End of Summer Vegetable Saute with Cheese

This is one of my lazy non-recipes, where I just throw together everything that sounds like it would go good together, smother it with cheese, and eat it in mass quantities. Though I've never used a recipe, I've decided to try to replicate my methods on some of the dishes that I make often but without following a recipe. So if it's not exact, that's because I never measure anything and just throw together most of my old standbys without much thought.

Here's what I used for this one:

• 1 small zucchini
• 1 small yellow crookneck squash
• 1 onion
• 1-2 cloves garlic
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 green bell pepper
• 1 ripe tomato
• 1 c. shredded cheese
• 2-3 tbsp. olive oil
• salt & pepper to taste

Instructions:

1.  Heat olive oil in cast iron skillet
2. Add onion and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently
3. Meanwhile, chop bell peppers & garlic or shred in food processor
4. Add to pan and cook about 3 minutes, stirring frequently
5. Meanwhile, slice zucchini and squash, and chop tomatoes
6. Add to pan, cover, and cook about 10 minutes or until zucchini is tender, stirring occasionally.
7. Remove from heat, add salt & pepper and top with cheese, cover,  and let sit until cheese is melted.

Vegetarian Zucchini Lasagna Rolls

I've had this recipe marked since the beginning of the season. Now that my zucchini plants are in full swing, producing much more than I can eat, I'm using every recipe I can find that will use it up!

This recipe was quite different from the lasagna rolls I've seen before, mostly in the way it's cooked. But it turned out really well. My husband ate a huge plate of it and didn't complain a bit about the zucchini stuffing for the rolls.

For this, I used:
1/2 lb lasagna noodles
3 tbsp. olive oil

2 small/med onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 c. grated zucchini
2 c. cottage cheese or ricotta
1 tsp. basil
1 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. salt
3 c. tomato sauce (see recipe here)
1/2 c. parmesan

Cook lasagna noodles.

 Put olive oil in a skillet, add onions and garlic and cook until onions are translucent and soft

Set aside and mix zucchini, cottage cheese, basil, oregano, salt

Add onions to mixture and stir until well blended
On a clean surface, lay out the noodles
Put about 1/4 c. cottage cheese mixture on each noodle,spreading it along the length of the noodle.

Roll it up and set it upright in an 8x8 or larger baking dish
Repeat until all the noodles and filling is used.
Spoon the sauce around the rolls but not on top.

Bake 30-40 minutes in 375 oven. I had to bake for 40 minutes before they were really hot and the noodles began to brown and get a bit crispy on the top edges.

Top with parmesan.

These turned out really well. Since the filling had onions and garlic, it balanced out the lack of such things in the sauce. While I wouldn't like the plain sauce on spaghetti, it worked perfectly here. These were really good and filling. A great vegetarian meal on a cold evening.

Homemade Cream Cheese

A while back, I found a recipe for making your own cream cheese (on Pinterest, of course). I pinned it, and a while later, found it forgotten like so many other pins. I read the recipe and it sounded really easy. So I went to my local natural foods store, where they told me they didn't sell rennet and that they didn't know of anywhere locally that sold it. WHA???

So, I gave up on it for a while. Then, a friend of mine brought some homemade cheese to a party. Weirdly enough, when I asked where she got her cultures, she said she got them at the brewing store. So, I went to the brewing store and amid all the beer-making tools, found rennet and cheese cultures. I got some and then got busy with canning. Finally, over Labor Day Weekend, I had enough time to make the cheese. At that point, I'd had an 8 oz. container of heavy cream floating around the fridge for over a month!

When I got around to making it, I couldn't believe I'd put it off so long. It is beyond simple. I thought it was going to be really expensive, and therefore something I'd only make once, but in the end, it ended up making so much more cream cheese than I thought, so it wasn't even expensive.

For a cost breakdown I got:
1 gallon of organic milk for about $8.
1 cup of organic cream for $2.
1 packet buttermilk culture for $1.
1 bottle of rennet for $8, but since I only used 3 drops, that's about, I don't know, a nickel.

So the total for what I used was $11.05

I got:
3 8 oz. packets organic cream cheese
1 quart buttermilk
1.5 quarts of whey for cooking
1 quart milk left for everyday use

Not bad, if you ask me!

For this, you will need:
butter muslin or fine muslin--I couldn't find anything called butter muslin, so I just bought some muslin with a tight weave and the lady at the fabric counter said she made cheese and it would work. It was just called original muslin, I think, or maybe fine muslin.

1/2 gallon whole milk, at room temperature (pasteurized but not ultrapasteurized)
1 c. heavy cream, at room temperature (pasteurized but not ultrapasteurized, if you can find it. I could only find ultrapasteurized organic cream, so I had to use that, and it worked fine).
3 drops rennet
3 tbsp. buttermilk
salt to taste

Opening the cloth...and here it is!

 So, pour your half gallon of milk and your cream into a large bowl and stir it. Let it sit until it's at room temperature--I think ours was about 75 or 78 when we decided to go ahead.

Add your buttermilk and stir until well mixed, maybe 30 seconds.

Add 3 drops of rennet and stir gently for 1 minute.

Cover the bowl and let it sit for 24 hours undisturbed.

At this point, it will look about like yogurt.

Dampen your cheese cloth (butter muslin) ahead of time, or when you're ready for it. Then lay it over a colander with the center of the cloth in the colander basin.

Gently spoon the yogurt-like mixture into cheese cloth and secure the ends and tie so it hangs in a bag. 

Hang it from a sturdy cabinet door handle or somewhere it can hang undisturbed for another 24 hours. We used a steamer basket instead of a colander, with the steamer pan under the basket. Then we just hung it over the steamer for 24 hours (NOT ON THE STOVE). That way, it could drip into the bowl but nothing else got into the whey, like fruit flies or other critters.

After 24 hours, unwrap your baby cream cheese! It will be soft and pliable. It was a bit sour tasting until we stirred in the salt, and then it tasted just like store cream cheese. The texture is a bit different since it doesn't have gelatin added. It's super creamy and delicious. And so simple--just set it up and leave it and voila, organic cream cheese!

Make sure you put the whey that dripped out into the fridge, too. You can use it in bread or pancakes or soup in place of stock.