Rancho Gordo Beans

My beans are in transit!  Don't you think that being able to track your package as it crosses the country is one of the best results of the internet age?  My exciting Rancho Gordo beans are in Sparks, Nevada as of this morning, and are scheduled to be delivered Thursday.  I'm super excited!

New World Heirloom Beans from Rancho Gordo

I recently discovered a trend in food that I didn't even know existed:  Heirloom foods.  There are a growing number of, well, growers, that focus on small crops of seeds, vegetables, beans, and other foods that are at risk of going "extinct."  These are foods that may have once been popular and just fell out of favor, or foods that are unique but never had a large following.  In some cases, heirloom foods became 'heirloom' because of the trends and growth in mechanized farming over the last two centuries, and specific types of foods that were cheaper or easier to grow became the norm, while certain varieties stopped being used.  For instance, more and more there are seed growers who specialize in seeds for grains or vegetables that are not commonly found, and now any of us can call them up or find them online and order these unique seeds.

The beautiful Rio Zape bean

One company that specializes in heirloom food is Rancho Gordo, a bean producer based in California.  They not only focus on heirloom beans, but beans specifically from The Americas.  They have traveled around North and South America, especially Mexico, looking for very special and beautiful beans that they then bring back to California to grow into a large enough crop to share with us.

I couldn't resist these colorful and, if just about everybody who says anything about them is to be believed, extra-tasty beans.  They aren't even very expensive.  I ordered several varieties, and am already scheming and planning what I will do with them.  If you are someone who enjoys beans in any way, I suggest heading over to their website.  They have an ever-changing stock of beans for any type of dish you happen to like.  Even if you don't want to buy the beans, their story alone opened my eyes to new things about food.  I haven't been this excited about beans in a long time!  I'm so excited to get my beans delievered!  I will be sure to post an update when I receive them and am able to cook some up.

Happy eating!

Pineapple Smoothie

I was in the mood for something sweet and cool this evening, and decided to try to create a pineapple smoothie with a few things I had in the house.  It turned out delicious.  I am sipping on it now, in fact!  It is creamy and smooth, but not too thick, as I don't like smoothies to be super thick.  It is tangy and sweet, but not overly sweet.  Dan loved it, too, so I thought I would share the recipe with you. 

Laurie's Pineapple Smoothie

Put in blender:
6-8 ice cubes
1/2 can undiluted, still-frozen pineapple juice concentrate
6-7 oz coconut milk, or about 1/2 a can
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 cup water
1 tsp powdered sugar

Blend at high speed on blender until fully mixed and a little frothy.

This made two very large servings or four smaller ones.  As you can see, this has two "1/2 can" measurements, so it would be easy to make two batches out of the full cans, for four-eight servings.  However, a double amount of the ingredients won't fit in any standard size blender, so it would still have to be divided.

Happy eating!

Cheesemakers Are Us, Part III

Today in my continuing cheesemaking adventure, I failed to make a successful fresh mozzarella.  I was attempting to make the 30-minute mozzarella at the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company website.  This is the same mozzarella that Dan and I saw a member of that company make at the cheesemaking demonstration last fall.  It requires a little citric acid, heating the milk to only 90 degrees, a little rennet, and then just time working and stretching the curds to make it mozzarella.

However, after I added the rennet and let it sit, a curd barely formed.  It should have been firm enough to cut into noticeable cubes, but it wasn't even close to that.  I attempted to salvage it by heating to a little higher temp and adding a bit more rennet, but no go.  The curd just refused to form.  This could mean one of a few things:  I could have too much chlorine in my tap water, or the milk I used might have been heated too high during pateurization, or I might need to heat the milk to a higher temp before adding the rennet, or I may need to use more citric acid.  I will adjust some things, and contact my local water processing plant, and try again another day.

So instead, I decided to make ricotta.  I actually learned what ricotta is a few months ago.  It was created as a way to use up the leftover whey from the cheesemaking process.  The whey is heated to almost boiling so as to get every last bit of curd out of the whey.  The tiny curds are then carefully ladled into a cheesecloth-lined strainer and left to drain out any remaining whey.  These curds can't form together to make any regular cheese, so the curds are kept loose, and a little salt is added.  Voila - ricotta! 

Or so I thought.  After unsuccessfully attempting to salvage some curds from my milk in a strainer, I poured the whole mess back into the pot, with the whey left over from yesterday and about a pint of new milk to jump-start the process, and began the long process of heating it up to nearly 200F.  In the meantime, I sanitized a suddenly-needed ladle.  The temperature alone, and whatever acids are leftover in the cheese leftovers, are supposed to be enough to form the ricotta curd.  However, heating alone, which took forever by the way, STILL didn't produce any curds.  Frustrated, I added more rennet to the pot.  Nothing.  Then, giving up, I settled on my paneer-making technique, and tossed in some lime juice. 

Bag 'o' curds

I had to let the pot sit for a while, but I finally got some curds.  They were very tiny and delicate and not really scoop-able, so instead of ladling the curds into the cheeseloth, I dumped the whole pot in, drained it for a while, rinsed it to rid the curds of any citrusy taste (since I want ricotta and not paneer), and then hung the curds in the cheesecloth to drip out as much whey as I could get out of there.  I also mixed in a little salt.  The result is a very creamy, tiny-curd ricotta that I think will actually work alright.

My suspicion is that there is too much chlorine in our tap water, which ends up in the milk because it is used to dilute the citric acid and the rennet.  I will have to make a call and find out.  In the meantime, I will make some sort of cheesy Italian something-or-other with my ricotta.  The adventure continues...