Cheesemaking: Reinventing Muslin And Crochet Thread

It has been a goal of mine in the last few years to begin incorporating more vegetarian meals into our diet. The cost of meat is high and I have been convinced that dried beans are the wonder food because of their price and health content. For my birthday I received "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" by Mark Bittman.

For dinner one rainy day the boys and I decided to make cheese.

What you need:

1/2 gallon milk
Quart buttermilk
Salt to taste
Washed muslin from your stash (or you could do it the real way and use cheesecloth)
Crochet thread (or yarn or any type of string)
Collander
Stirring spoon
Pot
Little hands to help you stir and squeeze

1. Place your collander in the sink. I put mine in a bowl to catch the whey.

2. Put your muslin cloth over the strainer.

3. Bring the milk and salt to a boil.

4. Pour in the buttermilk all at once.

5. Stir the mixture.

6. The milk will begin to separate into cheese and whey.

7. Pour the whole thing on top of your cloth in the strainer. It will look like dry cottage cheese. In fact, it is dry cottage cheese and you can eat it this way.

8. Pull up the corners of the cloth and twist it to form a ball. Run it under water and start to twist the liquid out. When it is cool enough to handle the kids can help squeeze the rest of the whey out.

9. Now tie your string around the top of the ball and let it hang from a spoon over a bowl or your collander. This will set and cool the cheese.

10. When it is cooled off simply unwrap your creation and serve it with your favorite soup and crackers. It is truly delicious.

Along with the book I also received the most adorable cupcake pan from Nordic Ware. We used it to make cornbread.

The kids loved driving their cornbread cars around the clean table and the cheese was delicious. It was a fun way to learn how our commercial food is made and was a perfect activity for a rainy day.

Dinosaur Bones

There's always a selection of "healthy" cereals in our kitchen for a quick breakfast or snack time and they all live in clear containers so they look somewhat appetizing. I never had a problem getting the kids to enjoy Kellog's All-Bran cereal with yogurt bites (well, it does have some sugar in it). The other morning, I found out why.

Camden had eaten all of the bran flakes and collected the yogurt bites so he could assemble a T-Rex skeleton..

Chase saw and, of course, tried to do the same. Being only two years old, I don't think he caught on to the yogurt bites resembling bones and built his dinosaur with the bran flakes instead.

The whole episode made me laugh. Leave it to a kid to come up with the best unique and fun ways to eat food...

My Helping Hands

These little hands that help today
Will make a mess, explore and play.
Be patient with them while they're small
For hands grow big as legs grow tall.

My childhood home was like any home across the country in that the central hub was the kitchen. I have fond memories of making mini pies in foil pot pie plates with my mom after a summer afternoon picking mulberries in the park across the street, prize fish caught from the lake fried for dinner, hours of chatting over a simple breakfast bagel, Kook-Aid stained lips, screen doors, steamed up windows on Thanksgiving morning and the list goes on... For years on the wall between the two windows that overlooked my favorite tree swing in the backyard were two little plaster handprints and one small, sandy footprint. I remember marveling at how the casts seemed to shrink with each new year.

With Cam starting Kindergarten next year it has occurred to me how very fast these years are moving and just how grown up the kids are becoming. So, to capture my little helping hands I decided to take a lesson from my mom's plaster casts. You can buy handprint kits that give you the frame, mat, and materials but I was able to match my kitchen decor with some IKEA frames that I had on hand and purchasing the clay only (which was far less messy than the plaster used decades ago).

Supplies:

Crayola "Model Magic" (ok, I purchased a super huge box of it because I have no control when it comes to craft supplies and I will surely come up with something to use the rest for- one small package will do for your project)

a small hand
a rolling pin
your choice of frame and mat (I used construction paper for the background because it is all I had on hand but it will probable fade over time)
mounting material (tape or glue of some sort)

Just roll out the size and shape of dough that you want your handprint on and press those little fingers or toes into it. You will have to let the clay dry for at least 24 hours and then be sure to write the name of the person, age and date. Then just stick it to the mat and hang it up!


I think my little hands compliment my other pieces of "art" in the kitchen.


They all reflect the mood of raising children, don't you think?

Golden Birthday And The Pirate Ship

We made it through Cam's fifth birthday and it was a true success! Five gifts were given for his golden birthday I couldn't be happier with how they were received since three of them were crazy ideas that I created in between double diaper duty and baby burpings. I'm working on some some tutorials for these creations for some near future postings.

For now, here is the pirate cake he requested. I found the idea in Family Fun and added a few touches of my own. Do you recognize the water frosting? Yes, I was able to use up Cookie Monster's fur from the previous night's cupcakes. The wee little pirate was one of the gifts I made which I will divulge on later...

The worst part of making the cake was all of the chocolate goodness in my presence and my inability to refrain from taste testing.

The best part was that he asked me who was inside of the cake. He then played with the pirate and friends on top of the cake while dinner was being made.

When he was done, we ate the cake.

Turning Five

Tomorrow is the big day. It is the one that I never thought would happen when I brought my first little bundle home from the hospital. Here is the first batch of celebration that Cam will take to preschool to share tomorrow for his fifth birthday. I cannot take credit for the brilliant idea of stuffing a mini cookie in the face of a Cookie Monster cupcake but I think my version turned out quite nicely considering the volume and energy of the wee ones running around me as I worked.


What you need:

Cupcakes
Frosting
Food coloring or icing color (I used Wilton's Royal Blue)
Cookies such as Mini Chips Ahoy or regular Chips Ahoy cut in half
Brown M&M's (for the pupil)
White disc candy such as Brach's Peppermint Lozenges

1. Cut a slit in one side of the cupcake.

2. Stuff the cookie inside...
Special note: In retrospect, I am looking at the original inspiration for these cupcakes and realize that the designer used a full sized cookie rather than a small cookie. It was probably cut in half and stuffed into the cupcake. This would make the monster's mouth look much wider like he appears on Sesame Street. I'll have to try this again for the next kid...

3.... and frost it with frosting using a medium star tip. I put two blobs of frosting just above the cookie before pressing the eyes on.

Don't worry, we're taking along a bag of pretzels, carrots and a gallon of milk too...

Winter Mint

What is a mama of three tiny men to do on a frigid day that registers -21 degrees on the outside thermometer? Why, browse through this month's Martha Stewart magazine and make the latest "...of the month" recipe, of course.

This recipe created the most wonderful chocolate cake from scratch that I've tried to date (and I've tried a lot!) and whipped up really fast. Keep this one in your file for the cake at the very least. Top it with minty buttercream or use any of your fav's. It's a keeper and especially wonderful on a day like today.

Of course, waiting was the hardest part...