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Follow more focused and regular adventures here: This Girl Needs a Project

Yogurt & Patience

The other day I made yogurt, a little on a whim, based on a few tutorials I found online (here's one from my perennial link-to: Food in Jars). It was a small batch, just two pints, using Axelrod as my incubator.

The next morning I excitedly opened the first jar and hoped to see a creamy batch of tangy goodness. What did I find? It had thickened...but was crumbly and cottage cheesy.

A little disheartened I put them both in the fridge and went to work. When I came home I looked again. The one I'd opened was still the same, if even a little more separated. The second? Well- look:

Runny, sure, but much better. Just a little lesson in patience :)

Assuming I can get the rest of my chores done today I'll separate the whey and make some bread.

Ginger Beer

I may be a little (aka a lot) obsessed with ginger. Has it come across in this blog? I think the only time I've posted about it is for my shrub, but I've made a ton of ginger simple syrup, these amazing KAF Ginger-Molasses Cookies, and this delicious Gingerbread- amongst other things that aren't coming to mind.

This obsession has spread to Ginger Beer. If you're not aware of Ginger Beer, it's like Ginger Ale but much much better. Much stronger, generally darker, and more delicious. My favorite: Blenheim. And while they call themselves an Ale, their Old #3 Hot Red Cap (pink cap, really) is so spicy it'll make me cough on occasion. Love at first taste.

Blenheim itself is located in South Carolina so it's a little tough to get around NYC. Two places I've found it are Great Jones Cafe- though they charge $5 a bottle- and Brooklyn Kitchen, where it's about half that.

Still, looking at the ingredients and nutritional info two things struck me:

a) there is A LOT of sugar in this stuff, slightly more than in a similar sized bottle of coke
b) not too many ingredients- I can probably make my own

So I did. I scoured the internet for recipes and settled upon a mix of Alton Brown's and few others I'd read- taking a bit of the process from this site I stumbled upon.

My first batch's recipe:
- 11 oz ginger (not a goal amount, just bought a bunch and this is what I had after peeling it)
- 1 gallon of water
- 1 cup of honey (I used a mix of cranberry and wild raspberry- it's what I had)
- 1 tbs lemon juice
- 1/5 packet of Premier Cuvee wine yeast. You should use much less- see below.

I wanted a lot of ginger flavor, which would generally mean grating- a lot of grating in this case. But since I'm lazy I just peeled it, diced it up, threw it in a pot with the water and gave it a quick buzz with my immersion blender. So much easier.

If you've ever brewed beer before the process is similar- though instead of a primary fermentation of a few weeks, you bottle as soon as it starts to bubble. Though honestly I pitched my yeast in the morning then bottled when I'd got home from work. This will ensure there's enough sugar to carbonate the bottles and still give the beer some sweetness. It will also stop most of the alcohol production- not all of it though.

Then let your ginger beer sit out at room temp to carbonate for a day or two then throw (and keep) it in the fridge. Leave it out too long and the bottles could explode. No kidding.

I kept mine out for three days. The very first bottle I opened a day or two after I popped it in the fridge- it was a bit of a geyser, but thankfully I opened it over the sink. The very last bottle, kept in the fridge for about a month? Well...I let it degas for a few minutes- just opened the cap slightly and let it hiss. When I felt I'd if anything overdone it, I flipped the top off and it gushed out so forcefully it LITERALLY HIT MY FRIEND'S CEILING. The inch that remained from the 22 oz bottle was delicious but still. Use much less yeast, much less sugar, or let some of that sugar ferment out in the primary. My next batch will most likely be done in swing-top grolsch style bottles so I can occasionally burp it.

I was honestly a little worried the flavor wouldn't be strong enough but it was so amazingly burningly spicy. Though I may have to do a test with peppercorns or hot peppers.

Canning!

So I may have gotten a little too into canning. The proof is in the cupboard:

Fun fact: I don't really like jam. At most I can take a spoonful in my oatmeal in the morning before I'm on the verge of a sugar coma. Why do I keep making it? A mild mason jar obsession may have something to do with it...

I've made- left to right

Apricot Rosemary Jam: (top jar, leftmost column). A little too much rosemary- wish I'd put the herb in a cheesecloth bag so I could've mitigated how intense it got. But! really awesome when mixed with soy sauce and sriracha and used as a glaze for chicken. Nom.

Gingery Plum Jam: (bottom jar, leftmost column). May be my jam favorite to date, wish I hadn't given so many jars away. It ended up being a little too firm but great when warmed.

Ginger Apple Cranberry Jam: (from this lovely book- obviously I have a favorite recipe source). so much sweetness, but also too much lemon. Also made too much of it. I did get to play around with apples though (Winesap, Cortland and...I forgot the third one). Anyone want a jar? Those pints are going to be tough to work through.

Gingery (Bosc) Pear Jam: (Third column). I forget where I got this, sadly. I almost burnt the bottom, but I think that added a little carmel-y depth to the flavor that I really like, even though I'm not a big pear fan. A little loose though- was worried about keeping it on to thicken when the bottom was burning...

The remaining columns are variations on the following recipes: Blood Orange Marmalade, Kumquat Marmalade and Meyer Lemon Curd (actually not pictured up there, whoops).

The Kumquat (the shortest column) is a little on the sweet side, but I think with time the citrus will assert itself and be easier for me to take. Also I was a little lazy (and seriously in need of a small-batch canning pot) so the curd is not shelf stable...but it's so effin tasty I can't imagine it lasting more than a month in my fridge anyhow. Here's a pic, as it's not one of the above:

The real star for me was the Blood Orange Marmalade. Marmalade uses the pith, whose bitterness balances out that intense sweetness I'm not the biggest fan of.

I've made straight up batches, some with honey, one with a meyer lemon when I realized I was short an orange, and- probably my favorite- a batch with a little jalapeno. The heat is mild, just a little tickle in the back of your throat. I doubt people will even realize it's in there unless you tell them.

Here it is as breakfast, on sourdough:

Dangerous stuff, this. So I may need to stop canning for a bit, or at least until next season's produce tempts me. Rhubarb, you're on my list.

Dinosaur Earrings!!

Last year my mom gifted me a bag of dinosaur party favors. There were six kinds, I'm still not sure what breeds (not the right word) they are. But they're light enough for earrings and just generally amazing, so it really doesn't matter.

One week last October I made a point to make a new pair every day, using my standard drill/headpin/hook method. They all kind of tie for favorite- here are the Stegis:

I've included the rest after the jump, as well as a handy link as to where to buy your own. Maybe later I'll post a how to- but as long as you have a power drill you can probably just guess and be right :)

Partial Recap

So...it's been a bit.

We'll need to change the name of this blog, probably.

I've really restarted making stuff...though I never stopped? I just recently refell in love with the process of creation, and regained my will to make things and the desire to share it. And other things I'm still formulating.

Since my last post....almost a year ago :)...I've made (partial partial list)

• About a millions EARRINGS- bottle caps mostly, but some fun things like these typewriter keys for a friend:

• Bags - yes, plural. Just barely. The version 2 of the bag I mentioned in my last post:

 

 And a new similar bag based off a storebought one from years ago- just in the test phase now though:

•  I've made a recent brief but intense foray into Aprons- here's my original 1.5 hr prototype:

And more recently they've gotten classy- though my favorites I don't have pics of here, I'll detail in another post.

• And well, everything else. Including infusing vodka a bit, and etching flasks to store it!

 

And that doesn't even include food. My god, the canning alone.

More posts soon. Promise promise.

Sketchbook Project

So yesterday was the deadline to mail in your sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project 2012. I'm very proud to say I made that deadline, though I won't lie and say I wasn't tempted to email them and ask if I could just drop the book off later in the week. They are in Brooklyn after all...

Originally I'd settled on a sketchbook about my current project- making a copy of a bag I loved and destroyed:

It was supposed to be a guide detailing what I did from start to finish. Only problem: I wasn't going to finish the bag in time.

So I adapted it to being a guide through the first two muslins. Only problem: I accidentally cut out the second muslin wrong- the back panel pattern piece was flipped so it'll be a lefty bag instead of a righty and I had/have no will to finish it.


So I altered my idea again, to just being through that first muslin. Presumably I'd detail changes I was going to make in the pattern for the second. Here is the first muslin is question:

I was even going to include my pattern if people wanted to play along. This was my idea through Monday afternoon, the day before the deadline. Monday night I realized the draft I'd written up was terrible- it would just end up being pages and pages of words.

So I decided to scrap it. I worked out a plan to just do diagrams of most of the bags I'd made over the years, including inspiration and some construction notes. I worked out a quick draft Tuesday morning. I think I drew my first line in the actual sketchbook around 11:30am. I finished at 2:05pm. My hand is still sore.

I'm not thrilled at how it turned out- I was hoping to do a lot more- but given my time constraints I like the end result. Here's a sample page (yay for the fax machine at work's ability to scan and email things, since I didn't pay for it to be scanned by the people running the project):

Maybe one day I'll post the whole thing. For now you'll just have to view it in person. My Sketchbook's number is S66384 if you wanted to look it up during the tour.