A recent trip to Mountain Fresh Creamery gave me a chance to pick up a half-gallon of their wonderful milk. The milk has been pasteurized but not homogenized. Little bits of fat cling around the rim; a brief shake redistributes the fat. I decided to try a few things, the first being hot chocolate. This milk is rich and smooth; the fat makes a great complement to the chocolate.
My next stop was oatmeal. A bowl of oatmeal boiled in milk is much tastier than one made with water, even if you add milk or cream after the fact. Slow and low cooking gave me an outstanding bowl of oatmeal and very simple cleanup.
I made candied ginger a few years ago. It's not something I would do every day but I had a lot of fun doing it. I recently acquired a pressure cooker and it inspired an interesting idea to me: why not make candied ginger in the pressure cooker? It should be very soft and flavorful. Here is the result. I peeled two large ginger roots, cut them into small cubes, and put them in the pressure cooker with heavily sugared water. The traditional method first boils the ginger in plain water to soften it and then again in sugar water to candy it. The resulting candy was very tender but still with the characteristic ginger texture. It was also sweet without being overpowering. The traditional method leaves a lot of sugar crystallized around the ginger. The pressure cooker gives a much more subtle result. The ginger stays moist even after it cools but you can dry it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. That inspired me to dip it in chocolate. While I was in the b...


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