Summer presents unique challenges. Keeping cool and hydrated is a big one around here, where even my hearty and intrepid chickens spend the hottest part of the day beneath the house.
Insect management is another. Between the mosquitoes, biting flies, chiggers, and ticks, we're always on...
Griddle, make-shift wok, fryer, high-volume egg poacher, sauce pan, braising pan, roasting pan, blunt-trauma weapon, shield against small-caliber munitions… regardless of what is thrown at you in the kitchen—whether its breakfast for 10 or an assailant’s roundhouse kick—the large sauté is ready...
Now that we've journeyed through homemade butter, ricotta, crème fraîche, buttermilk, mozzarella, and yogurt, I think you're ready for something more challenging and enriching.
Making a wheel--an actual wheel--of cheese feels momentous. It's a whole of something we normally see...
Just like homemade butter or ricotta, homemade mozzarella will change how you view this mild, un-aged cheese.
If you've ever had a mozzarella-tomato salad (also known as insalata carprese) made with really good mozzarella, you know that what they (whoever "they" are) put on pizza...
Have you ever tasted real yogurt?
No stabilizers, artificial (or "natural") flavorings or colors, or additives? Real, whole milk yogurt with live cultures? Some brands of Greek yogurt come close, but just as I've said in my other posts about making dairy products, it's so easy to...
If you thought butter was easy, whoa, Nelly! Ricotta is like...breathing. It's like...walking. It's like...ricotta.
Ricotta is a vastly underappreciated cheese. I mean, how often have you stood in front of the cheese counter, before all those luscious, smelly, oozing beauties and...
One of the exciting new things we're starting here at the Joy Kitchen is our "Building A Better Pantry" blog series. This promises to be a very long and informative series, and we think you'll enjoy reading it as much as we enjoy talking about it.
The premise behind the series is...
When I bring home a harvest like this (and compared to the gardens of people who actually know what they’re doing, this is pretty puny), I get a little giddy. A sack full of basil?! If you translate that into food put up for winter, that’s a lot of frozen pesto and basil...
Growing up, I ate a lot of stewed squash. Textureless, tasting mostly of butter and salt, stewed squash barely belies its origins as a smooth, crisp summer vegetable. And it was only until I grew older that I understood why my grandparents prepared squash in this way, and in casseroles...
