The Miracle of Butternut Squash!

So... today I discovered that one can eat butternut squash seeds just as one would eat pumpkin seeds. And they taste better! Was I the only one who didn't know?

In case I wasn't, here's how you prepare them:

1. Wash seeds thoroughly to remove any of the stringy pumpkin parts.
2. Lay out the seeds on parchment paper laid out on a baking pan, and let air-dry for several minutes.
3. Sprinkle with salt.
4. Bake for 5-10 minutes at 300 F.

Harvard seriously wasted so many seeds...

Japanese "Melon" Scones

Ingredients

200g flour
10g baking powder
2g salt
40g sugar
40g vegetable oil
1 egg

1. Sift flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar together in a clean plastic bag, then add vegetable oil and egg. Knead together through the bag until everything is mixed evenly.
2. After the dough is mixed, split into sixths and roll into balls, then flatten them slightly. Place on greased or lined baking pan. (The dough might be crumbly here--don't worry, and just do your best.)
   
3. Sprinkle a little bit of sugar on top, then make slight gridlike cuts using the back of a knife, like the outside of a cantaloupe! (My dough was a little too crumbly for good cuts, as you can see from the non-melonlike appearance of my scones.)
   
4. Bake for ~15 minutes at 356 F (or 180 C, for those abroad).
   

Cauliflower and Potato "Salad"

This is perfect for winter, when the selection of in-season vegetables can get a little sparse... There are also no measurements really associated with this recipe, as everything can be done to taste and to the desired amount.

Ingredients

potatoes
cauliflower
garlic
mayonnaise
salt
pepper
mustard
olive oil

1. Wash and peel potatoes, and cut into bite-sized pieces. Separate cauliflower into small parts. If you are using actual cloves of garlic instead of garlic paste, slice the clove thinly.
   
2. On low heat, cook garlic in olive oil until fragrant. Then add the potatoes and cauliflower, raising the heat to medium.
3. Briefly stir-fry, then cover pan and let the vegetables steam-cook for several minutes. Remove lid, and add mayonnaise, mustard, salt, and pepper to taste. Continue to stir-fry until vegetables are cooked and golden brown.
   

By the way, as I was looking up terms for this recipe I discovered what "cauliflower ear" is. Not pleasant.

adventures with bacteria: the sequel's sequel

GUYS
MY YOGURT
IT WORKED THIS TIME
YAY
i have no pictures nor have I tasted it but it certainly looks yogurty.

What I did different was to follow the instructions of my family, which were:
-Heat quart milk in a saucepan until it bubble and steam rises from the surface
-Pour it in a large bowl to cool to 110 degrees or so. I think last time my milk was too hot; my brother says it should be sort of bath-temperature.
-Put 2 Tbsp starter yogurt in a small bowl and mix with a small amount of the warm milk until smooth. Last time it wasn't very smooth.
-Incorporate into big bowl a third at a time.
-Cover and leave in a warm place. This time I covered it with heavy towels instead of bath towels, and fiddled less with the oven (though I did warm it). Doing this right before bed is best, because otherwise the temptation to peer at your little microbe friends is very great.

SO. I HAVE CREATED YOGURT.
seriously, it's pretty magical.

part the third--garam masala

Mostly I am making this post because we haven't had anything about spices recently and so I will change that.
So, I do not have any "garam masala," nor does my grocery sell anything by that name, as it is small and mostly Italian in disposition, and thus has a lot of olive oil and tomato sauce but little in the way of curry spices. How to Cook Everything has a recipe, but it relies on having a lot of spices in their original state--cardamom pods and cinnamon sticks and the like--which again is not my grocery's forte. So I just mixed some stuff together myself. When I was at the grocery getting some appropriate ground spices, I forgot whether I wanted cardamom or coriander, and so got both; this turned out to be a good thing, as both are delicious (if equally specialized).
 SO my garam masala was basically 1/4 teaspoon of each of: cinnamon; cloves; cardamom; and cumin; a shake of nutmeg and coriander; and then a little extra cumin and cardamom because it was smelling too cinnamon-y. You would think you would end up with about a teaspoon by this method, but I got about two, which is curious. Anyway, this is delicious and also to be recommended.

Palak Paneer!

So, now that I had paneer, the obvious thing to do was to make palak paneer. I really love palak paneer. In order to make it, I had to increase my spice cabinet considerably, so maybe this is not the most practical thing in the world unless you have a lot of spices lying around. If you do, it is dead easy. Basically, I synthesized a number of internet recipes  (like here and here ) and so it went something like:

This is the best picture I could take.

In a saucepan, sautée in olive oil one onion, two fat cloves of garlic, some pepper flakes, and about a half-inch chunk of grated ginger.  [I am sure technically it is supposed to be ghee, but who has ghee lying around? Not I. Also I think green pepper is more proper, but too bad. ] When this is nicely done, add a spoonful of yogurt, and some spices--turmeric, coriander, cumin, garam masala, that sort of thing (about 1.5 tsp each?) . The coriander I think is especially delicious. So now you have like a sauce thing. Add two packages of thawed frozen spinach to your pan, and a can of tomato paste. Mix! Then fry up the paneer and add that in. I tried to fry my paneer in the same pan, but it didn't work very well. It was still good though.

Look how enthusiastically I am eating! It must be good.

And there you go! Delicious curry. I would serve this to friends. I do not know if I would buy it in a restaurant, as the spicing still needed tweaking and I am not sure how. Somebody should try it and tell me. Anyway, hooray spinach, and hooray spice cabinet!

adventures with bacteria: the sequel

So, remember how I said I was going to make cottage cheese? It did not take long for me to follow up on this, because guys, I really like cottage cheese. So, according to Mark Bittman, this is dead easy. Basically, you heat up 2 parts milk to boiling-ness, add 1 part buttermilk, add salt if desired, stir around till thoroughly curdled, and drain through some cheesecloth. So I tried this--I even bought buttermilk special, although I probably could have used a lemon or something, because I wanted to go By The Book and make me some delicious cottage cheese. And the result--well, admittedly I let it drain a long time, because I had to go do laundry, so it drained for however long it takes to wash and dry and fold and come back from the laundromat. But, guys, this was not cottage cheese, or at least not by any definition I know. I took some pictures of it, so you could see for yourself, but my camera seems to have gone AWOL, so you will have to imagine it for yourselves. It was sort of oddly grainy. Edible, but not what I wanted. I later learned that maybe part of it is that commercial cottage cheese kind of re-suspends the curds in some cream, but honestly I'm not sure that was what was called for here either. It also needed salt, but that too was not the main problem. The problem was that I made ricotta, which I don't especially like, when I was promised cottage cheese. SADNESS. However, here is the upside! The upside is that this *would* make really good paneer, so I did that today, since I still have all this buttermilk. I even bought the fancier brand of milk at my grocery store for the purpose! (since the result basically tastes like milk). Basically you do exactly the same thing except you tie up your cheesecloth to make a little ball and squeeze out all the fluids, and then hang the little ball from something to make sure it is good and dry. I approve of the result of this product. It is delicious.

As a post script, I am now attempting to make yogurt, once again. We shall see what happens.