A weekend of DIY

Smoked Turkey Chili
The cold weather meant I stayed indoors most of the weekend and cooked. I made a big batch of turkey chili -- eating some of it last night for dinner and freezing the rest. I got two free turkeys at Thanksgiving which I broke down; froze the parts in bags and made stock with the carcasses. I smoked the turkey legs this week, pulled the meat, rehydrated/cooked the beans and then combined it all on Sunday. Yum. I am eating it for lunch today, too.

Bread
My new job means a whole new world. Filled with yeast. I couldn't do anything yeast-related before since yeast spores travel easily and can ruin a month of experiments in the lab. But now, the lab days are over and my days making bread (and soon-to-be beer) are just beginning. I got The Bread Baker's Apprentice from Ken's folks for Christmas and have been happily reading it nightly and trying the different formulas. Fermented dough. Sicilian bread. Baguettes. Boules. Whole wheat rustic loaves. I am having a marvelous time. I'm not very good at it (yet), but I am loving it. I made 4 loaves this weekend and have some dough in the fridge to bake off tonight.

Cheese
I made my second batch of queso blanco on Saturday. I cooked the curds and allowed them to coagulate longer this time. The texture seemed a lot better. I am excited.

Homemade Bitters
I love Angostura bitters. Love them. So, when I found the Last Crumb's blog on making homemade bitters, I had to try it. I bought a bottle of rye and started infusing this weekend. I am trying a quarter batch of the House Bitters and the Cherry Vanilla bitters. Recipes can be found here. They smell wonderful so far.


Homemade Tuaca
Made a new batch this weekend since we finished the last two bottles. I use the same recipe that I posted before, but I've stopped adding sugar since it gets too sweet for some drinks. Can always add it later to taste. I have learned that I like the homemade (unsweetened) tuaca in Old Fashioneds. Delicious.

Birch Beer
Birch beer is my favorite. Especially old school, Pennsylvania Dutch birch beer. It is hard to find in Oregon, so I looked up some recipes to make the extract myself. Everything from steeping the bark for 10 minutes in boiling water to fermenting the birch bark with fresh sap, honey and a yeast-soaked piece of rye bread. Hmmm. I settled on the overnight soak. The first 30-120 minutes smelled divine. 3 days later, it smells like the woods. The wintergreen aroma is completely overwhelmed by the smell of bark and dirt. This was not my favorite project from this weekend.

Homemade Tonic Water
This is a project in the works. A Portland bartender makes his own and published the recipe last year. This inspired another Portland blogger to try it himself. Hilarity ensued. But Kevin Ludwig, the bartender who is opening Beaker and Flask in June, insists it isn't hard. So I'm going to try my hand at it and ordered 4 ounces of chinchona powder (aka quinine) from the herb store 5 blocks from my house. I'll keep you posted on how this goes. I'd love to figure it out in time for the summer. And Kevin says you can freeze the extract once it's made.