Homemade Ricotta and Moussaka-stuffed Eggplants

Last week I saw a recipe for a grilled salad that used pears, eggplant, Parmesan cheese, and toasted walnuts. I was intrigued, so I asked Miss J to pick up the ingredients when she did our weekly shopping. Miss J obliged, but unfortunately Rochester weather did not. And after a week, the notion of eggplants and pears together in one dish started to sound more weird than intriguing. So I decided to go with "plan b." Which I didn't have.

Add to the equation the fact that a few weeks back I saw this lovely store-made ricotta on sale at Weggies. And that ground lamb was loitering in my fridge, also the casualty of a rainy week and no grilling.

Google to the rescue! I Googled "recipes for eggplant, lamb, fresh ricotta cheese" and came up with a number of candidates. This Moussaka won out. But first I had to make ricotta cheese. It turns out that making Ricotta is about as easy and fast as can be. Think about it: it's American cousin -- cottage cheese -- is called "cottage" cheese because it can be made by a person of humble means in a small house. You have to try it -- it was a snap, and the result was too yummy!

Homemade Ricotta

(You can read the original recipe by MichaelChiarello, via the New York Times 5/28/08 here)

Makes about a cup.

Ingredients

Half gallon whole milk

2 cups buttermilk

Steps

1. Line a wide sieve or colander with cheesecloth, folded so that it is at least 4 layers thick. Place in sink.

2. Pour milk and buttermilk into a heavy-bottomed pot. Cook over high heat, stirring frequently; scrape bottom of pot occasionally to prevent scorching. As milk heats, curds will begin to rise and clump on surface. Once mixture is steaming hot, stop stirring.

3. When mixture reaches 175 to 180 degrees on a candy thermometer, curds and whey will separate. (Whey will look like cloudy gray water underneath a mass of thick white curds.) Immediately turn off heat and gently ladle curds into sieve.

4. When all curds are in sieve and dripping has slowed (about 5 minutes), gently gather edges of cloth and twist to bring curds together; do not squeeze. Let drain 15 minutes more. Discard the whey.

5. Untie cloth and pack ricotta into airtight containers. Refrigerate and use within one week.

 Moussaka Style Stuffed Eggplants

 You can read the original recipe here.

Ingredients  Serves   2 servings Preheat over to 400 degrees. 1 lb eggplants (medium-sized) kosher salt 1 tbsp olive oil oil (extra, rubbing the eggplants) 38 lb ground lamb (lean) 14 onion (diced) 1 garlic cloves (minced) 1 tomatoes (peeled seeded diced) 12 green bell pepper (peeled seeded and diced) 38 tsp ground cloves 38 tsp cinnamon 38 tsp ground cumin tsp cayenne pepper 14 cup ricotta (fresh) 23 cup ricotta (fresh) ground pepper (fresh) 18 tsp nutmeg (freshly grated) 34 tbsp milk 18 cup parmesan cheese (grated) fresh parsley (garnish)

Halve the eggplants lengthwise and score the interior of each half, leaving about a third of an inch thickness on the perimeter. Use a paring knife and a spoon to scoop out the interior of the eggplant, leaving a 'boat.' Using a fork, pierce the skin in several places, liberally salt the halves and place them upside down on paper towels to drain for about 30 minutes.

Wipe the eggplant shells out with paper towels, brush the skin lightly with a little olive oil, and place them on a baking sheet. Bake them until they are just tender (about ten minutes) then remove from the oven and set aside in a baking dish.

Chop the eggplant flesh into 1/2" cubes and set aside.  Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large skillet over medium high heat.  Add the lamb and cook, breaking up the pieces, until lightly browned--about 5 minutes. Add the onion, garlic, chopped eggplant and cook, stirring occasionally, until the eggplant is soft--about five more minutes.

Add the tomatoes, bell pepper, cloves, cumin, cinnamon and cayenne and cook until the mixture is fairly dry.

Remove from the heat.Season to taste and spoon into the 4 eggplant halves.

Place the remaining 1 and 1/3 cups of ricotta in a small bowl and stir in the nutmeg and enough milk until the consistency of the cheese mixture is spreadable.Spread it over the filled eggplant halves and sprinkle the tops with parmesan.

Bake until the tops are very brown--25 to 35 minutes.

Visit to Woodchuckville

J and I have rented a cottage on Waneta Lake, a teensy-tiny lake in the Fingerlakes region. This really is the land that time forgot. For most of the week we have done absolutely nothing but cook out and eat, read books, and play Farkle. There is also a lot of just staring at the lake. This has been heavenly!

So today, we decided to shake the dust off and go out for a bit. Our destination was The Windmill Farm & Craft Market in Penn Yan, aka Woodchuckville. If you ever wondered where people get tee shirts that say things like, "I'm Great in Bed (I can sleep for hours at a time)" it's at the Windmill.

The parking lot, with a view of the namesake windmill

Slightly burned on the edges = perfect!

The Penn Yan area is home to many Mennonites, so they are represented at the Windmill, mostly in the food stands it seemed to me. I was able to buy a loaf of salt-rising bread, a hard to find favorite. My dad used to make it frequently when I was growing up. Salt-rising bread is made without yeast, but instead is made from a starter of naturally occurring micro-organisms, like sour dough. Despite it's name, it isn't salty. I'm not really sure where the salt comes in. Dad had a started made from potatoes, and it stunk to high heaven. Which explains why the cleaning lady threw it out when she was cleaning the fridge one week. A tragedy for us.

So tomorrow I will have some lovely salt-rising bread toasted.  Ah, if only I had some peanut butter to put on it too!

Dygert Does HDR

I'm just fascinated by the HDR photos I've seen -- My nephew Tim took some at the beach in Hawaii that were stunning -- but I've not tried to shoot any on my own until now. With a week at a cottage before me, I thought I might have enough time to noodle through how to do it.

Setting up my Canon DSLR was the hardest part. Lucky for me, I was able to find an excellent resource on the internet. If you have a Canon 5D Mark II, you will be able to use these instructions too. They are very specific!

So once I got the pictures in my camera, then I had to get them put together via Photomatix software. This software has only one purpose -- to combine the bracketed shots in your camera to make an awesome HDR photo. Photomatix isn't expensive, and the version I bought was actually good for 2 people, so I could share it with J too. Also search around on the internet for a % off coupon. At this writing you can get 15% off the list price with an easy to find coupon.

J and I do a calendar every year, primarily for our own pleasure, and share it with family. This year I think the theme is going to be "pictures that tell a story." I think these HDR photos do just that!

Now on to learning about those filters I bought for my camera!

Garden Report - Peak!

View from the side garden

This has been an extraordinary gardening year, for a couple of reasons. We started early, with an exceptionally mild winter and spring. It has been dry, so even the things that are in the wetest part of the garden, but don't have any business being there are having a good year. And the youngest part of the garden, is three years old now. So things are well-established and ready to be divided.

Beautiful day lilies!

All the day lilies are are blooming now, including my favorites, the spider shaped ones. I think we must have 15 different day lilies represented. Last year I did an arrangement of all the different day lilies in our gardens, and it was an amazing assemblage, if I do say so myself! When Joanne is home again, I think I'll reprise it!

I love the color of this one.

From now on until Fall arrives, we will mostly be pruning and deadheading. I have a couple of echinacea to plant -- red ones! And two cups and saucers, blue of course, too. I'd love to add a garden to the front yard, and another on the side of the house. But I suspect those will be a very hard sell to Miss Joanne, who is much better at stopping to smell the roses than I am.

Grilled Salmon, Marinaded in Dijon Mustard

Grilled salmon with grilled squash and rainbow chard

This is absolutely the best best best grilled salmon I have ever made. I think I could eat this 5 days a week, which would probably make my doctor happy and annoy Joanne! I use the wild salmon, not farm raised for this recipe. I've gotten a little suspicious of farm-raised fish. The wild salmon has wonderful color and texture, too.

We can thank Ina Garten for this recipe. I use her marinade, with a small addition of honey, but my directions for cooking the salmon are a little different.

Wild salmon, cut in 6 ounce portions. This amount of marinade will work for 4 servings.
2 tablespoons course dijon mustard
1/2 tablespoon honey
3 tablespoons good soy sauce
6 tablespoons good olive oil
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic

About 30 minutes before you are going to grill, mix the marinade in a pan large enough to accommodate the salmon in a single layer. Put the salmon in the marinade, skin side up.

Make a medium size charcoal fire, and oil the grill so the fish won't stick. When the fire is ready,  place the salmon skin side down on the hot grill.  Discard the marinade the fish was sitting in. Grill for 4 to 5 minutes. Then move the fish away from the heat and cook for another 5 minutes.

Caponata and Lamb Meat Balls

A perfect summer day for us is one that is spent primarily outdoors, either working in our gardens, or shooting pictures. It definitely isn't a day full of household chores! But girls have to eat, and we like to eat well. So I bite the bullet, and from time to time, make up a bunch of yummy stuff, and then we graze on that for the rest of the week.

And so, recently, I made up some lovely caponata, a cold dish of eggplant, raisens, pine nuts, and capers plus a whole lot more. With some wonderful lamb meatballs, tabouli, hummus, and store-bought nan, we had lunches and dinners for days. And many of theme were taken on the patio, with the flowers and birds as company!

Caponata

This is recipe started with one by Mario Batalia. Don't be put off by the strange additions of coco and cinnamon. I promise you will like it!

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
3 stalks celery cut into 1/4" cubes (3/4 cups)
1 medium eggplant diced
6 large green olives, chopped. I like the ones with pimento best, but use whatever you like.
9 good black olives -- the oil cured kind - chopped
1 small roasted red pepper chopped. If you used the green olives with pimento, you could probably skip this.
2 tablespoons capers
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup golden raisins reconstituted in 1/4 cup water in the microwave for a minute or two
1/4 cup tomato sauce. I use leftover marinara
1/2 teaspoon cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon fresh thyme, chopped
1/6 cup balsamic vinegar

Saute the onion, celery, pepper in the olive oil until the onion and celery are soft. Stir in the eggplant and cook for 10 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients and cook for about 15 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasonings, adding more vinegar or honey as needed.


Lamb Meatballs


Suddenly Wegmans has been selling ground lamb. I love this recipe because they are baked. I cook them ahead and then heat them up at supper.

1 pound ground lamb
1/4 cup finely chopped onions
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 egg

Preheat oven to 400 F degrees. Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl, Form the meat into small round meatballs. Place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, and bake them about 45 minutes.

Rochester Jazz Festival - Are You Hungry?

 Miss J and I took in the Rochester Jazz Festival the other night. We had tickets to Steve Martin's show -- a show that sold out in about 10 minutes! Lucky for me,  Miss J has a cool head and a steady clicking finger and she was able to score us quite good tickets.

So before the show, we strolled around and scoped out the food choices. We have equally coveted tickets to Nora Jones tonight, and due to the competitive parking situation, decided that it would be best to come at dinner time, eat at the festival, and then go to the 8pm show. Here's what we found:

Poutine, thanks to Wikipedia

French fries covered with cheese and hot peppers in a paper dog bowl?

We observed a lot of folks carrying what looked to be dog dishes, filled with something that gave me gas just to think about it: french fries, hot peppers and cheese that had an extremely unnatural color. Is this some Rochesterian version of poutine? Poutine, for the uninitiated is a Canadian "delicacy" made of french fires, brown gravy and cheese curds. I think it's a ghastly idea, but lots and lots of other people think differently.

Lots of choices

Most of the choices were what you would expect if you have experienced Rochester festival food. There was italian sausage, with the obligatory peppers and onions. There were both red and white hots. Fried dough, our answer to funnel cake, was present. I did see crab cakes, and I might be brave enough to go for those. Although I usually disappointed when I try for something "high falutin'" rather than just sticking with the tried and true.

Dinner avec a chair

Some people chose to eat at "Betty's" in the Eastman Theater where the concert was held. I think the have those giant cookies, and box wine for sale in there. But you do get a chair, and that's something.

Curb-stone setters

For the rest of us, the curb would do. It's not about the actual food, afterall. It's about  being part of the crowd, celebrating fantastic music, and celebrating SUMMER! The solstice has passed and now we are on our way to that other season -- I won't even say the word -- but for everyone in Rochester, the clock is tick-tick-ticking. And we must make hay (or hots!) while the sun shines!

The Felgerts Conquer the Canadian Rockies!

Someone wants to go with us!

J and I have just returned from what has to be our most adventuresome adventure yet: an eight day conquest of the Canadian Rockies. Although we originally had hoped that some of our friends would be able to join us, we traveled alone this time. Here's the itinerary:

• Sunday, July 24:  Fly to Seattle. Shuttle to Vancouver, BC and check into the Holiday Inn on Howe Street.
• Monday, July 25: Tour Vancouver
• Tuesday, July 26: More Vancouver, then Via Rail to Jasper
• Wednesday, July 27: Arrive in Jasper, rent the car and overnight at the Tonquin Inn
• Thursday, July 28: Drive to Banff, check into the High Country Inn
• Friday, July 29: Tour Banff
• Saturday, July 30: more Banff
• Sunday, July 31: Drive to Calgary and return the car. Check into the Airport Hilton
• Monday, August 1: Fly home to Rochester.

The hardest part of the planning -- other than the fact that there were a lot of changes of location -- was trying to figure out what to pack. (Other than the cat, that is!) Usually summers in Rochester run in the balmy high 80's -- but we were experiencing a true heat wave. When we read the forecast for Vancouver and Banff, 70 degrees sounded like winter. "Pack the long johns" advised Miss J. As it turned out, we should have gone with fewer fleeces and more shorts. As a result we found ourselves washing out the few short sleeve shirts we had and wishing for cooler weather.

But finally we were packed, the cat's care instructions explained to a neighbor, and on our way to the airport, thanks to our friend Liz. It was then that the first moral crisis occurred. While we were waiting for our flight, I heard: "Ms Dygert, please approach the podium." When I approached, the Delta representative smiled broadly at me and announced the news that all air travelers hope to hear: I had been upgraded to first class! However, J had not. This was not good. There was no way I was going to be able to enjoy first class while my better half was back in coach. Not if I wanted to *have* a better half when I arrived in Seattle! I gallantly offered the upgrade to her, and she gallantly refused. The Delta representative then had to do some fancy footwork to get me my original seat -- I guess no one has ever refused an upgrade before. I hope the person who got it enjoyed it!

We had originally planned to take a 5:30 shuttle to Vancouver using Quick Shuttle service. That would get us to Vancouver about 9:30. Our flight was supposed to get in to Seattle about 2:30 and I thought it would be just a tad too tight to try to make the 3:30 shuttle. But with the plane arriving a little early, some luck, and quick decision making, we were able to get our luggage, grab some dinner and make the earlier shuttle. Before we knew it, we were across the boarder and checked into our Holiday Inn in downtown Vancouver, one of the most beautiful cities I have ever visited. And I have been to some beautiful cities! More about Vancouver in the next post!

Fourth of July Cherry Pie

This year, we were invited down to Keuka Lake where friends have a cottage. The cottage is a charming little house, right on the lake. Even though we were having a scorching hot day (at least what passes for that in Rochester), the breeze off the lake was wonderful. We were all invited to bring a dish to pass, and our hosts provided roast turkey and veg enchiladas. Those might seem like rather odd Fourth of July foods, but since both are native to this continent, I think they were actually spot on! The enchiladas weren't like any I have ever eaten, but they were good just the same.

We also took a bouquet

J and I chose to make pies -- which are kind of our specialty. We have made a lot of apple pies together, and it is soothing to work side by side at something we have done so many times. We decided to make cherry this time, because cherries are in season now, and you can get good local ones. I got up early on Saturday and went down to the city market and scored us 4 pounds of nice local sweet cherries. At noon, yesterday, we set to pitting them. J had done some internet research, to try to determine the easiest way to go about it. But we ended up both working with our little paring knives, cutting the cherries in half and then prying the stone out with the knife. Kind of brute force, but it got the job done. Thirty minutes later we had 8 cups of cherries ready to be employed.

Cherry Pie, strusel topping!

I make the shopping list every week, and J does the shopping, so it was my fault that we only had half as much pie crust as we needed yesterday. Yes, me, the queen of all things homemade, uses roll out pie crust. Well, I'll tell you: I'm no good at making a pie crust, so I take the easy way out. So I found myself short of a 2 crusts. We decided to go with a struesel topping this time, and it was a great choice. Easy to make, too -- I just dumped flour, sugar and a stick of butter in the food processor and pulsed a few times. Pour it on top of the pie, and there you go - pie done. The strusel topping got good reviews, too. I usually make a latice top, and although they look nice and impress some people, they aren't as tasty as that struesel topping.

Cherry Pie with Struesel Topping

Cherry Filling

4 cups of fresh pitted cherries. I used sweet because that's what we had. But sour would be ok. just be sure to taste and adjust the sugar as needed.
1/3 cups white sugar
1/2 teaspoon real vanilla extract
1/3 cup flour. I know most recipes online call for tapioca, but I didn't have any and this is what my Betty Crocker cookbook calls for. So there.

1 bottom pie crust, rolled out and place in a pie plate

Strusel Topping

Brown sugar
Flour
1 stick butter. Yes, butter.

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
2. Mix the cherries, white sugar, vanila and 1/2 cup of flour. Pour it into the prepared pie shell.
3. Put the ingredients for the strusel topping into the bowl of a food processor, and pulse a half dozen times until the mixture looks like course meal. Pour the topping on the pie, making sure it is fairly evenly distributed.
4. Bake for 45 minutes,  until the filling is bubbling. Enjoy!

The Last Rose of Summer

"The Last Rose Of Summer"

'Tis the last rose of summer left blooming alone

All her lovely companions are faded and gone

No flower of her kindred, no rosebud is nigh

To reflect back her blushes and give sigh for sigh

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one, to pine on the stem

Since the lovely are sleeping, go sleep thou with them

Thus kindly I scatter thy leaves o'er the bed

Where thy mates of the garden lie scentless and dead

So soon may I follow when friendships decay

And from love's shining circle the gems drop away

When true hearts lie withered and fond ones are flown

Oh who would inhabit this bleak world alone?

This bleak world alone ?

PS: Miss J suggested that I give attribution to the poet -- and she was right! The Last Rose of Summer was written by the Irish poet Thomas Moore in 1805. It was set to music the first time by Sir John Stevenson. For more interesting info, see Wikipedia.