Friday, May 11, 2012

Farmer's Cheese -- not quite tvorog, but not quite not.


I'm not going to lie: this isn't the best way to make tvorog. In fact, it can hardly be called tvorog at all because it's really more like a paneer or a farmer's cheese than tvorog -- it lacks the tang of a true tvorog. Still -- if you're in a hurry, or if you have a gallon of milk that's about to go bad, or if you like your soft cheeses to be milder and sweeter this is a perfectly good method. Traditional, proper tvorog depends on live cultures from kefir, cultured sour cream or buttermilk (or in the case of raw milk, you can culture it by simply letting it sit out and go sour). As demonstrated here, you mix warm milk with your culture and let it sit for a day. Heat again, separate the curds and there you have it.

This is faster, and while the flavors are decidedly less complex, it's still a good cheese.

You need:
Milk - 1/2 gallon
Vinegar - 1/4 cup

Zucchini Pancakes


Everyone loves to grow zucchini -- it's a forgiving vegetable in any climate and even the worst gardener will often find themselves with a veritable bounty in no time. The trouble is, few people like to eat squash, so they try to hide their secret shame away in zucchini bread, brownies, and other places where you won't actually have to taste zucchini. These crunchy pancakes are my favorite use of the summer surplus of squash. They're really not a lot more difficult to put together than a pancake mix once you get comfortable making them. Since there is so little flour in the mix, it really doesn't matter what kind you use. They come out crunchy on the outside, and tasting like a pancake (and not much like a squash) on the inside.

If you puree your squash, you can pretty much use this recipe to make dainty little zucchini blintzes, but that's a story for another time.