Life Quote

Make peace with your past

so it will not disturb your present.

What other people think of you

is none of your business.

Time heals almost everything

give it time.

No one is in charge of your happiness,

except you.

Don't compare your life to others and don't judge them

you have no idea what their journey is all about.

Stop worrying too much

it's alright not to know the answers.

They will come to you when you least expect it.

Smile!

You don't own all the problems in the world.

Latest Obsessions

My newest food related obsession is tahini.
I use it in most salad dressings and just love the taste. I could eat coleslaw each and every day.
It's somewhat addictive.

Another one is watching youtube videos about how people use their day planners to organize their lives. I always thought I did not have enough going on not having children and working full time. My life is not very interesting by and large.
Watching various videos I came across one particular planner which seemed to be a good fit for me by pushing the right buttons. Setting goals, keeping track of them, working through to-do lists, living my life as best as I can even though it feels empty much of the time. I "just" need to find my happy.
Not too confident about finding it, but maybe I ought to make more of an effort.

In any case, my Stilton is looking good. I cannot wait to taste it. It's going to be 4 long months of waiting. But hopefully worth it.

And I have been working on the last quilt block from Amy Gibson's 2013 Sugar Block Club. She writes such beautiful directions for amazing blocks. I am already signed up for her 2014 SBC and think I will put all the 24 blocks together for a king size quilt.

Brownies

For many, many years I have had a difficult relationship with making brownies. From the first bite I was in love and kept baking them. However they never turned out right. They were either too dry or nearly raw and at times they were so hard that biting into them was ill advised.
So, about 2 years ago I decided enough was enough. I went through my considerable pile of recipes and removed each and every brownie recipe and recycled the paper they were printed on. What a relief.
Just a few weeks after that I came across a post on Deb Perelman's food blog "Smitten Kitchen". What was it all about? Right ... brownies. I caved pretty quickly and followed my gut feeling. I am so glad I paid attention to my gut feeling.
The first result was just what and how a brownie is supposed to be: not too sweet, chocolaty, gooey. Simply perfect. I have since made this recipe many times and the brownies always come out perfectly.
Now, there is only 1 brownie recipe in my stack. And that's all I'll ever need.
Check out Deb's wonderful recipes on her Smitten Kitchen and be inspired.

Bon appétit!

Making Stilton Style Cheese - part 2

The cheese is now resting for 4 days during which it needs to be flipped once a day.  There is still some whey being pressed out of the curds. It will get somewhat exciting when I can unmold the cheese.
Once the cheese was in its resting phase I could concentrate on baking bread. I am using the Lahey method and just love how simple it is. No repeated kneading required. The yeast is doing all the work.
I have ordered a few more cheese making items and once they arrive I want to start making a few more different cheeses such as Parmesan and Valençay.

Making Stilton Style Cheese - part 1

It's a big day for me today, because I am making Stilton like cheese for the first time.
Going through my own and online recipes I decided to follow youtube instructions by Gavin Webber, at "Little Green Cheese". I like his video tutorials.

I bought a pot big enough to hold 2 gallons of milk, sterilized all my tools and am on my way.
The milk and cream have to be heated to the required 86F. Then I added the Pinicillum Roqueforti and sprinkled the mesophilic direct set culture on top. After mixing it in with the milk/cream liquid it needed to rest for 30 minutes.

After that I added the rennet and let the mixture sit for 90 minutes.

While the cheese was resting I was out on the road trying to find a sushi mat. It seems that my town is a sushi free mat zone. Now I either need to travel the longer distance to an Asian supermarket in the area or just add it to the mail order of other cheese supplies I may need.
I am also somewhat worried that the mold I bought not too long ago is not large enough for the amount of curds being produced by 2 gallons of milk.

Back to cheese making: after verifying that the mass could be cut cleanly I gently spooned the curds from the pot into a colander lined with butter muslin (finding out that my big colander is not nearly big enough!!!). Luckily I found another colander and split up the curds for now. Now I am waiting for another 90 minutes to let the curds set.

I reunited the curds in one large piece of butter muslin tying knots into the fabric to make a ball. Now the ball is hanging for 30 minutes (or however long it takes for the curds to stop dripping) from a tall faucet over the sink.

Then the curds need to get pressed for 8 hours or overnight. Considering that I started this whole process in the morning it will be an overnight pressing for me. Time just flies when I am making cheese.

One of my other craft projects is this one here. I found the Silky Wool in a local yarn shop and bought a few skeins, not yet knowing what exactly I would be making it into. So, I searched Ravelry for wrap patterns and found the Etched Rio Wrap. So, this is how it began:

Air travel is just so conducive to knitting. Nothing much else to be done on an aircraft and after my recent business trip this is how it looks as of yesterday:

Nearly halfway done. 62" is the goal.