You say ricotta and I say twarozek...

I had just about called the whole thing off, but being the eternal optimist that I am - I decided to continue looking for an English translation of the recipe for twarozek [or twarog], a farmer's cheese that is the main ingredient of Polish-style cheesecake, plus many other delightful dishes that I grew up on. My father's favourite bread topper was twarozek blended with sour cream, chopped radishes, finely sliced spring onions and a little salt and pepper! Delicious!!

I could sort of decipher the Polish recipes, but weights and terminology stumped me... and I couldn't find a simple yet detailed description in English. When I lived in Montreal, I could buy it anywhere, but since moving to Vancouver - and despite the large East European population here - it's almost impossible, if not exhorbitantly expensive to buy when you can find it. And then while I was searching online on Friday night for a recipe for babka piaskowa, I discovered Anula's blog on Polish cooking! To quote Anula,"It's hard to explain to someone a taste of Polish twarog if they never had it before - slightly acidic but still a little bit sweet, crumbly texture but smooth when you 'smudge' it :)." Talk about a perfect description for a perfect soft cheese! For those of you curious as to what it could be compared to, twarozek is not ricotta - although the texture is similar - and quark cheese is more bitter.

Her recipe was simple to follow, detailed at every step with photos, and I thought, why not!
Well, I did have my doubts at one point, and I think it could actually be that what is considered whole milk here (3.25%) might not have as high a fat content as the milk Anula uses. I ended up adding a little more buttermilk (after researching one or two Polish sites) - but, the result was absolutely spot on and I ended up making a second batch - as I kept sampling the first one!!


So here is my version - which cut a few steps and also adjusted the ratio of milk to buttermilk to suit the North American milk fat content:


Ingredients (use a ratio of 2 milk to 1 buttermilk quantity):
2 litres whole milk (minimum 3.25%)
1 litre buttermilk
this should yield about 8-10oz (1.25 cups) of twarozek


Equipment:
large pot, sieve, muslin or cheesecloth, wooden spoon for stirring, ladle and bowl for draining


Time:
approx 4 hours from beginning to end, and lots of patience!


1. Pour the milk into a large pot and warm up gently on the top of your stove. Don't allow the milk to boil, but it can simmer or "percolate." Make sure you stir regularly to allow the milk to heat up evenly. Once it has reached a temperature of between 45C to 55C, pour in the buttermilk and stir at regular intervals. Allow approximately 3-4 hours and keep stirring regularly. Curds will begin to appear after about 2 hours.
2. After the curds have appeared (they will be small and granular in size) - lower your heat down to the lowest setting and begin straining the curds from the whey. You can do this with just a sieve, but I prefer using a large cheese cloth, as you can drain more liquid from the curds this way.  

  

3. Pour in small amounts as the liquid does build up in the sieve.

4. Once you have filtered all the curds, make sure they drain well. The longer they drain, the drier the twarozek. 

5.- The best way to drain the cheese at this point is to form a "ball" with the cheesecloth and hang it to drip. I let my second batch hang for about an hour and it formed a fairly dry soft cheese. If you plan to use the cheese in baking then I recommend you let the cheese drain at least an hour or two. And that's it! The cheese should keep in the fridge for about a week unless, like me, you pig out on it right away!


A special thanks and nod to Anula for helping me rediscover the joys of this wonderful cheese! Smacznego!! 


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My little corner of heaven...

those were the days...

...back when

One of the few regrets now that we live in a condo is that I don't have a garden. I miss digging in the soil, planting, watering and enjoying the fruits of my our labour. Those were idyllic summers where every evening and weekend would find the two of us in the back yard.

I don't think Peter misses toiling on his carefully manicured lawns, but I'll admit those times make my eyes misty as we sit on our little balcony and watch the gardeners as they chop up the badly seeded lawns with their gas lawn mowers and ignore the dead branches on the trees and bushes around our building.

Short of becoming one of those busy bodies that every building seems to have [and yes, our's is Velma, an elderly lady who attends the monthly strata council meetings with a long list of complaints, of which the gardeners' shortcomings are always noted] I decided to invest in a window box and a few pots and focus my energy on growing herbs.

So last weekend, I dragged poor Peter [who thought he'd finally put those visits to rest] to our local garden centre and scooped up a handful of potted herbs, a bag of soil and a few terra cotta pots. Well, those dozen little potted herbs cost me over $50! What used to be a 99-cent a pot purchase has now become big money! Not one of them was under $3.50. But I wanted my little herb garden and nothing was going to stop me!

We came home and I immediately set myself to repotting and planting. Two glorious hours! I'd forgotten how wonderful it felt to put my hands in soil [ok... yes, I wore gardening gloves, but still!].

From left to right: oregano, par-cel, tarragon, rosemary, cilantro, sweet basil and chives.
The little gnome figurine belonged to my grandmother and it sat on her windowsill guarding her potted herbs!

Mission accomplished, I sat down with a cuppa and admired my handiwork. That's when Peter informed me about one of the condo bylaws: no planters/window boxes attached to balcony railings. So I've moved the window box to the inside of the balcony, and I'm hoping since we're at the back of the building, no one will notice... or if they do, they won't report me. I'm on good terms with Velma and she has a soft spot for Peter!

Lavender in the sheep planter... two types of mint (English and orange)...
and the king of all herbs, dill! (I am Polish, after all!)

But I have my herbs! And they're growing by leaps and bounds! I'm eager to start snipping little branches of rosemary for the roast lamb I want to make next weekend, and chopping home-grown fresh chives for our Sunday brunch of scrambled eggs!

I don't need much room - I just need to satisfy that primal urge to bury my [gloved] hands into soil, nurture my plants and take pleasure in knowing that there's nothing more local than the herbs on my balcony - ready for the cutting! The pure joy of gardening is in the plants you grow.

* * *

Measure twice... edit once!

About two weeks ago, I was doing some online research at work - checking out foodie sites for potential advertising options - and came across Edible Vancouver Magazine, a local online magazine that caters to all things food. Searching around, I found their recipe section, and was intrigued with a recipe for Sweet Potato Maple Cake. I'm always on the lookout for sweet potato recipes as Peter, my Kiwi husband, loves kumara, a root veggie native to NZ, and the North American sweet potato is about as close as you can get to that unique kumara flavour. [My all-time favourite dish is banana and kumara salad, but nothing beats his Mum's leg of lamb and roasted kumara dinner! Okay, I'm digressing... and salivating at the thought!] I bookmarked the recipe, deciding it would be a perfect dessert for Easter to take on our trip to Sechelt to see Stefan and his family.

As is my usual baking process, I re-read the recipe at least 30 times over the last week and on Wednesday evening prepped the sweet potatoes [the recipe called for one cup... typically, I made five! My mother always said I should have been a cook in the army!]. Something was niggling at me, and I couldn't quite place it, but it finally dawned on me last night just as I was gathering all my ingredients, that the recipe wasn't correct. It had to do with the measurements for the flour, which were in imperial and metric. 1 cup does not equal 425mL! Rats! I checked the measurements on my usual conversion site and then searched online for some other sweet potato maple cake recipes and sure enough, all of them indicated at least 1.5 to 3 cups of flour. Rats again!

This wouldn't do! I grabbed my spurtle and shot off two emails, one to the magazine site and one to the author of the recipe, who has her own blog. That was at 10:30pm last night. Early this morning I had a lovely email from the author with a revised recipe... and an equally nice letter from the publication. In fact, they found another error in the recipe: 1.5 cups of buttermilk instead of a half cup (sweet potato maple soup!).

Happily, I gathered all my ingredients and re-read the new and improved recipe one more time. Zut alors! Another error! Butter had been replaced by the word buttermilk! Conspiracy theories notwithstanding, I started to think this is how people become paranoid and end up checking and re-checking they've locked their door on the way out, or patting their pockets over and over again to make sure they have their keys!

I couldn't resist emailing back the author. Bless her heart... she probably thinks I'm some wacko who is stalking her and her recipes! Honest, I'm not! After all, I work as a proofreader in the marketing department at UBC Continuing Studies! It's second nature to correct everything and everyone!

I've checked the website and sure enough, the recipe [see above for the link to Sweet Potato Maple Cake] has been fixed! Kudos to the publication and I also want to acknowledge Claire Lassam. She has a lovely blog site and some incredible recipes: Just Something Pretty. Have a gander!

As is my wont, I did tweak the recipe a tad: added ginger (it's the spice of choice in this household) and nutmeg. I also left the cake in for a total of 50 minutes, as it was still raw at the recommended 30 minutes.

Just out of the oven - the aroma is to die for!

...and I've just taken it out of my beautiful "Heritage" bundt pan
[but that's another story for another day!!]

A light sprinkling of icing sugar (or maybe an orange-flavoured glaze?), some fresh whipped cream and a pot of fresh coffee on the side, and I think we're good to go! [I just have to make sure it gets to Sechelt in one piece. Do you hear that, Peter?!]

Thank you Claire - can't wait to taste it!


* * *

Yes, I'm still alive...

Eeeek! I can't believe it's been over six months since I posted a thought here! The shocking thing about this absence was my first thought: I'm six months older!

My baby sister Boz (not by blood, but by family ties - I'll introduce her one day soon) facebooked me a few days ago with the comment, "blog!" She was right, it had been too long.

Boz is the bald one on the right!

I had tried to make a commitment to at least a weekly posting, and for a while I was doing quite well, thank you.

Birthdays, Hallowe'en, a visit with our grandchildren in Sechelt, birthdays yet again, a passing, Christmas, another visit with the grandchildren, more birthdays and now it's the end of February and I've had to think hard about how to post a blog and upload images, never mind what the heck my password was! And in those six months, what have I done that's kept me so busy?

I still have those four pairs of pants to hem; I've been wearing summer pants all through winter (thank goodness it's been mild this year!). OK, yes... I've been baking a lot. About ten pounds worth. But I've found some great recipes!

I haven't sorted out the closets and drawers, Peter and I haven't painted the bathroom as we'd promised to do over the Christmas hols, I'm still procrastinating about address updates (we've been living here now for four years!), I've discovered a container in the back of the fridge which looked suspiciously furry but I'm sure it was tortellini (which I remember buying before Hallowe'en), oh, and those darned pants. They've collected six months' worth of dust, sitting in my "to fix" basket!

But hey... I'm back! We'll give it another go, shall we? And btw, my dear Boz... what about your blog?!

* * *

What are they thinking?

Once and for all... what is it with white sunglasses?

There is nothing cool or sophisticated about people wearing white-framed sunglasses! To me they look like kiddie glasses, you know the kind you buy at the dollar store for children under the age of 5.

OK... I admit, I've got a soft spot for Max Headroom (wow! does that age me or what! that was a great tv show in its day!) but don't tell me Cobain looks sexy or manly in those specs?

Guy with tie: You know everyone's laughing at you in those glasses, don't you?

Guy in white shades: I don't care, they're Fila, and I can afford them!

I'm showing my ignorance here - I've no idea who they are - and my apologies to the owner of the photo (yes, I sort of "borrowed" it when I googled 'men in white sunglasses' and this image popped up so many times!) but the joker on the right looks like a right ponce! 

Well, it goes to show that money can buy you everything but intelligence (and that, my friends, is a blog and a half unto itself).

I visited my son a few weeks ago - and horror of horrors, as we stepped out into the sunlight, he pulled out a pair of white frames. "Ugh! Stefan! Come on! I'm not walking beside you if you wear those!" "Mum! They're so ugly, they're cool!" [He's almost 30 - and if he'd said they were "bucc" I would have disowned him right then and there!]

And it's not only men. I snapped this couple the other day - lucky girl to have been included in Cobain's will! [Notice her boyfriend is hanging his head in shame - bet he doesn't make eye contact with passersby.]

And now I've got that off my chest - time for me to don my Ray Ban's. Now, those are cool!!

* * *

Three strikes and you’re out… Strike One!

Several weeks ago, on a fine Saturday morning, Peter and I had breakfast and decided to combine several errands so that we could have Sunday free to lounge around. Sears was the first stop – they were having their annual Canada Day sale and Peter was desperately in need of dress shirts for work. 

Just so you know, Sears and I have a very tenuous relationship. I can’t resist their sales, but apart from one regular (actually fantastic) salesperson in major appliances at the location near us, I usually end up getting frustrated or angry – usually both – with the lack of service in the store or with the credit department – wherever they are located.

I got the usual “behave in the store” warning from Peter: stay calm, don’t let them push your buttons, and please don’t cause a scene. Moi? Cause a scene? Ha! Never! <ahem>

Half an hour in men’s shirts and I was ready to call the store manager to ask if staff ever picked up the merchandise off the floor or re-stocked the shelves. Ok, I know… it’s a sale, but really, why do people think they can just drop opened packages on the floor and walk off? Peter wasn’t looking for a white shirt with a footprint pattern.

We found several shirts, thanks to a shop assistant who surprised me by being efficient and helpful (wow… two such staff in one store!!) – and prior to heading off to the cash register, I checked the signs for confirmation of the sale pricing. Even the saleswoman confirmed yes, the shirts Peter had chosen were indeed 50% off the regular price.

We arrived at the cashiers station – a square counter with two cashiers working. As usual, there wasn’t so much of a lineup as more of a gaggle of people standing around, holding various items for purchase. I nudged Peter and told him to go to the far cashier, where the line was definitely shorter. As we arrived, the cashier barked at us, “go to the end of the line!”

I politely responded with, “what end of line? where?” “There’s a sign!” she snapped. I snapped back, “where?” “There!” she growled, not even looking up. I was buggered if I could see a sign anywhere that said “line forms here.” I asked a few of the customers waiting if they knew were the line started. No! Like me, they had arrived at the cash register and knew who was in front of them and that was it.

Several back and forth comments ensued, with me getting angrier, the cashier getting ruder, and no lineup or resolution forthcoming. Finally, one woman near me heaved the items she was purchasing from one arm to the other, and we all exclaimed in surprise, “there it is!” It was a single slim pole, three feet high, with an index-card sized sign saying, “Line forms hear” (and yes, here was spelled hear!).

When it was our turn to pay, I realized we were paying full price for several of the shirts. I questioned the cashier; she told me they weren’t on sale, and rather impatiently asked if I still wanted to purchase them. Peter stepped in and said yes, paid and despite my protests, signed for and completed the purchase.

“Hang on,” I said. “These are supposed to be 50% off the regular price!” I exclaimed to no one in particular. I know I’d caused a scene (yet again!), but really!

Instead of following Peter out of the store, I headed over to the wall of shirts with the sale signs. I read the fine print. I compared the “sale item codes” against the shirts we’d purchased. Sure enough! These matched! I removed one of the large signs attached to the wall and, this time with determination, headed back to the cashiers station.

As luck would have it, the kind saleslady who had assisted Peter and me walked by at that moment. I grabbed her (not literally!) and explained that we didn’t get the sale pricing, all the while waving the sign for emphasis. At that point, I had lost all self respect - I was on a mission to prove those cashiers wrong!

To make a long story a little shorter, she took us back to the cash register, explained to the frazzled cashier that we should have received the sales price. We walked out of the store with a refund of $38.

I know Peter was a tad embarrassed about the crazy woman waving the sales sign and causing a scene but as always, he kept quiet and let me bask in the glory of the kill! I had made my point and had won my battle! Yes! Score 1-0 for the home team!

Next stop: the jewellers.

* * *

It’s all in your head…

The last four weeks have been absolutely miserable for me… I’ve spent way too much time at the dentist’s office… and far too much money! Postponing the inevitable for the last eighteen months, I finally gathered enough courage to step over the threshold of the dental clinic to start my necessary bridge procedure. It’s been stressful, to say the least, between appointments, infections, aching jaws and tears. Argggh!

Not that I’m blaming my dentist – she’s been absolutely stellar, considering her chosen profession as a torturer, but in my mind all dentists are Orin Scrivello, DDS – the sadistic dentist from Little Shop of Horrors.

Long, long ago… in a old Victorian building off Stretford Road, in Manchester, England, I first came face-to-face with the British equivalent of the SS-Einsatzgruppen: the NHS school dentist. Claw marks and gashes on the chair were my first indication that this was not going to be fun. The fact that I could hear screams and crying from another room didn’t ease my mind any either, and to this day I suffer from what has been diagnosed as dental anxiety syndrome, a very common ailment especially for Brits growing up in the mid-20th century.

Well, do you blame us?

No freezings, no high-speed drills, no elevator music to soothe the savage beast (the dentist, not the patient!), no conscious sedation; 1950s was dentistry at its most archaic, barbaric and unbelievably nasty. Added to that were the abhorrent surroundings: high hospital-green ceilings, bare bulb fixtures, white and black tiled walls, the noxious smell of chloroform and disenfectant, and the most uncomfortable wooden benches in the waiting room.

No wonder the British have poor dental habits!

Times and procedures may have changed… but I haven’t. Those memories are indelibly etched in my mind and the fact that I bit one dentist when I was eight years old, and refused to open my mouth for another one when I was ten years old – and was unceremoniously ejected from his office, much to the shame of my mother – cannot take away the weak knees, quickened pulse and tremors I experience each time I sit in the chair of doom.

That being said, I do appreciate the dentist I have now. She understands my trepidation and the clinic receptionist greets me cheerfully each time with “ready for your happy pill?!” which I gladly place under my tongue and wait for it to take effect. Most of all, I’m grateful to my husband who accompanies me each time I have a dental appointment (in sickness and in fear of dentists, I believe were part of our vows) as he’s the one who drives home a staggering, drooling, slap-happy ninny, all the while listening to protests of “I’m fine, honest!” as he rolls me into bed to sleep off the effects of my medication.

This isn't going to hurt a bit! (No, it's going to hurt a lot!)

* * *