Monday, June 10, 2013

Monday, Monday

Monday holds promise, doesn't it? I had a great breakfast with a great writer and friend yesterday and came away with ideas stewing in my head, ideas for writing more and working more, especially doing some cooking classes, which I do just love to do. The computer screen and I have a tough relationship. I prefer the company of real people, and giving classes does that for me.

Here's the thing--there are a lot of basics that would make for good classes. It doesn't have to be super fancy. I have friends who have asked about sauces and stocks, for example. That is a class right there.

I also love to make mozzarella cheese and pasta--both are so simple, it's worth it to make the effort. To that end, I have a tip for some of you who may be struggling to find good milk (not pasteurized to the point of being unusable for mozzarella).

The tip? Use the dry milk method on New England Cheesemaking Supply Co's website. It was quite the revelation after I wasted a gallon of milk and ended up with nothing but crumbling curds. In a nutshell, mix up a gallon of milk from powder. Remove 1 pint (a.k.a. 2 cups) of the milk (keep it for something else, right?) and replace that pint with a pint of top quality heavy cream. Then proceed as usual, with citric acid and rennet. The batch I made was one of my best.

For more mozzarella madness, here's a link to my post on my obsession with mozzarella when it first started..

What cooking classes have you taken, given or wanted to take? Let me know. I'll start compiling my list of classes to offer.


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