Adventures in Making Mozzarella Cheese!

In need of some Christmas gift inspiration, I browsed a few blogs for lists of "what to buy your guy". Will is a foodie, so when I came across this DIY cheese kit, I thought it would be perfect! The kit I bought came from Urban Cheesecraft and we were really impressed with how easy it was to make. :-) It took us less than hour and we had a pound of super-delicious mozzarella. Who knew?!
All you need is the cheese kit and a gallon of milk. We used a gallon or raw milk from Will's usual market CSA since it's important that the milk is not ultra-pasteurized for it to work. The kit contains rennet, citric acid, cheese salt, cheese cloth, and a thermometer.

The rennet and citric acid are both dissolved individually in 1 cup of water each. To begin, you heat the milk and citric acid on the stove top. Once it reaches a certain temperature, you add the rennet and continue to heat. The milk will start to coagulate like this...

Once the curd has formed, you cover the pan and let it sit for 5 minutes. Next, you separate the curd from the whey by pouring the contents of the pan through a strainer. Press some of the excess watery whey from the curd.

Now that you have the curd separated, you heat it in the microwave for a minute and then do another round of pressing. You really want to get rid of that whey!

 After you've heated the curd and pressed the whey out a couple of times, you will then knead the curds.

We watched a couple of YouTube videos to learn some good technique for kneading the cheese! In the process of kneading, you also add the cheese salt to taste.

The finished product! So delicious! You can eat it immediately after you've kneaded it well enough to form a smooth, stretchy ball of cheese. 

Our friends, Josh and Amanda invited us over for dinner that night and we served our fresh mozzarella in a caprese salad. Yum!! It will be fun to experiment with more cheese in the future by adding different herbs and flavors. :-)

10 Things Tuesday

Goodness! It's been a busy start to December, so I am feeling so behind on blogging! Oi. For a quick recap, I thought I would share 10 things with you today.
1. I had a major brownie failure on Monday! We had a little potluck at work to celebrate a few office birthdays so I made these espresso iced chocolate brownies. Since I needed to take them to work in the pan  I didn't cut them or try one beforehand. Now I wish I had! For some reason, they were crunchy and too hard to get out of the pan. :-/ I must have omitted an ingredient or else the recipe was off. I was so embarrassed! Our new interns probably think I'm a terrible baker. Lol. I'll have to make up for it at the cookie exchange next week - no pressure!
2. I'm excited to start PT this week for whatever is going on with my knee after seeing the doc. Hopefully, I'll be running again around New Years! (Fingers crossed).
3. In the meantime, I have been enjoying this break from running by doing lots of yoga!! I had always been intrigued by this Bikram yoga studio out by Muddy's cupcakes. They had a great deal for new students where you can get 1 month of unlimited classes for only $40, so I signed up! I've been to 3 classes so far and let me tell you, it is tough work! Bikram yoga is a series of 26 poses performed over the course of a 90 minute class in a room heated to around 100 degrees. That heat sure makes you sweat!

Good pic of us with a tree out front!

4. This weekend, Will and I went to the Christmas light display at the zoo. Although, the light show was a bit lame, we had fun seeing some of the nocturnal animals so active!

Yum...

5. I can't get enough of this apple, cinnamon, sunflower butter oatmeal combo!

6. This song has been running through my head ever since I heard it on the radio a couple of weeks ago...

So pretty!

7. Even though it is winter, I still like finding fun new things at the farmer's market to try out. This week, I picked up these pretty carrots. I've never had purple ones before!

8. I'm loving our newest book club selection - The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker. It's a fictional tale told through the eyes of a girl living through a strange worldwide phenomenon. In the book, without warning, the rotation of the earth suddenly begins to slow and the days grow longer every passing day - wrecking havoc on normal every day life. Such an interesting concept!
9. Christmas is only 14 days away! When did that happen?!?

Mmm...

10. I got this idea from Kath Eats where you add ingredients to a boxed soup to make it a little more interesting. A few day ago I picked up a roasted pepper and tomato soup from Whole Foods with this idea in mind. For this combo, I just sauteed a little kale and garlic and added it to the soup and heated it thoroughly. Topped with a little parmesan cheese, it was so delicious! I will totally keep doing this for a super quick and easy dinner!

Current Obsession: Winter Squash and Kale

Have you all been enjoying this glorious Fall weather as much as I have? I hope so! Do you know what else is glorious? Farmers market fresh kale and winter squash of course! I can't even recall how many people I have seen blog about the versatility and wholesomeness of kale. No wonder, it is quite a nutrition powerhouse packed full of fiber and vitamins A, C, and K! I picked up a huge bunch of it at the market this past weekend and immediately made a "massaged kale salad" inspired by this "Go-To Kale Salad" by Oh She Glows. It turned out really well! I "massaged" about half of the bunch of kale I bought and kept it in the fridge in my salad spinner. Whenever I wanted another salad, I just added toppings to that kale base. Yum!

Massaged Kale Salad
Ingredients:
- 1 Large bunch kale, rinsed and patted dry
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
- 1 apple, chopped
- 5-6 cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1/4 cucumber, chopped
- 1 oz. cheddar cheese, cubed
- 1/4 cup chopped pecans
- Pepper to taste
Directions:
1. Chop the kale and toss with olive oil and vinegar in a large bowl. Rub the oil into the leaves a bit with your hands.
2. Take out a handful of the kale and toss with the other ingredients. Serve!
3. Store the rest of the massaged kale in the fridge; lasts about 2-3 days.

Sunday, I was in the mood to finally tackle the chopping and roasting of all of the winter squash I had. Again, I was inspired by the Oh She Glows blog to try out this squash called, delicata. Apparently you can eat the skin on these ones because it softens so much when you cook them. What?! I had to try them, so I was excited to see that they had them at the farmers market on Saturday. Yipee! I'm totally going back this week to buy at least 5 more. Haha.


From front to back: Delicata squash, acorn squash, and butternut squash!

Roasted and ready to eat!!!

These roasted squash were so simple and delicious! My will-power was sure tested as I tried not to eat the entire plate at one sitting! The butternut squash isn't in this pile because I cubed it and roasted it separately to add to some lentils I made later. However, you could have used the same method to prep it as the others.

Roasted Winter Squash
Ingredients:
-1 Delicata squash, seeds removed and sliced
-1 Acorn squash, seeds removed and sliced
-1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
-1 1/2 tablespoons maple syrup
-Salt to season
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Toss squash, oil and syrup in large bowl. Once sqaush covered well in olive oil, spread in single layer on baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt.
3. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until squash is soft and starting to brown around the edges. Serve warm as is or chilled and tossed onto a salad.

I've begun to really enjoy baking and prepping lots of big dishes on Sunday afternoon so I have food to easily just heat and eat or pack in my lunch the rest of the week. Now, go out and get yourself some kale and winter squash!

Around Here

I've been neglecting this little blog the last few weeks and I have been trying to come up with a good reason why. Part of it is that I have been spending some of my time lately doing oh-so-fun things like job searching and revamping my resume. Ugh. I haven't applied for very many positions yet since neither of us is quite ready to leave Memphis...

-I've been seeing this mural frequently on my cross-training day bike rides on the green line. I think it's funny that everyone only has one leg - not sure how they're riding those bikes... lol.
-I did a 16 mile run-walk for marathon training in the rain on Saturday! That was the farthest distance I have ever "run". The next two weekends it just gets longer...
-Sometimes I feel like all I do with my spare time is go running. (See above.)
-I am working on putting together a blog for the local dietetic association - MDDA. It's a work in progress... www.eatrightmemphisblog.blogspot.com
-After our Elvis-ventures the other weekend, Will and I have had a few quieter ones. This last weekend we spent a couple fun nights hanging out with friends. It's going to be tough starting all over!
-I leave for Ireland in less than two weeks! I am kind of freaking out a little. There is so much I need to do before then!
-The other day I picked up the next book we are reading for book club - Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Let's just say I spent a lot of quality time on the couch with this one!!! I just couldn't put. it. down.
-I totally made soup the other week even though it is still summer... and it's all Joy the Baker's fault. She posted a roasted tomato and zucchini soup that just sounded delish! Plus, both of those things are so abundant at the farmer's market right now. :-)
-The fire alarm for my apartment building went off this morning - exactly as I stepped out of the shower! Worst nightmare. Luckily it's not as bad as in college where you do have time to put something other than a towel on without your RA trying to corral you out the door. Haha.
-I can't stop listening to Two Door Cinema Club lately. Check this out...

Nerdy 30 B-Day

I was so not ready for this weekend to end. I was having so much fun! Will turned 30 on Saturday, so I tried to come up with some fun gifts/activities to celebrate. The big party comes next weekend when we celebrate with our friends Josh, who also had a birthday the same day(!) and Amanda, whose b-day was the 19th. July is a popular month!

Still a cutie at 30! 

Friday, we had dinner at the Trolley Stop Market - always a winner! Afterwards, we scooted over to the Orpheum theater for The Princess' Bride. That movie seriously never gets old. We were a little late, and the theater was so packed they had to open the box seats - we were able to snatch one of those. Sweeet! The best part was that the entire theater would quote certain lines or cheer whenever Inigo Montoya said his famous line, "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Classic.
Since I just couldn't wait, I gave Will one of presents on Friday night. I saw this on a blog one day and thought it was cute. So I did it too! I was too sheepish to buy that much beer in one place so I went to 3 stores. Lol. I bought 30 bottles of beer and tied pictures or tags on which I had written things I love/appreciate about him to each bottle. I think he liked it. :-)

Saturday I did a tough 12 mile run with my Star Runners friends. We all got soooo lost. Ha! I just followed Sally and Emily and they were able to figure out a way to get our miles in still. Those ladies are awesome! Afterwards, it was pet-sitting at the market. My faves of the day were these two chihuahua sized poodles named Coco and Chanel.

This is probably to closest I will ever get to wearing Coco Chanel. 

Saturday evening we went to Will's neighbor's apartment for a little birthday party. (Yes, her too!!). We used some spearmint I had noticed was growing near his driveway to mix up some mint mojitos. They were soooo delicious. Taste just like summer. Seriously. Sunday we went met up with my Star Runners friends (+ significant others) for a Redbirds game. They actually won too! It was so nice to hang out together as a group for something other than running or racing. :-)

Go Redbirds!!!

Now it's Monday again. Oi. Starting tomorrow, I'll be in something called "yellow belt" training for the next 3 days. Initially, I thought it might have something to do with karate. Unfortunately, it's about learning to do performance improvement projects. Yuck. I so wanted to learn how to karate chop through a bunch of wood blocks!

World Spins Madly On...

    The last few weeks feel like they have just been flying by! I can hardly keep up with this little blog. :-) Although busy, life has been pretty uneventful for me lately. Just a lot of the usual: eat, sleep, work, run, read, repeat. I'm feeling a bit better about work of late now that I was given the psych wards (these guys are highly entertaining!).  The patient load has also picked up a bit in radiation oncology clinic in the last week or so. I feel much more fulfilled with my job when I have a lot more going on - there were many days times in the last few months where I was feeling, well... bored.

    Friday, Will and I kicked off the weekend with a visit Central BBQ for dinner. Afterwards, we watched Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. I always love anything with Steve Carell in it! I have been missing my fill after he left The Office. Keira Knightely was a bit of a strange pick to cast alongside of Carell as the love interest in this movie... but perhaps it was meant to feel a little awkward? Since it was the end of the world and all. This movie had me thinking the rest of the evening about the sorts of things I would do if I knew the world would be ending in just a few weeks.
    Saturday morning I joined my running group friends for an 8-mile run downtown. This was the first run where I tried out the run-walk method! From now, until the marathon in December, I'll be incorporating walk intervals into my long runs. I was surprised how much faster my recovery was with these little walk breaks! I was a little skeptical at first because when I signed up for the marathon I was thinking I wanted to run it. Well, that was before I really started thinking about how taxing it will be to run 26.1 miles!  Our coach said the other day, we'll run over 600 miles before the marathon. Yikes! I'm hoping this run/walk method will be a little easier on my body. Definitely a good thing!
    Last Sunday, we went for a long bike ride on the Greenline bike trail for a bit of cross-training. It felt good to be using a few different muscles in my legs than just the ones for running. I took my bike back out to the trail again on Wednesday. I'm really working on making the most of cross-training days this training cycle. I want to be injury free before St. Jude this year! Tonight I'm headed to Fleet Feet running store for another free yoga sessions. I'm loving these bi-weekly classes!

Market goodies!

    This week at the farmer's market I made sure to pick up some blueberries! Omg. They are so delicious! We had dinner with our friends Josh and Amanda last night and Will cooked up a custard for our market berries. So simple, but so tasty! The custard recipe was actually inspired by the guest chef do a demo at work for National Nutrition Month. Will got it spot-on!
     In other news, my friend Charis had her little baby this past week! So adorable. Now I have yet another reason to get my butt overseas and visit! :-)