I wanted to make everyone cog for breakfast this morning. I figured it would be an easy, tasty way to start the day and a good use of the fresh strawberries and blackberries that we had in the fridge.

Unfortunately, neither Reiver nor I had realized that there was no sweetened condensed milk in the pantry. This left me a little flummoxed. I didn't really want to go out to the shops to try to get some at 7am, but I also didn't really have any good alternatives for breakfast. Luckily, we did have lots of sugar in the pantry. And milk in the fridge. So I figured that maybe I'd just try my hand at making the sweetened condensed milk from scratch. And, honestly, it worked out pretty well!

Mine didn't come out quite as thick and syrupy as the stuff you get in the can. I suspect largely due to the fact that I was using low-fat rather than full-fat milk. It still did a nice job of sweetening the cog though and the exact consistency is not important for that, so I'm happy.

Sweetened Condensed Milk

From Bigger Bolder Baking

Ingredients

• 2 c. milk
• 2/3 c. sugar

Directions

1. Combine the milk and sugar and cook, stirring, over medium-low heat until sugar has dissolved.
2. From this point on, do not stir. Continue to simmer gently (adjusting temperature as necessary) until mixture is reduced to ~1 c. and darkened slightly.
3. Transfer to a jar and store in the fridge until ready to use.

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Variants

Non-Dairy Sweetened Condensed Milk

• 2 c. oat milk (or other non-dairy milk of your choice)
• 2/3 c. sugar

Khoya (Milk Solids)

Khoya isn't particularly difficult to make. It's just time-consuming. It requires boiling down milk until most of the liquid is gone and you're left with a doughy mass of milk solids. And you have to keep stirring it lest it stick or scortch. This means that, on the rare occasions that I use khoya in my cooking, I normally buy ready-made bricks of it from the Indian grocery rather than making my own. This week, however, I wanted to throw together a last-minute curry and decided that the long cooking was preferrable to having to run out to the store. (It also meant that I could easily make it lactose-free for TF.)

Khoya

From 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer

Ingredients

• 2 c. whole (3.25%) milk

Directions

1. Bring the milk to a boil and cook, uncovered, stirring frequently, until very thick (~30 minutes). Lumps may form, but if you stir well, they should soften and mix back in to form a smooth mass.
2. Once the mixture is molasses-thick, reduce heat very slightly and continue cooking and stirring for another 5 minutes or so, then remove from heat and allow to cool.
3. 2 c. of milk should produce ~1/4 c. of khoya. It can be stored in the fridge for up to a week before use.

I don't normally use sourdough starter or vinegar in my pastry. I just cut some butter into a bit of flour and then stir in cold water until it comes together. Then it's just a matter of chilling and rolling it out.

Very occasionally I'll make a sweet shortcrust with a bit of sugar and maybe some egg yolk in it. But most of the time I find the regular, flour-butter-water version works just fine.

This weekend though, I was staring at some very hungry sourdough starter and figured, "why not give sourdough pastry a try?" I've seen various recipes floating around, but I never bothered to take particular note of any of them since I wasn't really interested in sourdough pastry. I was in a hurry, so I just Googled "sourdough pie crust" and rolled with the first recipe I found. It calld for a small amount of vinegar in addition to the sourdough discard, but my starter was already very hungry and smelling pretty acidic, so I just used it + a bit of water and didn't bother with the vinegar. I didn't add the salt either. I don't generally find it necessary for pie crusts. I did add the small amount of sugar called for in the recipe though. I thought it might be necessary to help offset the tang of the starter.

I found the final result slightly more bready than my usual pastry, but it was pretty good overall. I would definitely use this recipe again. Especially if I was looking to use up starter! It worked out great.

Sourdough Pie Crust

Slightly adapted from Little Spoon Farm

Ingredients

• 125g all-purpose flour¹
• 1/2 tsp. sugar
• 113g unsalted butter, cold
• 125g sourdough discard
• 1-4 tsp. ice water²

Directions

1. Combine the flour and sugar.
2. Cut the butter into the flour.
3. Stir in the discard and 1 tsp. of water (or vinegar).
4. If the dough is still too dry to come together, add more water 1 tsp. at a time until the dough forms.
5. Shape into a ball or disc, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for at least 30 minutes or as long as 3 days.
6. When ready to bake, roll dough out on a well-floured surface, line your pie plate/baking dish, and then chill again before filling or blind baking.

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¹ The recipe called for all-purpose flour and that's what I used, but I'd be tempted to try it with soft (pastry/plain/standard) flour next time just to see how it goes. ^Back
2 If your starter is not very acidic, then you can replace 1 tsp. of water with a tsp. of vinegar to compensate. That said, I don't think this is hugely necessary. I've always been happy with my pastry results without any acidic ingredients. ^Back

Okay, so... this isn't going to be much of a recipe. I was preparing things in a bit of a hurry and I didn't really do a great job measuring things or keeping track of what I was doing. I based the seasoning proportions on an Italian Sausage recipe that I found online, but I wasn't following his instructions at all and I didn't have the same type or amount of meat. I basically just mixed up the seasoning blend and then cooked up some ground pork, adding the other "wet" components from the recipe while it cooked along with enough of the spices to make it tasty. The problem is that I'm not sure how much pork I started with and I didn't measure to see how much of the spice blend I ended up using. So this is one of those "keep adding until it's tasty" situations. Oh well... if nothing else, this should give a general idea of what works well for seasoning sausages.

Italian Sausage

Adapted from Billy Parisi

Ingredients

All ingredients are listed in parts by volume.

• 16 parts coarse sea salt¹
• 12 parts fennel seeds
• 12 parts coriander seeds
• 12 parts sugar
• 6 parts dried basil
• 6 parts dried oregano
• 6 parts black peppercorns
• 6 parts sweet paprika
• 2 parts red pepper flakes
• 1 part ground nutmeg
• 2-4 cloves of garlic per kilo of meat, minced²
• 2-3 Tbsp. fresh minced flat-leaf parsley per kilo of meat³
• 3-4 Tbsp. white wine per kilo of meat
• ground meat (preferably pork or a mix of pork and chicken)

Directions

1. Combine all the dry ingredients -- salt, fennel, coriander, sugar, basil, oregano, peppercorns, paprika, pepper flakes, and nutmeg and also garlic powder (if using) -- and grind in a spice grinder.
2. If you're making actual sausage links, you'll want to prepare your meat at this point: grind it if it's not already ground, get your sausage casings ready, etc.
3. Mix the wet ingredients into the meat: garlic (if using fresh), parsley, and wine.
4. Sprinkle in some of the spice mix, adding it bit-by-bit until the meat seems to be well-seasoned. (I go largely by smell for this.) If you're not sure on the seasoning, cook a bit of the meat up and taste it. Start when you think it's a bit underseasoned so that you can test as you go and don't overshoot.
5. Once the seasonings are good, you can do the actual sausage stuffing. I didn't do that, so I won't go into details here. Check the link if you'd like detailed instructions on how to make sausage links.
6. Cook and enjoy!

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¹ The original recipe called for 18 parts salt. I reduced it to 16 parts, but I think that even less would've been fine. I might try it with 14 parts next time and see how it goes. ^Back
2 I think I ended up using ~1 Tbsp. of garlic paste in place of the fresh garlic for my sausage. That is largely unhelpful though as I'm not sure how much meat I had. I think I was working with ~450g, but I didn't weigh it before I started. I think that garlic powder (the granulated kind, not the floury kind) would also be acceptable. In that case, I'd mix the garlic powder in with the rest of the spices and start with 6 parts garlic. ^Back
3 I discovered at the last minute that I was out of parsley, so I ended up using a lesser amount of cilantro instead. This worked fine, but I would've preferred parsley. ^Back

You can get ready-made tostadas, but they're normally deep fried and have salt added. They are quite tasty. But if you're trying to be health-conscious, sometimes it's preferable to make your own.

Baked Tostadas

Slightly adapted from Cook's Country December/January 2018

Ingredients

• 6 corn tortillas (15cm size works well for this)
• olive oil spray

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 230°C (450°F).¹
2. Spritz each tortilla lightly with oil on both sides and brush to spread it over the whole surface.
3. Place the tortillas on a baking sheet in a single layer and place an inverted baking/cooling rack on top of them to help keep them flat and stop them from puffing up too much in the oven.
4. Bake at 230°C (450°F) for 8-10 minutes.
5. Remove from oven and top as desired.

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¹ I actually absent-mindedly used the convection setting on my oven, so I baked mine at 220°C (425°F) fan/convection instead. It seems to have worked out fine. It's basically equivalent to air-frying them. ^Back

Made this so we could make deconstructed enchiladas. Not much to say about it.

Enchilada Sauce

Cookie and Kate

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp flour
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• 1 tsp cumin, ground
• ½ tsp garlic powder
• ¼ tsp dried oregano
• ⅛ tsp salt
• pinch of cinnamon
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• 2 C broth
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• ½ tsp fresh black pepper, ground

Directions

1. Mix together flour, chili powder, cumin, garlic, oregano, salt, and cinnamon in a small bowl.
2. Heat oil in a small pot over medium-high heat until a pinch of the flour mix sizzles when dropped into it.
3. Whisk in flour mix and cook, whisking constantly, until slightly darkened, ~1 minute.
4. Whisk in tomato paste. It will clump.
5. Add broth and whisk to de-clump it.
6. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer gently, whisking often, until sauce thickens.
7. Remove from heat and stir in vinegar and black pepper.