Adventures in (Cultured, Greek-Style) Coconut Milk

My search for a delicious, vegan "yogurt" continues. Back in April of last year, I tried out cultured almond milk to dismal results. The other day, I saw containers of cultured coconut milk, "Greek-style" at my local grocery store (not Whole Foods but rather the slightly less classy Pathmark). The cultured coconut milk was from So Delicious, whose vegan soy ice cream I've enjoyed in the past.

Going from past experience, I chose a single container of the chocolate flavor. To my tastes, most cultured soy yogurts are nasty, save for the chocolate variety. I hoped the same would hold true for the Greek-style coconut milk.

And I was wrong. Ever so wrong. Of course scanning the rather long ingredient list before buying should have been a red flag. A giant red flag waving in my face that I decided it was okay to ignore. Because the packaging was pretty and the ice cream from the same brand tasted good.

I can't really even describe the taste of the cultured coconut milk. It was pretty blah. It tasted neither of chocolate nor of coconut. It was just some slightly sweet substance. After a few bites, I passed it off to my boyfriend, who was also really excited to try it. His response wasn't much better, but at least he managed to consume the entire package.

To discuss the "Greek-style" aspects of the "yogurt." Greek yogurt, as you may know, is made by draining the whey. In the end, you're left with thick, creamy yogurt that has a lot of protein. In some cases, American yogurts will try to be "Greek style" by adding shit to the yogurt, stabilizers and gums and such. It's not authentic and it's not the same.

I guess you can't drain any whey from coconut milk, so to make it "Greek style" you need to add stuff. The added stuff make the yogurt fluffy and thick, but in a way that is more off-putting than appealing.

I won't be trying cultured coconut milk again.

CSA Share: Sunchoke Soup

This winter, I've finally signed up for a CSA, or community supported agriculture from Greensgrow Farm in Kensington. Yes, there's a farm in Kensington. It's not all bad there.

It may not sound like it makes much sense to sign up for a CSA in the dead of winter, given that I live in the Northeast and local picks in the cold of winter mean lots of roots and cabbage. But I did it. It's been great so far. This week, I got a bunch of Jerusalem artichokes, or sunchokes in the share.

Sunchokes are related to the sunflower but taste like artichokes. They look like ginger, which confuses people. I handed my boyfriend a piece of ginger and a sunchoke and he couldn't tell which was which. Apparently, they can do a number on people's tummies since they contain inulin. The inulin is part of the reason why they aren't too popular.

But they really should be. Because, as I said, they taste like artichokes, but don't require all the prep of artichokes. They're little tubers, so you can just chop them up and do what you want with them. I didn't even bother to peel them.

I went the soup direction with my batch of sunchokes. If you don't know what to do with it, make soup, I guess. I could have roasted them, but given that it's winter, I have a feeling I will be sick of roasted veggies soon enough.

The soup was mad easy, as soup really should be. You throw stuff in a pot and heat and that's it. I based my soup off of this recipe from the Guardian. I say based because it's in British and metric and I didn't have the wherewithal to convert things. So I just threw stuff in. I think I used one leek, half a pound of sunchokes, and two potatoes. I didn't feel like cutting an onion, so I left that out. Since I didn't have cheddar, chestnuts or parsley, I didn't make the pesto either. My batch of soup made enough to feed me dinner last night and lunch today. All told, good times.

Alcohol For the Holidays

DIY-ing it for the holidays continues to be trendy. Usually, I like to make a few gifts to give to family members at Christmas. Since I've started giving homemade gifts, the bar has gotten higher and higher. Cookies? That's so 2008. Bagels? 2010. This year, my homemade gifts are made out of booze.

Judging from the buzz on the Internet, making your own liqueurs is popular this year. It's also pretty easy, depending on the liqueur you choose to make. I'm trying my hand at coffee liqueur, cranberry liqueur, and the ever-popular limoncello.

I got the recipe for coffee liqueur from Epicurious. It was almost impossibly easy. I did turn my back on the coffee syrup for a second though, resulting in a sticky boiling-over mess. I sampled a bit of the liqueur in a white Russian tonight and it was better than a certain name-brand booze, if I'm allowed to say that.

The cranberry liqueur recipe came from Cooking Light. Again, it was dead simple. Chop up 12 ounces of fresh cranberries, make some simple syrup, add vodka and let sit for a month. I just started the recipe a few days ago, so it won't be ready in time for Christmas.

Limoncello. Limoncello. Everyone gets all excited about this liqueur. It was actually the most annoying to make, as it involved removing the zesty-peel part of the lemons. The zesty-peel part of 10 lemons, actually. Using a slightly dull vegetable peeler and paring knife. I got lemon juice in my eyes twice. Currently, those peels are soaking 750 mL of vodka. After about a week, I'll add some simple syrup and let sit, then strain. I've never actually had limoncello, so I'm hoping it's good.

New Work of Stitchery

That's my latest stitched piece. It's inspired by a pencil drawing I saw at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Although I had the wherewithal to take a picture of the drawing, I didn't record its title or the artist. Guess I'll just have to go back there and take a look again.

I have big plans for this piece. I intend to do a series of the same design, in different colors and stitches. Some will be stretched over canvas, others left in their hoops. We'll see. In addition to this design, I plan on doing several other paintings or artworks as stitched pieces.

Gardentime 2011: Sunflowers

That thing looks pretty ugly, doesn't it? It's a little hard to believe that it went from looking like this:

To that in only a very short amount of time. I'm waiting for its seeds to ripen and develop before I cut it down.

Sunflowers seem to be all the rage this summer. Every urban garden has at least one growing. I've seen them popping up in random spots such as empty lots in West Philly and in front of gas stations or the CVS. While I'm glad to have grown this one, I doubt I'll do it again. It's a huge use of resources for little pay-off. I mean, sunflower seeds are great and all but it's much cheaper to get them from the bulk foods section at the Whole Foods or wherever than to grow a single giant flower and wait for the seeds to be ready.

The little sunflowers, on the other hand, are very much worth the effort. Look at how sunny they are:

Unfortunately, they had an even shorter shelf-life and gave up the ghost back in the middle of July, aided, as in all things, by those pesky alley cats.

Gardentime 2011: The Tomatoes Have Landed

Last year was the first time I tried growing tomatoes. I wasn't impressed. The plant produced maybe 5 fruits, most of them cracked and mottled. This year, I told myself I would stick with a bushy determinate type of tomato. Something small and manageable.

So Lord knows how I ended up with this guy:

That picture was actually taken a month or so ago, which explains why the basil is still small. The plant has only grown since then.

When it comes to eating tomatoes, I prefer the smaller cherry tomatoes. Not really thinking things through, I ordered a black cherry tomato plant from a farm at the beginning of the season.

Small fruit means small plant, right? No, not at all. I'm have really no reason to complain, as this plant has been many times more productive than the Big Boy I grew last year. Case in point:

That's just one day's worth of picking. Last year, the plant capped out around the beginning of August. Here we're into September and the black cherry plant is still being productive.

Of course, this summer was vastly different than last summer. Although everyone looks at me like I am insane when I say this, this summer was actually not very hot. Yes. It was hot. There were a few heat waves. But it was nothing like last summer and as far as being a tomato plant goes, that makes a huge difference. Another giant difference this summer is that I was around during the early parts of it, when it was the hottest, so the plant got more care and attention when it needed it most. I didn't head out on any sort of vacation until August, and by that point, we had plenty of rain and the temperatures dipped down to around 80 to 85 degrees on a regular basis.

I am pretty sure I'll try black cherry again next summer. I may even try to grow two different varieties, one cherry-sized and one larger.

Gardentime 2011: Basil, Basil, Basil

I went a little overboard with the basil plants this year. I picked up two different seed packets, one for sweet basil (or pesto basil) and the other for purple ruffle basil. Basil seeds are super tiny and a lot come in a single packet, so this year, as with last year but more so, I went a little nuts planting them.

A group of purple ruffle basil surrounds the mammoth sunflower (more on that in a later post). Sweet basil covers the soil around the tomato plant and hangs out with the hot peppers, both of them. All told, there's about 15 basil plants in the backyard.

Which means either a lot of pesto or some creativity. I've already put the basil to use in this Strawberry Basil Margarita recipe from The Kitchn as well as in strawberry basil ice-pops, from Mark Bittman at the New York Times.

And that leads us to the pesto. Is it the summer of pesto or does it just seem that way because I have an ass-ton of basil? Saveur had an article on pesto, complete with a gazillion (okay, 11) different recipes. I tried the Pesto Genovese recipe from the print issue. Pesto Genovese is your basic pine nuts-basil-cheese-oil pesto recipe. The Saveur recipe has you blanch the basil first which really affects the color in a dramatic way.

It's hard to believe this much basil:

Produced only this much pesto:

Look at that color. Usually, when I make pesto it's a dark green-gray color, not that vibrant green. While blanching adds a not inconsiderable number of steps and time to the process, I recommend it just for that color alone. I think it also made the pureeing process a little easier. Since I don't have a food processor, I have to use a blender. The blanched, softened basil was easier to chop up, giving me a smoother sauce, compared to the chunky versions I've dealt with in the past.

That batch of pesto only used up about half (or less) of the basil in the garden. The plan is to use it on potato gnocchi tomorrow. As for the rest of the basil, well, I see pesto tortellini in the future. Maybe some more ice-pops and margaritas.