Basics: Look--I made it myself!

[Gaelen]

We often purchase ingredients for recipes that we can easily make ourselves, at home--yogurt, ricotta cheese, peanut butter, salad dressing, to name just a few. This thread is a collection of some reliable recipes for basics that you can make at home (where you can control EXACTLY what goes into the recipe!) Enjoy!

Recipe Index for Basics:

Berry Yogurt -- about 4g protein, 6g ECC per 1/2 cup serving
Mayonnaise
Peanut Butter -- 4g protein, 2.5g ECC per 2-tablespoon serving
Ricotta Cheese (and a variation for Paneer)

[Gaelen]

This was today's Epicurious Recipe of the Day...the same basic recipe for ricotta cheese that I've used for homemade ricotta since the 70s.

Fresh Ricotta Cheese
2 quarts whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Special equipment: large sieve, fine-mesh cheesecloth

Line a large sieve with a layer of heavy-duty (fine-mesh) cheesecloth and place it over a large bowl.

Slowly bring milk, cream, and salt to a rolling boil in a 6-quart heavy pot over moderate heat, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching. Add lemon juice, then reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring constantly, until the mixture curdles, about 2 minutes.

Pour the mixture into the lined sieve and let it drain 1 hour. After discarding the liquid, chill the ricotta, covered; it will keep in the refrigerator 2 days.

Makes about 2 cups.
Gourmet, April 2006

Gaelen's notes: I don't always make this full quantity; if you make a half-recipe, you can 'strain' the milk/cream mixture through a regular sieve lined with a #6 cone-shaped coffee filter. Just let it drain as usual, and toss the filter when you're done.

To make this into Paneer, a fresh Indian cheese:
The main difference between ricotta and paneer is that paneer has had even more of the whey squeezed out by twisting in the cheesecloth and pressing into a block. Paneer can be sliced or cubed. After straining, pat the curds into a small block and tightly wrap/squeeze with the cheesecloth. Put the wrapped block of curds back into the sieve, and put a weight on top to press the curds more tightly into a block. After a couple hours, unwrap the block of cheese, and use sliced, cubed or crumbled.

[Gaelen]

You can make this recipe creamy or chunky (chunky gives you about 1/4 cup more butter). You can also use any nut, from almonds to hazelnuts to walnuts. I prefer to roast my nuts first...I just prefer that flavor. If you've got raw nuts, roast them in a 400 degree F. oven in a single layer on a cookie sheet with sides for about 10 minutes, but watch them carefully, because the oils in nuts will burn quickly. If you can smell your roasting nuts, they're done! Get them out of the heat!

Fresh Peanut Butter -- 4g protein, 2.5g ECC per 2-tablespoon serving

Makes about 1 cup of smooth peanut butter.
Prep time: about 10 minutes

1 1/2 c. unsalted roasted peanuts
1 tbsp. peanut oil

For smooth peanut butter:

Mix the peanuts with the peanut oil, and pour the mixture into the food processor or blender. *

Process the mixture until it's very smooth. Store your smooth peanut butter in a sealed container in the fridge. It will be good for 2 weeks.

For chunky peanut butter:

Take about 1/4 cup out of your 1 1/2 cups of peanuts and set them aside. Mix the rest of the peanuts with the oil, and pour the mixture into the food processor or blender. *

Process the mixture until it's very smooth, then stir in the peanuts that you had set aside. Process a few seconds more to create the chunks in your chunky peanut butter. Store your chunky peanut butter in a sealed container in the fridge. It will be good for 2 weeks.

Nutritional analysis (per serving): 116 calories, 4.3 g protein, 10.25 g fat, 4 g carbohydrate, 1.5 g fiber, 0 mg cholesterol, 1 mg sodium, 10 mg calcium, 0.4 mg iron

* Gaelen's Notes: some recipes recommend adding about 1/2 tsp. of salt to the oiled nuts prior to blending/processing. I omit this, because I'm watching my sodium intake. I have also made smaller quantities (1/2 the recipe) in the large cup of my Magic Bullet.

[Mitra]

Blender

Ingredients:

1 egg
1/4 tsp mustard powder (this helps to stabilise it, but the taste isn't noticeable)
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp white wine or cider vinegar or lemon juice
1 cup oil *see note below*

Put the egg, mustard and salt in the blender bowl, and blend for about 30s, until the egg looks a bit frothy. Add the vinegar or lemon juice, and blend for a few more seconds. Then, with the blender running, add the oil in a very slow trickle.

By Hand

Use the same ingredients, but just the yolk, rather than the whole egg.

Use a whisk to beat together the yolk, mustard, salt and vinegar. Then, beating continuously, add the oil drop by drop at first, whisking each time until it's incorporated before adding more. Once the mixture thickens you can add it a little bit faster.

Adding a couple of Tbsp of boiling water at the end helps to stabilise the mixture.

Oils

Peanut oil (for some reason called groundnut oil over here) makes a very good neutral tasting mayonnaise - with cider vinegar, and the whole egg version made in the blender, it was very like Hellmans (but without the sugar!). Peanut oil is about 50% mono, 15% sat, 35% poly.

Olive oil - you can replace some or all of the peanut oil with olive oil. The milder the flavour the better. I've just found quite a good one that's French - milder, and better for this than the Italian one we usually use for salads.

Nut oils - most are too strong tasting to use as the main oil, but you could add a little bit for flavour.

Avocado oil - lovely creamy taste, and mainly mono-unsaturated. Makes very pretty green mayonnaise!

If it Curdles

Don't panic! Either:-

tip the curdled mayo into a jug, take a fresh egg or yolk, and whisk the mixture drop by drop into the new egg,
or, warm a mixing bowl in hot water. Add a teaspoon of prepared mustard and 1 Tbsp of your curdled sauce. Beat with a wire whisk for a few seconds until they cream and thicken together. Continue adding teaspoons of sauce, and beating them in before adding more.

[Gaelen]

Oh, Mitra...that's excellent! Thanks for posting your recipe; I tend to work from habit and haven't felt up to making my own for awhile. ;)

[Carri]

Short cut berry yoghurt
2 large containers of plain bio(with cultures) yoghurt (about 16 oz. each)
1 cup of fresh or frozen berries (ie. blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, black berries, black or red currants.)
1 tsp. of powdered stevia (or to taste)

Put 1 cup of berries into your food processor and let thraw if frozen (it doesn't take too long). Puree the fruit and while in the middle of this process add 1 tsp stevia. Continue to puree until more liquid. Now dump all of the yoghurt into a large clean glass bowl. Scrape all of the fruit puree into your yoghurt bowl and mix in well. Taste to see if sweet enough. Add more or less stevia to taste. Cover and eat within 2 or 3 days max. Not sure what the ECC's are. Maybe Gaelen can figure it out for us! I usually use mixed berries in mine.

Carri

from Gaelen:
counts for entire recipe (4 cups) using blueberries: 32g protein, 63g carbs, 4g fiber, 59g ECC (7g ECC per 1/2 cup)
w/strawberries: 32g protein, 53g carbs, 3g fiber, 50g ECC (6g ECC per 1/2 cup)
w/raspberries: 33g protein, 57g carbs, 9g fiber, 48g ECC (6g ECC per 1/2 cup)
Unfortunately, I don't have a bag of mixed berries handy to check counts for them, but they should be in the 6g ECC per 1/2 cup. Hope this helps!

[Gaelen]

Carri, I copied your recipe into MasterCook to give you an estimated ECC, using whole milk commercial plain yogurt (that's the 'edit' in your post...)

Different berries will give you slightly different counts. The whole recipe should give you about 32 ounces of berry yogurt, or eight half-cup (4 oz.) servings. I always count the full carbs in yogurt--1g carbs per ounce of yogurt. I don't think the so-called 'yogurt exception' where the fermentation eats the lactose is analytically valid. YMMV. Thanks for the recipe!