Today in the Kitchen: Kim Chee, Butter and Paneer

The middle of the day is way too hot to be outside working, so our outside chores take place from about 8 am to 11 am, and again from around 5 pm to whenever. Hopefully before 10 pm, but you never know.

Butter

So in the hot middle of the day we try to find something inside to do, like nap. Or, like today, make things in the kitchen. Today ED started by setting a few quarts of cream out to come to (less than) room temperature. 65 degrees is ideal, but ours very quickly rose to 72 today, causing a great deal of frustration for ED. Nevertheless she got it churned and in the fridge to cool down so she can work it later.

While she did that, I went and pulled the overgrown spring radishes from the carrot bed, where they had been planted to mark and shade the carrot rows. I grated those and mixed them with other stuff, and made a batch of kimchee (recipe to follow).

Making kim chee

And finally I decided to use up some milk and make a batch of paneer, another exercise in frustration, because I can never seem to add enough of my acid ingredient (lemon juice or vinegar) to make it separate all the way! Here’s how  it went: I brought two gallons of milk just to a boil, turned it off, and added the juice of a lemon. Nothing. I then added the juice of half a lemon. Nada. So then I added about a quarter cup of bottled lime juice. At this point I started getting some curdling, but nothing to write home about. So then I added a couple of tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, which I really didn’t want to do, because I so much prefer the flavor made with just lemon or lime juice. Got a little more curdling. Finally I just broke down and dumped a quarter cup, or maybe more, and that finally did the trick: white curds in clear yellow whey. But good grief! All the recipes I have call for such dainty little amounts of lemon juice or vinegar! Should I be using older (hence more acid) milk? All suggestions welcome!

Kim Chee (Today’s Version)

I head of Napa Cabbage, shredded

5 medium carrots, grated

Lots of big, overgrown radishes (Maybe 15), grated

5 or 6 big green onions, chopped

2 tablespoons grated ginger

5 big cloves of garlic, chopped finely

2 tablespoons Celtic sea salt

1 tablespoon cayenne

Several vigorous dashes of fish sauce

Mix all ingredients together in a big bowl. Pack into wide-mouth quart jars with your fists, pounding a little to release enough juice to cover. Leave out on kitchen counter (in a pyrex baking dish or something to catch any overflowing juice) at room temperature for a few days, and then store in the refrigerator. We put the jars in plastic bags in the fridge so that everything doesn’t taste like kim chee. It’s an especially revolting flavor for ice cubes.

This made 2 1/2 quarts.

Rainy Weather and Housecleaning (With a Recipe for Laundry Soap)

We’ve had a couple of days of much needed rainy weather, during which the girls and I have been catching up on some severely neglected housecleaning. In the spring and summer, when there’s so much to be done outside, our house can get a little…funky. Add some heat and humidity and it feels positively disgusting! So yesterday we scrubbed and vacuumed and did load after load of laundry.

A few weeks ago I made a batch of laundry soap from a compilation of recipes I had been collecting from all over the internet, notably here. It’s cheap, works really well, and smells great. I bought all ingredients except the essential oils at my local grocery store.

Laundry Soap (Makes three gallons)

1 Bar soap (I used Ivory, which was readily available in my little town)

1 Cup Borax

1/2 Cup Washing Soda

Grate the soap and boil it in a couple of quarts of water until dissolved. Add Borax and washing soda, stir until dissolved. Add enough water to make 3 gallons. I scented mine with some lavender and rose essential oils, and it smells lovely. Use 1/2 cup per load.

That’s it—ridiculously simple! I think in the future I’m going to either order Fels Naptha soap or maybe use Dr. Bronner’s bar soap.

Tomatoes

I am in the garden a lot these days, especially when I can convince the rest of the family that they don’t really need me for all the animal chores!

We got all the tomatoes in last week—a full week earlier than last year, thanks do DH’s help hauling manure. Over the years we’ve really narrowed down our tomato varieties to those we really, really like, and that seem to do well here. Our constants are Carbon and Great White, both open pollinated, so I am able to save my own seed; and Sungold, an orange cherry tomato, which is, unfortunately, a hybrid, so I have to buy seeds for it every year. It’s worth it though—there’s never been a better flavored cherry tomato, in my humble opinion! The last few years we’ve grown Juliet canning tomatoes, and I love them—they’re seriously disease resistant, which is important here in tobacco country—and very, very productive, but they’re so small! It’s a ridiculous amount of effort to pick and can them. So this year instead of Juliets, we’re growing Bellstar and a tomato developed by Heinz years ago. Both are open pollinated, and both are determinate, so maybe I’ll get my canning done in one giant burst instead of a little at a time all summer long.

Working with Split

What an awesome little dog! She’s been earning her keep helping the girls move cows around—yesterday ED only had to go part way to the field where the cows were, and Split went and got them and brought them back, saving ED a good bit of time and energy.

And today she helped me move the geese from the barn into the pasture with very little fuss or bother—and it was so much fun!

How were we managing without her?