I Feel Like an Ant

Surely you all know the story of the Ant and the Grasshopper. Well I'm the ant busily storing up for the winter. Yesterday I made paneer (an Indian cheese) for the first time. I just love Shahi Paneer and can't seem to find the paneer locally. And since it really is just a home made cheese, I could make it easily.

It is probably the easiest of cheeses to make. It only requires milk and an acid (lemon juice is traditional, but I used buttermilk) to curdle it. So heat the milk; throw in the acid; watch it curdle; pour through a cheese cloth; let hang for a while; kneed until smooth; refrigerate. It takes no aging, no enzyme, and no trying to get a clean break. So simple. It makes a cheese that doesn't melt like other cheeses do. So you can simmer it in the sauce and let it absorb the flavors.

Today I make the sauce and put them together and froze five servings and ate one. The sauce uses up a lot of things form the garden like tomatoes (whoohoo more tomatoes gone), onions, garlic, and coriander. Remember that pile of coriander I got this year. Well two teaspoons have been used up. Boy do I have a long way to go.

Onions being sorted

Oh and speaking of using up onions and garlic. The garlic was dried and removed from the shed. The onion tops from the Copra onions had dried enough to make braids. So they have been braided and hung (four hanging in the photo above). I made some different sizes of braids. I really like the one long one the best. I'll see how it holds up over time. I also made one braid for my CSA friend. I put in all three kinds of onions on that one. I've got three Alisa Craig that are on the bottom. Then I put Redwings up the middle all the way up and the Copras along the side. The first is a sweet onion that needs to be used up first, but the last two are storage onions and can be kept for a long time.

The last thing I did today was make some pickles. I made one jar of dill pickle spears. Yes just one jar. I made it at the same time as the bread and butter pickles so I didn't have to boil all that water bath water twice. The last time I made dills I didn't like them. I had kept the spices in the jar and they got way too seasoned. So I tried a very simple recipe. The only seasonings are dill and mustard seed. Very simple. I didn't even use onions, though that might be a mistake. I love onions in my pickles. These will be the only pickles I make this year that are canned. Any others I make will all be refrigerator pickles since I like those best.

So this ant has put away a lot of things for the winter in the last few days. Though unlike the ant in the story, I do share if entertained. But not if you sing like a cricket. That cricket that got in the house has been serenading me when I go into the basement is not welcome. The other day the sound was getting higher. It had better not crawl up the walls into my bedroom. Then I'll become an insane murderous fire ant and no one wants to see that.