Life in the Cheese Drawer

look at that piece of gorgeousness. my annual easter cheesecake has become something of a tradition at my own house. this is year 4, i think. anyway, i checked the ATK cookbook’s recipes for cheesecake, but then thought, why mess with perfection? and pulled out joy of cooking.
yum.

yesterday nate’s sister came to visit, so i made some chocolate mousse. i was going to  make a pie at first, but then was like, ehhhh, do i want to? no…
but then we had some time between supper and dessert, and i thought it would be yummy to have a pie “cookie” with our mousse. i made pie dough with the lard, rolled it out, and cut out rounds that i then baked like you do with the leftover pie crust dough. (if you don’t do this, you are a heathen.)
consensus? mmmm. pie dough made with lard is yummy. it’s better than crisco, flakier than butter, but not quite as tasty as butter. i think next time i’ll do half and half, then it should be delicious.
i also got my ginormous “america’s test kitchen” cookbook in the mail the other day. since my dad has given up on finding his martha stewart cookie cook book, i think i’m going to plug away through the cookie section in the ATK book. that should be fun!

repost because i just made the poppyseed filling for this year’s kuchen. i did a double-batch this year!

 
original post with recipe for poppyseed filling:
when easter rolls around, it’s the tradition in the wallace (derry [fuchs {schleppenbach<etc.>}]) household to churn out some boehma/bohema/behma/whateverkuchen. i actually tried googling it this year under many spelling variations to see if anyone else out there makes these kolache-type breads under that name. nothing. my favorite b-kuchen filling is poppyseed, and the last few years i’ve been dietarily lenient with the easter treat…but no more.
this year marks the 3rd anniversary of avoiding corn syrup, and as such, i thought it was fitting to finally give homemade poppyseed filling a go. (the FIRST ingredient in solo poppyseed filling is, ahem, corn syrup.)
after much googling, the answer lay in making a custard and mixing in ground poppyseeds. easy peasy! i went to the food co-op where they sold the seed in bulk and paid $3 for a pound (srsly a steal – would have paid $3 for a little jar of mccormick in the grocery store…food co-ops are awesome).
time to grind! every recipe said to use a coffee grinder – even a food processor won’t get the seed small enough. grind up 8 ounces of poppyseed.
ok, so i was over .3 oz.
I tried to get a closeup to show you the difference between the whole seed and ground seed. it certainly smelled good when i dumped out the ground seed!Time to start the custard.
In a pot, combine:
1 c. milk or cream (of COURSE i used cream!!)
1/4 c. butter
3/4 c. sugar (edit: after actually using the filling in a baked good, i would increase this to at least 1 cup, 1.25 if you like it really sweet)
pinch salt

cook that until the butter is melted, sugar dissolved and the milk is a little frothy (but don’t boil – cook over medium-low).
beat 2 eggs in a bowl, then temper those bad boys – slowly drizzle in half the hot liquid from the pot while you whisk like a madwoman so the eggs don’t cook. after half is in the eggs, dump the whole shebang back in the pot.
tempered eggs
cook until it’s thick like you’re cooking pudding. then time to stir in the poppyseed.
those little clumps are from where it stuck under the grinder blades.
stir that all up then cook over low for a couple more minutes to make sure it’s nice and thickened.
I added some honey and lemon juice still, just to make it taste like it traditionally does. i tasted a little bit, and you wouldn’t think it was pudding mixed with it – the poppyseed flavor is so overwhelming, that you would think it’s just a classier brand of solo filling. it’s actually a lot more earthy tasting – really pulls out the poppyseed flavor because it’s freshly ground.
part two to come tomorrow when i bust out my dough hook!
ETA: thought it was important to point out that this took less than 20 minutes to do. the only out-of-the-way thing you’d have to do is find some bulk poppyseed.

i picked up my half hog the other day, got home, and realized that i was missing the hocks and the fat. i’m making bean soup out of the hocks, and, well, i’m going to attempt to render lard. from what i read, it shouldn’t be that difficult.
so, i called the processor and yeah yeah – stop by and we’ll get your missing fat to you. so i stopped by on my way home to pick up my pig fat and hocks, and on top of 3 huge tubes of ground fat and my two huge hocks, the guy gave me another 6 pounds of already rendered lard! OMG what am i going to do with all this lard…
well, liz has claimed some already. she’s always on the lookout for lard that isn’t partially  hydrogenated (because that stuff causes cancer). but a person can only make so many pies. i did some digging online, and i will be making biscuits as well, and i’ll try frying my chicken in it from now on (apparently it’s the only way to fry any kind of chicken). you can use it to fry a lot of other stuff as well, so maybe i’ll try potatoes.
did some more digging, and apparently i can make SOAP. i’ll have to get my hands on some volatile lye, but it looks relatively easy. if i can handle making bath bombs, i can probably make some soap. woo! project!
(as an aside, i got my seed potatoes in the mail the other day and the tomatoes are ready for transplanting into small pots. this garden is hopefully going to be epic!!)