Home Made Sweet Butter is very easy to prepare. It’s only whipped cream that you whip too far.

My directions are for using a stand mixer.

Ingredients for about 10 servings or a little over 7 oz of butter

1 pint of heavy cream (not whipping cream)

Directions

Pour cream into mixer bowl. Attach whip. Set speed to #8 or near high.

At around 5 minutes you will have whipped cream.

Around at 8 minutes it almost looks like cottage cheese.

At around 10 minutes it looks like yellow cottage with bigger curds. At this point the butter gets done really fast.

Now you drain the butter and keep the thin buttermilk that you can use for baking or adding to potatoes.

You now have a little over 7 oz. of butter and about 9oz of thin buttermilk.

Home made sweet butter is forking easy.

 

On the Chew Food Variety TV Show the guest Martina McBride prepared her Mom’s Peach Cobbler Recipe. This recipe is based on Martina McBride’s Mom’s Peach Cobbler Recipe. I felt like trying this recipe because this recipe sounded very interesting. It sounds crazy to pour boiling water over your cobbler but that’s what she did so I thought I’d give it a try. On the Chew TV Show they said that this was a Southern Technique. I had a bunch of blueberries so I did this recipe with blueberries instead of peaches. I thought adding malt to the cobbler might be fun so I did that and upped the cinnamon a little. I also added an egg because batter without an egg sometimes is trouble. The topping is interesting. It’s almost like a layer of cake. This is a solid recipe and is great for a family gathering. I do note the blueberry filling does thicken up a bit on day two but seems perfect day one. Next time I am going to try tapioca flour instead of corn starch. I don’t think it will thicken as much. I do also note when I watched Martina McBride prepare this dessert she used much more sugar than this recipe suggest. According to the comments on the TV show most people think she used three cups instead of one cup but after doing this recipe I’d say she would have had to use more boiling water for this recipe to come out right. I used what ABCChew posted on line but from watching the TV Show I’d say you’d get a crispy sweet crust of sugar on top if you added as much sugar as what I saw Martina McBride add. For your first time doing this style of cobbler I’d suggest doing it this way without the extra cups of sugar.

Ingredients to make about 12 servings

18oz blueberries (and another 18oz. later)

1/2 lemon juiced and zest

1 cup sugar

2 oz butter

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup cornstarch

18oz blueberries

3 Tablespoons butter melted

1 cup flour

1 1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup malted milk powder

1 XL egg – beaten

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

neutral non-stick spray (vegetable or canola)

2/3 cup boiling water

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 Tablespoon corn starch

Directions

set oven to 375 degrees F

Spray a 1/2 pan with a neutral non-stick spray.

In your sauce pot add 18 oz of blueberries, lemon juice, zest, butter salt and corn starch mix well and turn up your heat to medium high and then reduce to a slow boil and when your mixture is thick then add the remaining blueberries and keep on heat until it bubbles. This mixture can go in your half pan now and set it on the side.

In a large bowl combine 1 1/4 cup sugar and egg and well well and set to the side. Now mix in the melted butter.

In a medium bowl combine 1 cup flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, malted milk powder and mix well.

Slowly mix in some of dry ingredients from medium bowl and then slowly mix in milk in thirds till done.

Now pour batter over blueberries.

Put 2/3 cup water in a pot to boil.

combine 1 cup sugar, 1 Tablespoon corn starch, and one teaspoon cinnamon. mix together and then sprinkle over batter.

Now pour the boiling water over what you just sprinkled on.

Set in a 375 degree F oven for about 45 minutes.

Enjoy with ice cream or whipped cream. Vanilla ice cream is a nice match.

Perfect  for a family gathering. The dessert isn’t too sweet and is almost not sweet enough until you add the ice cream and then it’s perfect.

 

 

 

 

Gnudi and Gnocchi are pasta that are very similar. They both are very light pasta dough. Gnudi translates to naked and you are suppose to think of Gnudi pasta as a ravioli without the dough. It’s filling that is barely held together and is made of ricotta cheese and sometimes a vegetable. It’s almost like eating just the filling from a ravioli.  The Gnudi should look like the inside of a ravioli. It takes two days to make them because the soft filling sits in semolina flour overnight and draws out moisture and leaves a slight skin around the Gnudi.

Below the recipe for Forking Awesome Spinach and Fresh Ricotta Cheese Gnudi.  I’ve included my directions for making fresh ricotta cheese and also the way I prepared the spinach for these Gnudi. This recipe takes two days to prepare. Also I do recommend reading the whole recipe before you give this a try.

A word of warning if you do the cheese and spinach my way the recipe will work out. Your cheese needs to be fairly firm and the spinach must be drained very well.

Ingredients to make about 80 Gnudi about 10 servings

1 bunch spinach (fresh cooked and drained)

1 XL egg – beaten

2 cup fresh ricotta cheese (It should be on the firm side, creamy but firm)

1/2 cup parmigiano reggiano

big pinch white pepper -ground ( about 1/16 t.)

pinch fresh nutmeg grated

1/4 teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon fresh black pepper

1 cup flour

2 cup semolina flour – (this doesn’t go into gnudi batter…..the semolina is used to draw out moisture from the pasta)

extra virgin olive oil to sprinkle on Gnudi so they don’t stick.

finish to taste with fresh ground sea salt

finish with fresh ground black pepper to taste

garnish with hard Italian cheese if desired

Directions.

Either blend the well drained spinach and chop fine or just blend it with the egg. Get a large mixing bowl add the spinach mixture, all cheeses, spices and flour. Stir till it’s mixed well. To insure the gnudi will come out right. Make a tester gnudi and add it to a pot of boiling water to make sure it will stick together. Also check the flavoring and determine if the spices are correct for you. If the gnudi fell apart that would be because either your cheese wasn’t drained enough and or your spinach wasn’t drained enough. If it’s only slightly off you can fix it by adding more flour 1/4 cup and testing again.

Get baking sheets and line them with a thin layer of semolina flour. Fill a pastry bag with gnudi dough and make like your filling raviolis.

No sprinkle the tops with more semolina flour.

Cover the Gnudi with plastic wrap and keep in the refrigerator over night.

The next day just slow boil them a portion at a time until they float. Eat and enjoy.

These came out really amazing. My husband said that this dish would definitely be on his last meal list along with my fresh ricotta gnocchi.

 

Home Made Ricotta Cheese is easy to make and taste better than store purchased  ricotta cheese. There is no comparison. Below is the recipe for basic ricotta cheese. Once you make it you can play around with the richness and the texture. you might want to use more cream in it for certain things like desserts. This recipe makes around 2 1/2 pounds of Ricotta Cheese.

Ingredients for around 10 servings

1 gallon whole milk

1 pint heavy cream

teaspoon kosher or sea salt

1-11/2 lemons just use the fresh squeezed juice.

Directions

Put a large pot with the milk, cream and salt on medium heat. After a while you will need to lower the heat to low so the mixture doesn’t boil over.  You need to bring the mixture to a slow boil. This will take a long time but it’s worth it. Let it slow boil like this about five minutes.

Then you want to slowly add the fresh lemon juice until you get curds. Let it stay on the heat for up to five minutes.

It will look like this.

The easiest and fastest way to drain the cheese is to use a wire mesh basket.

The cheese was whey easier to make than you thought! For best results let this chill in your refrigerator over night. You will have up to 2 cups extra than what is needed for this recipe. You either enjoy fresh or you can freeze left over cheese for another time.

A word of caution.

Don’t use manufacture’s cream or boxed heavy cream that doesn’t need refrigeration because they are full of gum and your cheese won’t curdle but will thicken slightly. If you accidentally find that you used a poor quality cream with too much gum you can try to save it by using a colander lined with cheese clothe and let it drain for a day in your refrigerator.

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Ingredients for spinach

1 large bunch spinach

1/4 sweet onion sliced very thin and rough chopped

either a quart of  vegetable stock or about 5 Tablespoons of vegetable stock paste to add to boiling water.

Now it’s time to prepare the fresh spinach. Whenever possible purchase full grown spinach instead of baby spinach because baby spinach is flavorless. You might want to trim off some of the large stems and then do several rinses on the spinach to make sure you got rid of all the dirt. There are many ways to prepare spinach. You can steam, sauté and boil spinach. I usually don’t boil most vegetables but I prefer spinach to be boiled because this is a low flavor vegetable and you can easily infuse flavor into spinach by boiling it briefly.

After the spinach is clean give it a rough chop.

Now add the spinach, onion and vegetable stock to your sauce pot and bring to boil about three minutes and then drain.

When the spinach is cool enough to handle you need to use your hands and squish the water out. Don’t get excited your not left with much spinach but your left with enough for this recipe.