In the kitchen with Doin

LOL Stiggy!


We were out of sour cream and ran out of minced garlic a few days ago. Since I needed to get both of those taken care of, I took some pics to share with all of you.


Sour cream
1/4 cup cultured buttermilk to
1 cup heavy cream (pasteurized is fine, but you don't want ultra-pasteurized)


A jar with a tight fitting lid, large enough to hold & mix the ingredients.
A kitchen towel to cover the jar
Takes 24 to 48 hours depending on the temps & humidity in your kitchen. Warmer temps = faster culture time.




Pour the heavy cream into the jar, then add the buttermilk.

(I made about a quart this time around, 3 cups heavy cream & 3/4 cup buttermilk)




Mix well with a stainless steel spoon (there should be some bubbles on the surface)



Cover with kitchen towel (no lid), and put in a warm spot on the kitchen counter, out of direct light.



Check it after 24 hours, if it's not ready, give it another 12 hours and check again. When it's ready, it'll be thick enough that you can tip the jar without it spilling or moving much.


In the winter it takes right around 36 hours for the sour cream to culture in my kitchen, temp averages 65 to 70f.
This is what it looks like when it's ready to be stirred and put in the fridge. You can skim the top, or just stir it in, up to you.








Put the lid on the jar and stick it in the fridge to chill. Once chilled, a spoon will stand up in the middle of the sour cream.



When you get a spoonful of sour cream, it should be mounded up on the spoon like this.



Keeps 7 to 10 days in the fridge.


Up next, minced garlic....stay tuned...

 

Minced garlic
2 c garlic cloves, peeled, root ends removed
3/4 c filtered water
1/2 t citric acid
pint jar and lid to store the minced garlic in




I don't think that I have to tell you what a PITA it is to peel garlic, especially when you're peeling a LOT of it at one time. Here's a nifty trick to help you get through the whole garlic peeling process very quickly -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d3oc24fD-c


Thoroughly mix the citric acid with filtered water and set aside.


Once the garlic is peeled and root ends removed, pop the cloves into food processor.



Pulse, until the garlic is minced. If you're using a mini food processor like I did, you'll have to do this in 2 batches.
Put the minced garlic into the jar and pack it down with a rubber spatula, or spoon.



Once all of the minced garlic is in the jar, slowly add the water mixture while working the spatula around the jar. Use all of the water mixture. Don't worry, all of it will fit in the jar, promise!



Wipe off the jar, put the lid on, label, and refrigerate.





A pint of minced garlic lasts us 2 to 3 weeks, depending on how much / what we're cooking. This is one thing that we have never purchased from the store. We have only been using 'this' minced garlic for the past few months. It's handy when you're really busy, but I do prefer mincing garlic right before use.


I believe that I saw the 'recipe' for DIY minced garlic on Noreen's kitchen (not positive).


Sometime in the next few days I'll get the stuff together to post homemade tomato soup.

 

Grilled cheese and tomato soup...YUM for sure!


What kind of tomato soup is your favorite?

 

‘Simple" Roasted Tomato Soup - makes about 4 pints
For every 5 lbs of paste tomatoes (San Marzano, Roma, etc...) you need:
2 large carrots, cut into 2 inch pieces
2 stalks celery, cut into 2 inch pieces
1 medium yellow onion, quartered, skins & root ends removed.
3 shallots, cut in half, skins & root ends removed
4 cloves garlic, smashed, skins & root ends removed
1 bay leaf
Salt & freshly crackedPepper to taste
Olive oil, enough to coat the baking sheets, plus a little more to drizzle over the tomatoes
2 large baking sheets with rim, lined with foil and lightly coated with oil (I use olive oil).Food millA pot large enough to hold all of the ingredients.


Preheat oven to 400f.


Clean all of your veggies well, you can soak them in a sink full of cold water with vinegar (1/4c vinegar per gallon of water) for 30 minutes, before scrubbing and rinse them well. The vinegar will NOT affect the taste of your veggies.







While you"re waiting for the oven to come up to temp, start coring and cutting the tomatoes in half. Line them up in a single layer on baking sheets. Cut up the celery, carrots, onion, shallot, and smash the garlic, put them on top of one of the trays of tomatoes, or you can put them on the bottom of the tray. Drizzle olive oil across the top of the tomatoes and pop the trays into the oven.





Roast at 400f 45 minutes to 1 hour. The tomatoes are ready to come out of the oven when the skins are just starting to brown in spots.


Pour all of the roasted tomato & veggie goodness into a pot large enough to hold it with a few inches of headspace at the top of the pot. Add the bay leaf. Bring it up to a simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Once simmering reduce heat to low, and simmer for about 30 minutes. Stir frequently. Let cool long enough that you can touch it without burning yourself when you put everything through the food mill.





Once cool enough to handle, put all of it through the food mill to separate the skins and seeds from the pulp.



Pour the pulp back into a large pot and bring back to a simmer over low heat, stir frequently once it starts simmering.




Add Salt and Pepper to taste (I usually add 1T of kosher salt and 1-1/2 t pepper, and adjust it from there). Simmer to desired consistency.






A few things to note:
- You may need to add a little sugar to cut the acidity of the tomatoes, but if the carrots are really sweet you probably won"t need to add any sugar, IMO
- Roasting the tomatoes and other veggies greatly reduces the amount of time that the soup needs to simmer on the stove to reach desired consistency. The depth of flavor that it adds to the soup is a definite bonus.
- You do NOT have to roast the tomatoes or veggies, you can just simmer everything on top of the stove instead.
- You can absolutely add herbs to this soup. We prefer the basic recipe.
- You can use any kind of tomato that you desire. You"re not limited to paste tomatoes. It takes a lot longer to cook down slicing tomatoes, salad tomatoes, etc...they have a much higher water content than paste tomatoes do.


Soup ready for the pantry, after a pressure canning session (processed in a pressure canner 30 minutes @ 10lbs of pressure for my altitude).





This soup is fantastic with a little heavy cream stirred into your bowl, and a grilled cheese sandwich to go with. Not sayin", just sayin".

 

Cool! Let us know what you think of this soup after you have tried it, jmick.
I'll go out on a limb and say that you won't buy campbell's tomato soup again.

 

Hey LW


I have, but I haven't had a chance to get a post together. On top of being really busy lately, I had computer issues and lost access to a lot of my pics. Hopefully I'll to be able to retrieve all of my pics soon. *kicks computer* I'll be redoing a couple of the projects that I was working on for this thread. One of them is Vanilla extract, it should be finished at the end of this week.


Have you made anything lately?
You're welcome to share here, if you would like to.

 

YUM!!!! Did you make chicken quesadillas?


Now, I'm hungry! LOL

 

If they tasted anywhere near as good as they look, I can definitely understand why you had them twice this week!


Are you using the app?