Three Cups of Tea

On May 8, 2018December 1, 2019 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Dehydrating, Topic, Using1 Comment

For me, traveling revived the family tradition of daily cups of tea. Learn to make Moroccan-Inspired Mint Tea and British and Russian Black Tea. Get tea recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
I grew up in a family of tea drinkers: hot tea for breakfast, iced tea in summer, even decaf tea in evenings. Although my mom might hesitate over a choice of English Breakfast or Earl Grey, both she and my grandmother gravitated toward black teas, unsweetened and unadorned.

As soon as I was deemed old enough to drink hot, caffeinated beverages, I saw it as my duty, as a mildly rebellious teenager, to develop a coffee addiction. But once my independence was established, I added tea to the mix. Traveling only expanded my repertoire. In Great Britain and Russia, I continued the family tradition of daily mugs of black tea, learning to love a bit of sweet, creaminess in some cups. Morocco brought another twist: hot green tea to fight the ambient heat and seal a business deal or friendship, with so much mint and sugar it resembles a breath mint.
Learn to make Moroccan-Inspired Mint Tea and British and Russian Black Tea

Choosing and Storing Herbs

On May 1, 2018December 1, 2019 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Dehydrating, Topic, UsingLeave a comment

Food has always dominated my travels, and home re-creations almost always start with herbs. Read more about choosing and storing herbs.
Spring is finally in the air, and I am on the road. In recent weeks, I’ve cleaned up the garden beds; watched crocus, ipheion, scilla, and daffodil blooms open wider by the hour; and found the first perennial herbs like mint, oregano, sorrel, and chives poking through the ground. But it’s also one of my favorite seasons to travel—with Twice as Tasty workshops, to visit family and friends, and to explore new places.

Food has always dominated my travels, first as a vegetarian struggling to find things to eat in a newly reunified Germany and later when discovering new flavors and spices in Africa and Asia and even unknown fruits and vegetables in the South Pacific. Although I still dream of the more exotic tastes, the dishes I bring home put that international spin on food I can grow or easily find in my climate. It almost always starts with herbs.
Read more about choosing and storing herbs

Fresh Feta

On April 24, 2018December 1, 2019 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Fermenting, Ingredient, UsingLeave a comment

I have a long list of reasons for making feta, starting with delicious and easy. Get homemade feta and salad recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
I can give you a long list of reasons for making feta. It’s delicious. It’s relatively easy. It lets you become comfortable with many ingredients, tools, and techniques that are important in more finicky cheeses, including slow heating, powdered starter, held temperatures, curd cutting and stirring, hang draining, molding, and salting. It will impress all of your friends, if you decide to share. And did I mention how tasty it is?

In Greece and other Mediterranean countries, feta is as common as cheddar is in the United States. During my travels, I ate feta made from backyard goats and sheep, feta flavored with herbs just snipped in the garden, and feta in lots of salads. Feta is traditionally made from sheep or goat milk; if you can get your hands on either, you’ll get the best flavor. But even homemade cow’s milk feta tastes better than many of the most readily available commercial types.
Learn to make Dry-Salted Feta and Warm Quinoa and Feta Salad

Sour Cream

On April 17, 2018March 31, 2022 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Baking, Fermenting, IngredientLeave a comment

You easily get the best flavor from the fewest ingredients by making sour cream at home. Get homemade sour cream and cookie recipes at TwiceasTasty.com. Sour cream is one of my guilty food pleasures. I eat it regularly, sometimes daily. I eat it at breakfast with crepes and baked into Sour Cream Scones with Tart Cherries. It goes in creamy dressings for potato and other salads. It’s the base for dips and midday snacks. I put sour cream on baked potatoes, tacos, and empanadas. And I use it in desserts, including cookies.

I call sour cream a “guilty pleasure” because it can be high in calories and fat. Most commercial reduced-fat and nonfat versions are primarily whey, modified food/corn starch, salts, stabilizers, and artificial gums—not a good alternative. So if I’m buying sour cream, I read the labels closely and buy full-fat versions that only list “cultured cream” or something similar as the ingredient. But you can easily get the best flavor from the fewest ingredients by making sour cream at home.
Learn to make Fresh Sour Cream and Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies

Buttermilk

On April 10, 2018December 1, 2019 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Baking, Fermenting, Ingredient2 Comments

Cultured dairy is an easy, no-fuss first step to cheesemaking. Get buttermilk recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
When I started sharing cheese and homemade dairy recipes and teaching workshops on making cheese last year, you learned how to use a simple starter to make yogurt and an acidic kitchen staple to make cheese. But to expand the range of dairy products and cheeses you make in your kitchen, you’ll need to become familiar with powdered starter.

These magical little packets of bacterial cultures do the same thing as yogurt and lemon juice: they acidify, or ripen, warm milk, letting the good bacteria grow. But the beauty of them is in their specificity. Each starter culture has particular strains of bacteria that create different flavors and textures from the same milk. The range of available cultures is impressive, and I recommend reading about them in Mary Karlin’s and Gianaclis Caldwell’s books to really understand how they work. Here, I’ll give a quick intro that will let you make and use cultured buttermilk.
Learn to make Cultured Buttermilk and Honey–Chili Buttermilk Biscuits

Making Better Yogurt and Cheese

On April 3, 2018December 1, 2019 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Fermenting, TopicLeave a comment

Making new styles of cheese has taught me a few tricks that apply to my homemade standards. Learn about making better yogurt and cheese at TwiceasTasty.com.
Each April, the recipes on Twice as Tasty focus on making cheese and other dairy products at home. Between the information on the blog and the workshops I’ve been teaching to everyone from adults to kids, the pool of home cheesemakers has been growing steadily all year.

As I wrote last year, yogurt was my first homemade dairy product. It’s still the milk-based product I make most often, partly because it’s so easy and partly because it’s so versatile that I eat it all the time. This also means I’m constantly finding new ways to improve my yogurt-making skills.

I’ve also been playing with variations on acid-based cheeses and delving into new cheese styles and dairy products. Some of these will be the focus of blog posts in the coming month. But these styles have also taught me a few tricks that apply to my homemade standards. So before I offer you new recipes, here are some things I’ve learned in the past year about making yogurt and cheese.
Read more about making better yogurt and cheese

Cheesy Baked Pasta

On March 27, 2018December 1, 2019 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Topic, UsingLeave a comment

Although my comfort food list includes a lot of nontraditional dishes, like crepes and Hot and Sour Soup, I’m a sucker for homemade mac and cheese. It was a household standard when I was growing up. As little girls, my sister and I sometimes begged for forbidden junk foods, but we were always willing to go homemade when it came to Mom’s baked macaroni. I’d take leftovers to school to eat cold for lunch, not caring what my friends thought. It was that good.

Over the years, I’ve come to love other flavors in my baked noodles: the bite of garlic and dry mustard, a burst of flavor from cherry tomatoes and basil, and always extra-sharp Cheddar. Since I started making cheese, it’s been my preferred way to use whey. But my mom’s original version is perfect for introducing kids—and adults—who’ve only had boxed macaroni & cheese to the real deal.
Learn to make Childhood and Tomato–Basil Mac and Cheese

Feel-Good Soup

On March 20, 2018December 1, 2019 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Freezing, Topic, Using2 Comments

Soup is the ultimate comfort food. It warms you from head to toe, even reaching fingertips wrapped around a warm bowl or mug. It can be pleasantly light or satisfyingly filling. You can load it with your favorite ingredients and flavors, and it makes brilliant leftovers. What’s not to love about homemade soup?

Some days, the answer is, “That I have to make it.” When you’re sick, soup can make you feel better, but not if you have to get out of bed, gather and chop the ingredients, and monitor the pot. When I’ve got a bug, I crave hot and sour soup. But one of my favorite recipes, Padma Lakshmi’s Hot and Sour Tomato Broth with Shrimp from Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet, requires specialty ingredients and effort. So I’ve developed a version can be frozen as a broth base. The essential work can happen long before you want the soup. When you’re under the weather, you can simply defrost and mix it into homemade stock. On healthy days, you can fill it out to create a full meal for everyone at the table.
Learn to make Hot and Sour Broth Base and Soup

Hot Cereals

On March 13, 2018December 1, 2019 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Refrigerating, Topic, UsingLeave a comment

I never was a cornflake girl, and as a kid I wasn’t a hot cereal girl. I blame my dad: To this day, he calls his porridge “mush.” (If you want to get little girls excited about eating hot breakfast cereal, I highly suggest a different name.) Beyond the name, I disliked the taste and texture—or rather, the lack of both. Dad’s porridge was always bland oats or wheat, ground finely enough or cooked long enough that “mush” was an appropriate title.

It wasn’t until I lived in St. Petersburg, Russia, that hot breakfast cereals became comfort food. Part of it was stepping off the train in early January into –23°F—weather that will make anyone eat anything hot. But mostly it was because Russians know how to make simple porridge taste good. It starts with a mix of grains, improving both flavor and texture. Adding butter to the saucepan before the grains lets them toast slightly. I then take the un-Russian step of adding spices.
Learn to make Russian Kasha and Pearl Barley Cereal with Honeyed Nuts

Comfort Foods

On March 6, 2018December 1, 2019 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Topic, Using5 Comments

Instead of satisfying, comfort foods might make us feel guilty or even queasy. Learn how to change that at TwiceasTasty.com.
We all have comfort foods—dishes we grew up with, meals based around favorite flavors, recipes that are filling and satisfying. Merriam-Webster defines comfort food as “food that is satisfying because it is prepared in a simple or traditional way and reminds you of home, family, or friends.” Oxford Dictionaries gives a more specific definition: “Food that provides consolation or a feeling of well-being, typically having a high sugar or carbohydrate content and associated with childhood or home cooking.”

The “high sugar or carbohydrate content” bit is unfortunate but all too common. It also seems to be the antithesis of comforting: Instead of being enjoyable, high-calorie meals and snacks can make us feel guilty or even queasy after the thrill of the initial bite. Many traditional comfort foods are now mass produced, giving only a faded memory of the family table. So I prefer to focus on the other defining element of comfort food: simple home cooking.
Read more about simple, homemade comfort foods