Homemade Granola

I love commuting on the train, but it's days like these that make me really wish I drove to work.  Or that I owned a car.  My imaginary car would have a fancy remote starter so that I could warm up the car (and of course its heated seats) while I finished primping for work. 

Instead, I pile on layer after layer of sweater, jacket, scarf, earmuffs, hats, gloves and mittens.  Yes, it takes me at least five minutes to get ready to go outside.  This is funny actually, because I spend as little time outside as possible.  NJTransit has this fancy "departurevision" section on their website.  It tells me how much longer I can stay in my warm apartment before the train rolls into the station.  Love it.

So what has this winter brought me?  A smaller pants size!  Seriously.  I spent two months out of this winter completely ill.  Bronchitis, sinusitis, cold after cold.  I spent two months eating soup and orange juice, or nothing at all because "eating takes too much energy."

The cold weather has helped me keep those ten pounds off.  How you might ask?  It's too cold to go out for lunch!  Why leave my cozy office and go outside to pick up a (fill in your favorite unhealthy lunch here) when I could stay in front of my (illegal) space heater eating a salad I threw together at home.  I'm thinking I'll put back on those pounds I lost during the summer, when it's warm enough to go and get piles of Thai food for lunch.

A girl does not stay full on salad alone though.  Around four o'clock, after running around the lab for a few hours, I indulge in... yogurt!  I know, I'm so bad.  But you should totally get yourself some yogurt and make this granola. 

Can you believe that in my year of homemade everything challenges, I'm only now making my own granola!  I feel like you can throw anything in with a whole ton of oats and you've got granola.  You could be all - "Hey, I made this macadamia nut, coconut and dried jalapeno pepper granola, it's so good for you!"  Or "What?  You haven't tried the new beef jerky and fried plantain granola?"  Just put some oats with anything and BAM - granola.

Why Bother? 2012 - Spreadable Flavored Cheese

What a year it has been!  Okay, a year and a month really.  We've finally come to the last week of my year of homemade challenges.  Today I present to you, flavored spreadable cheeses!  This was a fun challenge, I wish I took more pictures during the process of the cheese making.


Boyfriend was perplexed when he opened the fridge and found this.

There were a few ways that I could have gone with the generic term "flavored spreadable cheeses."  Would I make a cracker cheese?  A bagel cheese?  A sandwich cheese?  There are so many soft cheese options!  After reading about cream cheese, queso fresco and other artisan cheeses, I decided to go with a Neufchatel cheese.  This was mostly due to the fact that I didn't need to order and special starters off the Internet.  All you need to prepare Neufchatel is milk, buttermilk and rennet!
I have really grown to love making cheese.  It's a science experiment in your kitchen!  Don't worry though, it isn't an experiment that requires a lot of science know-how.  You just have to heat, stir and wait!  Seriously, the rennet and buttermilk do all of the hard work.  You just have to be patient enough and wait for the cheese to be formed.  I checked on my milk three times before it was actually cheese, it took about 18 hours to reach the desired state.  Cheese making requires a lot of patience.

Science experiment aside, this challenge was seriously fun.  After the buttermilk and rennet formed cheese curds in my milk, I cut the solid slab of curd into 1/2-inch cubes.  Then I shook the pot that the cheese was in.  Rather than the fluid motion of the milk that was in there a day before, there was a geometric pulse of cubes of cheese.  I'm going to have to make more cheese so I can video this weird phenomenon.

After collecting and draining the cheese curds, I was left with a smooth, creamy, white cheese.  Giving it a little taste test, the cheese didn't really remind me of cream cheese.  I didn't go with a cream cheese recipe because it required a mesophilic starter (special bacteria culture), that gives cream cheese its distinctive flavor.  This neufchatel that I had made tasted more like a very strong yogurt.

I totally should have scheduled this challenge for right before or after my bagel challenge (which was just about a year ago now!).  Instead, boyfriend and I headed to our local bagel shop and picked up a half dozen.  We feasted on bagels and neufchatel Sunday morning and hid away from the cold cold temperatures here in New Jersey. 

We weren't just having plain farmers cheese (another name for neufchatel) with our bagels.  Oh no, I divided the cheese into two bowls and flavored them in opposite manners.  One bowl became a sweet treat, with cinnamon and honey.  The second bowl I made into a savory spread with sun-dried tomatoes and fresh basil.  I enjoyed the cinnamon and honey cheese on my whole wheat bagel.  The sun-dried tomato and basil is destined for my turkey sandwiches for lunch this week!

Is it worth it to make your own cheese at home?  Well, I enjoyed this so much for the process of making cheese.  The end product was delicious and it was great to be able to pick my own flavors.  The neufchatel that I made was done with whole milk, though you can definitely make this was a lower fat milk if you want to make a lighter cheese.  I liked the sweet cheese because I was able to control the amount of sweetener in the final product, most sweet cream cheese is full of grams of sugar.

Will making your own bagel topping save you money?  Not a whole lot.  An 8-ounce tub of flavored cream cheese is $2.29 at my local store (about 28 cents per ounce).  This cheese recipe was prepared with 1 gallon of milk ($3.99), 1/4 cup buttermilk (~ $0.25) and 1/4 tablet rennet (~$0.06).  The recipe made 30 ounces of cheese, making it about 14 cents per ounce.  It's about two flavors for the price of one!

I hope that you enjoyed this Why Bother 2012 challenge.  I really had fun making some unusual things in my own kitchen.  Some things I won't be making again (say yes to store bought coconut milk!).  Some recipes were eye-opening (you can make your own organic Greek yogurt!).  A few challenges I've even incorporated into my everyday routine (You know I'm having homemade walnut butter on my waffles every morning!).

Challenge yourself and make something crazy at home!  At some point, everything was homemade (well, except cheese puffs!), you can bring the factory into your kitchen and make everything in a more healthy and economic manner.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Yogurt Popsicles

The warm temperatures this week have me yearning for springtime.  I can't wait for long flowy dresses and wedge sandals.  I want to head out to the countryside and pick berries.  I'm ready for winter to release its grip from the Northeast so boyfriend and I can spend out weekends on our bikes, enjoying picnics under shady trees.

While giving our kitchen a good, post-new years cleaning, I came across my popsicle molds.  The day was cold and dark and I was sad to realize it would be months before I would be filling the molds with fresh berry purees and citrusy juices.  The molds went back into the cupboard, waiting for their chance to shine again.

It was this warmer week that brought the popsicle molds back to the front of my mind.  That, along with boyfriends Chobani week, gave me the inspiration to bring you these beauties - Chocolate chip cookie dough frozen yogurt pops.  Maybe with the first set of popsicles, spring will follow soon after?  Like the groundhog of the food world.  Let's hope, because I'm ready for floaty chiffon tops and trips to the farmers market.

These yogurt pops bring our Chobani week to an end, because you can't finish your day without a tasty dessert!  Boyfriend has taught us a little something about the grocery business and the secret world that is behind those swinging doors.  And he's learned quite a bit about yogurt and all the great things you can do with it!

Are you ready for spring?  Or maybe you live in one of those temperate regions of the world, where if it drops below fifty degrees people break out the winter coats.  Seems like we will have a few more chilly weeks here in the tri-state region, doesn't mean I won't be eating these popsicles, just means I'll be curled up on the couch under a blanket when I do eat them!