Short Film - Charlie Gets A Shave

Nate and I created this silent film as an instructional/informational video for our soap company's website. We filmed the clips using our digital camera (not video camera), and edited the film in Windows Movie Maker. It was fairly straightforward software, and I think the finished product is pretty great!

Beef Jerky

I saw this episode of Good Eats (I love Alton Brown!!!) on the Food Network a long time ago and have wanted to try making jerky ever since. I finally procured the basic equipment (box fan, furnace filters, bungee cords) and gave it a try. I found the recipe on the Food Network's website and went to work. It was actually really easy.

I used 1.8 lbs of flank steak, slightly frozen to make it easier to slice. I marinated the meat for about 4 1/2 hours (used less red pepper in the marinade) and then put it in the filters. Strapped the filters to the fan and let it blow. I let the meat dry for about 4 hours then turned the filters over. Then I let it go overnight, so it dried for a total of about 18-20 hours (I wanted to make sure it was really dry since we were dealing with raw meat). Here is a photo of the finished jerky in one of the filters:

It turned out AMAZING! Nate even thinks I should start making it to sell. You never know I suppose. Next time I'm going to replace the soy sauce with teriyaki and up the honey to make it sweeter. My yield was about 12 oz, which was about 36 pieces. Not too shabby.

Best Banana Bread

I realize that this blog is supposed to be Homemade Everything and I've been focusing mostly on food. I guess I'm on a food kick. That and food is such an important part of our daily lives. I promise to include more variety in the coming months, as the inspiration strikes me.

That said, here is another food post.

I have sampled dozens of banana bread recipes, as there is no better way to utilize a pile of blackened bananas (in my humble opinion). My criteria for the recipe were simple. I wanted a loaf with a rich banana flavor, therefore, the more bananas in the recipe, the better. I also wanted a very moist loaf, which means those healthy recipes were out of the question. Finally, I wanted to be purist - no nuts or dried fruit or chocolate pieces - just plain delicious banana bread. After many attempts to find this, I hit the jackpot with a recipe I found on recipezaar, called The Best Banana Bread. I think the key to its rich flavor is the use of butter instead of oil.

It is a large recipe that can make one big loaf, or be divided into smaller loaves or muffins. I like to do 2 loaves. I use regular-sized loaf pans and the loaves are only about 2 1/2 inches thick. This is nice because it decreases the baking time (I bake for 4o minutes) and then I usually keep one loaf for us and give one to a friend (hooray for good karma!)

As far as modifications to the recipe I really only have one and a half. The "one" is to omit the chocolate chips, which you are welcome to leave in if you'd like. The "half" is really just me being lazy. I don't keep buttermilk around, so I make my own by mixing 1 tsp lemon juice with enough milk to make 1/2 cup. Let it sit for 5 minutes and the milk will curdle a bit. Voila!

Oh, and make sure you use very ripe bananas - the blacker the better!

Cinnamon-Roasted Almonds: Take 2

So the first batch of almonds I made turned out pretty good, but with my modifications...WOW! Nate and I both agreed that the second batch was far superior to the first. Here are the modifications to the recipe that I went with: decreased nuts to 2 cups (to concentrate coating), used dark brown sugar instead of white, increased cinnamon to 2 tsp, and decreased salt to 1/8 tsp. Bake for 1 hour and allow to cool most of the way before eating (so coating can harden). Double yum!!!

Cinnamon-Roasted Almonds

You know those nuts you can get at carnivals and festivals, the warm, sweet, crunchy nuts that you can smell a mile away? Well, after blowing six bucks for a small bag of roasted almonds two days in a row, I decided enough was enough. And since, conveniently, we had a pound of raw almonds handy, why not give it a shot?

Found a basic recipe on allrecipes.com (love this site!) for Cinnamon-Roasted Almonds. Since there were a ton of user comments, I made some variations right off the bat. And after tasting them, I'll have a few more changes to make for next time.

First off, I decreased the almonds from 4 cups to about 2 1/2 (essentially doubling the coating, so you could keep it at 4 cups and just double the coating ingredients if you wanted to make more). I also increased the cinnamon from 1/2 tsp to 1 tsp. I also baked them for 1 1/2 hours instead of 1 hour, attempting to achieve maximum crunch.

The verdict? Delicious! Make sure you let them cool most of the way before sampling, as they will be fairly chewy until the coating has had a chance to harden.

My suggestions for next time: cut the salt in half (to 1/8 tsp), use brown sugar instead of white (or maybe half and half), and up the cinnamon (1 1/2 tsp maybe? or 2?). I'll try it again and let you know how it goes!

Chocolate Guinness Cake

I wanted to make something special for my husband Nate's birthday, but he's not a big dessert guy. He is, however, a huge beer fan (he even brews his own, of course). We planned quite a gluttonous feast to celebrate the big day, so I was looking for something that wasn't too rich. I found a delicious-sounding recipe for Chocolate Guinness Cake with a cream cheese frosting. Now I don't have the best track record of making cakes from scratch, but I was determined to eventually get it right.

Guinness is a stout, which is a dark, heavy beer with lots of body and flavor. It has some chocolately undertones, so it seemed like a good choice to use in a chocolate cake. The recipe was actually fairly easy, although it left some room for guesswork. There was no indictation of how long to beat the batter after the flour was added, but from my experience cake batter should be beat for a few minutes until it is lighter in texture. Incorporating a lot of air will keep the texture light; otherwise you end up with a dense brick. I beat mine very well and was satisfied with the results.

The cake was slightly dense, but not very sweet. The smooth, sweet cream cheese icing really balanced this out though. The recipe recommended spreading the icing on the top of the cake only, so that it would resemble the head (foam) on a glass of Guinness. I took it a step further and copied the traditional shamrock ouline that bartenders create in the head using the tap. It was much appreciated by the connaisseurs in the crowd :) I would definitely make this again!

Bubble Bath

Since we have our own soap business, we already had some of the ingredients for bubble bath on hand, but really they wouldn't be difficult for anyone to procure. I found a simple lavender bubble bath recipe using 1 qt distilled water, 1 - 4 oz bar grated castille soap, 3 oz vegetable glycerin, and fragrance/color as desired. Traditional castille soap was made using 100% olive oil, but more and more frequently we see castlle soap defined as made primarily with olive oil, supplemented with other vegetable-based oils. So I cheated a little (feeling lazy?) and grabbed a bar of Central Coast Lavender (Union Street Soapworks). I used a standard kitchen grater, but I recommend using the smallest holes your grater has (smaller pieces will likely dissolve easier than mine did). I mixed the flakes with the distilled water, which you can get at any grocery store, and then added the glycerin (you can also add your fragrance and color, if desired).

Glycerin is a natural byproduct of the soapmaking process, and is the moisturizer that sets homemade soap apart from commercially-produced bars. Believe it or not, the commercial soap producers extract the glycerin (the best part!) and sell it off to make a higher profit, leaving only a dry cake of chemicals for consumer use. Yuck. However, since making your own soap for the sole purpose of obtaining vegetable glycerin would be a monumental waste of time. We get ours at Majestic Mountain Sage, where you can also purchase the fragrance or essential oil of your choice.

Since my lavender soap was already scented and colored, it yielded a light-scented, pale purple bubble bath. I tested it out last night, and it worked pretty well. I added it kind of late in the bath-filling process so it got a little dilluted before a lot of bubbles could form, so next time I'll add it at the beginning.

Now I have a natural way to enjoy my bath, and it was SO easy to make!

Ricotta Cheese

So I had nearly a gallon of whey left over from making my mozzarella and read that you can use it to make ricotta. Found some instructions online: reheated the liquid to 200 degrees (almost boiling), then strained through a fine butter muslin/cheesecloth (I had purchased this from New England Cheesemaking along with my mozzarella ingredients). I was left with a light cheesy film on the inside of the cloth after the liquid had drained...maybe ricotta, but not enough to use for anything. I won't be discouraged though. Next time I'll try it again - maybe it needs to heat longer?

On a side note, my 3rd attempt at mozzarella was as good as my 2nd, but I did add a little more salt, somewhere between 2 and 3 tsp. Turned out a little on the salty side. Think I'll keep it at 2 tsp...

Mozzarella Cheese

While reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, I was inspired to make my own mozzarella cheese. She took a whole cheesemaking workshop, but claimed a good mozzarella could be made in 30 minutes with minimal ingredients and equipment. With a home-based soapmaking business and a 6-month old occupying most of my time, it sounded like my kind of project!

I ordered some supplies from New England Cheesemaking Supply Company (as recommended by Kingsolver): one 2 oz bottle of liquid rennet ($6.50) and one 8 oz bag of flake salt ($2.95). They also sell citric acid, but I found it cheaper in the kosher section of Safeway sold as Rokeash Sour Salt ($1.85 I think...) With recipe in hand I was ready to go!

My first attempt was actually a week or so ago, and I followed the recommendations by using whole milk, as fresh and local as I could find. The recipe is pretty simple, add citric acid to cold milk and heat -- I accidentally overheated the milk a bit (it reached 90 degrees more quickly than I expected!) but I found that it didn't make any difference -- then added the rennet and stirred. After the curd formed I cut it and scooped it out with a slotted spoon. Drained the liquid and nuked it, kneaded it, nuked it, kneaded it, nuked it, kneaded and added a little salt, stretched, and voila! Into the ice bath it went. Cheese.

The big question is how did it taste? The texture was ok, but moister than I'm used to. The flavor was, well, uh, absent. It was bland, boring. Now I'm no connaisseur, and it is quite possible that a lifetime of commercially produced cheese has ruined me forever, but it wasn't for me anyway. I wasn't about to give up though.

Second attempt: replaced whole milk with 2% (the recipe claimed it would produce a drier cheese) and upped salt to a full 2 tsp, added early in the final knead. The result - YUMMY! Nate and I enjoyed it on crackers and it was gone in 2 days. The salt brought out the flavor of the cheese without being overly salty.

Oh yes, and save the leftover whey liquid - you can use it to make ricotta! To be continued...