢ a pack, so I went back, and grabbed the rest, and *floated* in a haze that could only be a really amazing bargain. Mike's been using those pencils ever since, and even though they were only 2.5¢ each, he's always been aware, someday, they'll be gone, so he refills them, and holds on to them until they disappear the way pencils and pens always do. We've still got a couple packs left.
Through the years, he's given away 2, he's been asked for them a lot more, and lots of people have asked to borrow his pencil, and then tried to walk away with it.
Where this starts getting funny is that last week, he accidentally left one in a co-worker's office, and he didn't know where he'd left it. It was faded, Darth was almost gone on it, so he shrugged it off, and pulled out his spare. Then the co-worker saw him writing with it, and accused him of stealing his pencil. Mike just sort of looked at the guy while he demanded *HIS* pencil back. And explained the facts to him. "My wife bought me these pencils YEARS ago, and when she did, she bought the complete remaining stock of the store that had them. So if you HAVE one of these? It's mine." The guy of course sort of boggled, and said "Uh.. it got left in my office, I didn't know where it came from." "And you STILL accused me?"
I'm sure there's a moral in there somewhere, something about making accusations and assumptions or some such. Plus I find it incredibly funny that people have been trying for all this time to take Mike's pencils.They come in second for things people try to get Mike to give them or sell them. First is a 2.00 Viagra traveling mug I found intact with the lid at my favorite thrift store that he uses at work every day.
( picture of one of the pencils )
I just pulled that one out of the pack it was in, so I need to remember to put it away so it stays in pretty condition until Mike's ready for it.
Wednesday, at the grocery store, there was a half gallon of organic milk with a use by the 6th date on it marked down, so I grabbed to make simple vinegar cheese with. (the background on that page is set up for a shorter screen width then most people use anymore) E and I are going to mix chocolate and vanilla in it, and use it for a dessert cheese with fruit tomorrow. Yum yum! I think I *need* to make a cheesecake completely from scratch soon using homemade cheese.

I haven't tried making my own cheese yet. But I plan to, the kids and I talked about it, and they both agreed it would be fun and interesting. They are both always interested in how their favorite foods are made.

But last month, Bob and Mark were talking about nobody actually made their own cheese. I think the current DIY revolution has missed them.

Bassist Alex James makes cheese. I'm not sure who he is, but apparently it makes cheesemaking a bit more interesting.

Since I'm just beginning with the kids, we are going to start with soft cheeses because they are the easiest.

How do you explain DIY to people who just don't get it? That part of it is just to prove to yourself you can, part of it is because you want what you want, and not what's sold in stores, and part of it is just an overwhelming curiosity about how things are made. Chances are good, we won't become the sort of people who keep a goat in the backyard for milk and make all our own cheese, but knowing a bit more about it sharpens your appreciation. Part of it is embracing values formed from necessity in the past that have been discarded in an instant world, taking the time, doing it yourself, gives you such a sense of accomplishment.

And I'm thrilled my teenagers are interested in making cheese with me.

Bob said "Don't call and tell us you make your own cheese, nobody does that except Amish people, and they don't listen to our show." Hopefully, by next Christmas, we will be up to hard cheeses, so I can send him a round with a note that says "I'm not Amish, I do listen, and I make my own cheese. I hope you like it."

This weekend though, E and I are making The Hillbilly Housewife's Grape Jelly. It's made with grape juice and looks fairly quick, and it's a small batch, so I won't need to process the jars, it will get eaten pretty quickly so I can just keep it in the fridge. I'm also going to make up a batch of "cup of soups" for W, I'm using dried veggie soup mix (which is basically just a bunch of dehydrated finely cut veggies), a cube of bouillon, instant rice, and dehydrated mushrooms. He likes my homemade instant mixes better then the pre-packaged ones, so I'm going to use him as a guinea pig for figuring out a just right cup of soup. I could use tiny jewelry ziplocks to package, but yeah.. not exactly environmentally friendly, so I'm going to look for tiny side dish/condiment containers to put each serving in.