Mirtoga (Turkish-style Scrambled Eggs), for Fattening Up Babies

While I once again faced the new year with a few more pounds than I would like, GoatSpawn has been put on a diet that most of us would envy. It includes:

• Eggs and butter every day
• Spoonfuls of olive oil mixed into her food
• As much whole milk as she will drink
• Full fat Greek yogurt

Basically, she has to fatten up. 

So, when I came across a recipe for mirtoga, Turkish-style scrambled eggs, in an old issue of Saveur that called for an entire stick of butter per two eggs, I thought, well, it can't come any more calorie-packed than that.

Mirtoga is just scrambled eggs cooked in a roux, instead of in a bit of oil or butter.  You melt a stick of butter over medium heat, add half a cup of flour, and stir until the flour is incorporated and browned.  Add two well-whisked eggs to the pan, and then ... well, you scramble them until done. 

But when it came to it, Foodgoat objected to using an entire stick of butter, when it was entirely possible that GoatSpawn wouldn't even eat it, and since I'm allergic to eggs, that would leave him to eat something that was made with 800 calories of butter.  So we made the mirtoga with half a stick of butter and a quarter cup of flour to make the roux with two eggs.  Even then, it seemed like a lot of butter - especially since he usually makes scrambled eggs with just a squirt of olive oil. 

In any case, the mirtoga was a rich, toasty, heavy breakfast, perfect for babies who need to get fatter.

Buttermilk: There's More Than One Kind?

What I thought: Buttermilk is the liquid left behind after churning cream to get butter. You use it as an ingredient in pancakes or other baked goods. It's super fatty and has flecks of butter in it.

What I just learned: Not all "buttermilk" is that traditional or old-fashioned type - "buttermilk" also refers to a range of fermented milk drinks which are much closer to yogurt than to butter.

In fact, the buttermilk that you find at the grocery store is probably not traditional buttermilk, but cultured buttermilk. Like yogurt it's made by adding a lactic acid bacteria culture to pasteurized whole, skim milk or non-fat milk. It's then left to ferment for 12 to 14 hours.

The fermenting action makes cultured buttermilk healthy stuff - it comes in low and non-fat versions, it's more easily digestible than milk, it also contains more lactic acid than skim milk, and like yogurt, it is a good source of probiotics and healthy bacteria.

Armed with this new information, I poured myself a glass of buttermilk. And drank it, straight up.

I wasn't hopeful - I poured a really little glass. I still had the image of leftover butter in my mind, and I was expecting something really rich, like heavy cream.

It tasted like ... yogurt.

Sour and tangy. Cultured buttermilk tastes like a more liquidy version of yogurt. Which was totally different from what I was expecting.

It's sour enough that I probably wouldn't want to drink it alone, but mixed with a little sugar, a little fruit (like I eat my yogurt) ... maybe the use of buttermilk extends beyond baked goods!

Making Yogurt Cheese

We have a ton of yogurt in the house, because we have had a ton of whole milk, because we keep buying it for GoatSpawn, WHO WILL NOT DRINK IT.

So, I decided to make yogurt cheese.

I've never made it before because I don't have the fancy yogurt cheese maker and I've never had cheesecloth. Why I've never had cheesecloth when it's fairly easy and inexpensive to find, I don't know, but that has been the main sticking point in why I've never made yogurt cheese, even though I've been making my own yogurt for a couple of years now.

Then I saw the tea strainer.

It holds exactly one small container of yogurt and it suspends nicely in the tea cup. Perfect!

I put yogurt in the strainer, put the strainer in the cup, and the liquid, which is whey (also called milk plasma, which sounds much worse) drip outs.

Into the fridge it goes ... I poured out the whey after an hour (although the whey is full of nutritious stuff and can be used in other things). Back into the fridge overnight or for 24 hours (checking the cup occasionally to empty if needed) to drain out even more whey and you get ...

Yogurt cheese! It reduced to about half its volume, about a couple big spoonfuls. Not a big volume, but sometimes a little is all you want or need.

The result still tastes like yogurt - in my case, quite tangy - but the texture is creamier and thicker.

You can use yogurt cheese in the same ways you might use sour cream or cream cheese, although it has a stronger flavor to consider. On toasted bagels, it was light and delicious, and I could see it as a good basis for dips. Of course you could also eat in straight up, like a Greek style yogurt. Some people like to use non-fat yogurt cheese as a less caloric version of sour cream, but of course Foodgoat rarely chooses the less caloric version of anything, and would probably look at me like I was crazy if I suggested NOT using his beloved, delicious sour cream.

Brady Quinn Ice Cream

Sometimes, you find something that seems to have exactly what you want and desire. It has all the right ingredients, everything about it sounds just right, it comes from a reputable brand that has a history of winners, and damn if it even just looks good.

You have to wait to try it, though, but you are patient. You are patient because you know the wait will be worth it. How could it not?

And then one day you sit down with a big bowl and a spoon, ready to experience in real life the deliciousness which up until now had only been tasted in your imagination.

Only to be so, so disappointed.

I'm talking, of course, about ...
Oops, wrong photo!

I mean ...

Last month, I was chagrined to find that Foodgoat was not at all interested in trying the malted milk ball ice cream that sounded so delicious. Eventually, after weeks of him not acknowledging its presence in the freezer, I had to concede that he's just not that into it, and I scooped it into a bowl for one. A big bowl. Actually, to be honest, I just sat on the floor with a spoon and the ice cream. I was sure it was going to be that good.

Except that it wasn't. It was just ... okay. The malt balls didn't quite have the snappy, crunchy bite I was hoping for, and while the malt ice cream was good, it wasn't as good as, say, a vanilla malt or mocha malt milkshake from Mitchell's.

Foogoat, when he did get around to tasting it, only said, "It tastes homemade," by which he means, "The texture isn't smooth enough" or possibly, "I knew it would suck."

How he knew it wouldn't be good I'm not sure, but he could have just told me so in the beginning so I could have saved myself from the heightened expectations and subsequent disappointment. Or he could have bought himself a Cleveland Browns jersey with 'MALTED MILK BALL ICE CREAM" on the back. Same thing.

Ice Cream Mind Games

I have been married to Foodgoat for two years, together for over twelve years.

And yet sometimes I feel like I don't understand him at all.

For one thing, he thinks that a meeting originally planned for Wednesday but has been moved forward two days, is now changed to Monday, while I think it's now on Friday.*

But that has nothing to do with food.

A couple weeks ago I brought home ice cream. Ciao Bella Gelato in Malted Milk Ball. Malted Milk Ball pieces in rich malted cream.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Sounds tasty, yes? Can't wait to try it, can you?

And yet, weeks later, that ice cream is still there, in the freezer, UNTOUCHED.

He has not mentioned it, not brought it out, not suggested, "Hey, let's try that new ice cream!"

Does he not know about it?

Impossible! I told him about it! He saw me put it in! It's sitting RIGHT ON TOP, where you can see it every time you open the freezer.

Does he not see it?

Impossible! It's ice cream, not a guy in a gorilla suit! One always notices ice cream!

Did he forget about it?

Impossible! Who, in the heat of the Midwest summer, "forgets" that they have ice cream in the freezer?

Could he possibly be uninterested in the ice cream?

Impossible! He likes ice cream! He likes malt! WHO DOESN'T?

So now I'm thinking he's playing some kind of sick ice cream mind game with me. A test of wills about who will cave into the ice cream first. Who will demonstrate their iron will against smooth and creamy hand-crafted gelato first? Who can resist the call of malt candy and ice cream together in a delicious dessert more?

I can hold out as long as you can, Foodgoat! I'm not going to taste that ice cream until you do first, no matter how delicious it sounds, no matter how hot it gets, how tempting Malted Milk Ball gelato is to me!

Or will he drive me slowly crazy by pretending there's no ice cream here, that I've only imagined it, like an ice cream-themed Gaslight?

Another Day of Lactose Intolerance

When I was a kid, I was told I was allergic to milk. When I was a teenager, I realized nothing happened when I drank milk, so I drank milk to my heart's content, pints of the stuff every day. When I was in my mid-20s, I found that drinking milk starting giving me queasy, uncomfortable feelings. I cut back. I cut back more. Eventually, I stopped drinking any milk at all.

But every once in a while, I'll drink milk again, just to see if I'm still lactose intolerant.

I am.

I should really just try Lactaid - milk modified for the lactose intolerant. But I can't help thinking it's not "real" milk. The same way decaf is not "real" coffee. But it's just milk with a lactase enzyme added to break down lactose into simple sugars (glucose and galactose).

The lactase comes from fungi, and the process was developed in the 1980s by a scientist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (her work also led to the development of reduced fat mozzarella, which I am far less motivated to try).

When You Are the Food Source

August is Breastfeeding Awareness Month, and although GoatSpawn started solids at six months, it wasn't until she was about 9 m0nths that it seemed like she needed to eat much more solid foods. Until then, breastmilk was a pretty much a complete food - it had everything a she needed, all the calories, liquids, nutrients and minerals, continually changing in composition, both throughout the day and over the months, to suit GoatSpawn's changing needs.

But now GoatSpawn seems far more interested in cheese these days, but being just a few months shy of the age when she can drink cow's milk, I still have to make sure she's still getting the milk she needs. So, in addition eating oatmeal, I am drinking Mother's Milk tea.

A blend of herbs traditionally used to encourage lactation, including fenugreek, anise, blessed thistle, fennel and coriander, the tea does in fact seem to work, and doesn't taste half bad. Mostly, it tastes like licorice.

What else works? Beer. It's the hops in the beer that works to increase lactation, so if you go this route, pick something hoppy, like an IPA. I see a Mother's Milk beer in the future!

Chobani Greek Yogurt

Chobani recently sent us samples of their Greek yogurt.

I frequently make my own yogurt, but this was my first foray into trying Greek yogurt. What's the difference? Greek yogurt is usually made from sheep's milk, although cow's milk is also common. It is usually more strongly flavored, higher in fat and thicker.

My expectations of this were .... low.

I started making my own yogurt a couple of years ago, and since then, store-bought brands of yogurt have tasted increasingly bad. The more we got used to homemade yogurt, the more store bought brands seemed far too sweet and far too flavored. Even the organic, more naturally flavored brands were hard to take after we got used to freshly made, plain, tart yogurt.

So we were pleasantly surprised to find the Chobani Greek yogurt turned out pretty good.

It really was much thicker than even our yogurt. It wasn't quite as sour and tart as the yogurt I make - it was more creamy and mild. Basically, it was like eating sour cream. (I see now why my brother uses Greek yogurt as a sour cream substitute).

For the most part, I'll take plain any day. But the flavors, which include strawberry, blueberry, peach, vanilla, and honey, weren't bad. Not so overwhelmingly fruity as to overpower the yogurt, and not artificial-tasting at all. Even the peach one was good, and peach yogurts are generally my least favorite.

We might actually buy this yogurt