6a.m. cooking spree

It's 6a.m. and I've already made mango gaucamole. I'm in the middle of making cheese, banana cake and pickled green beans too. I've got sweet potatoes boiling for the banana cake--this will be a new recipe all my own. I guess this is what happens when I don't get my bake on for two months.

Coffee's being drank as we speak.

The cheese will be ricotta, the product of one gallon of milk heated over a very low heat for a couple hours until it starts to boil. This is the point when I will add one cup of cider vinegar to separate the curds from the whey. I will have to find a good use for the whey...
The next step is to strain the curds through cheesecloth - I've done this before but last time I used a turkey bag (thanks 99 cent store!). The turkey bag worked out but I'm hoping the cheese cloth will work better, though it doesn't look a whole lot finer than the turkey bag as I recall. That was several months ago.

The guacamole was simple to make and now it is delicious, but I'm too enthralled in prep to be too hungry. I simply took 3 very ripe avocados and pulled off the skin, added in the flesh of one quite ripe mango, half of one purple onion finely chopped, and a few vigorous twists of ground sea salt; mashed it all together and left the pits in the bowl; they add a great rich nutty flavor! This I learned from a lady who made awesome guac for a friend's birthday celebration at San Diego Bike Polo (in Chula Vista) just a few months back. Thanks lady, sorry I don't remember who you were! Thanks Fraggle for having an awesome polo birthday!

What else, what else? Ah yes, pickles and cake.

These pickles will be very special pickles because I am pickling green beans that were grown in Pennsylvania by my father. They're quite tasty raw, but I couldn't resist the urge to pickle them. I had to go on quite a hunt today to find fresh dill, but now I have everything I need (except only two jars), so pickles are under way. I need to find more jars, though. What is my pickle recipe, pray tell? Sorry, you can't have it! But I'll share the finished product in 3 weeks time.

And cake. Banananananananana cake. The kind that Batman loves. I'm still making decisions about this recipe as we speak, but I'm excited to toss some sweet potatoes and chocolate in it. Oh man, then I gotta find someone to help me eat it...