Big day in the kitchen.

Doing: Picking zucchini, cucumbers and silverbeet. Finding my first teeny tiny eggplant growing (excuse the blurry pic!).

Discovering the last of my bean seedlings has been bitten clean off by pest unknown. *Sigh*

Making: ...Zucchini pickles. This is my first batch, I've never made them before, and I have three different recipes to try. This is recipe #2, and it smelt pretty good! After I try all three I'll post my favourite recipe :-)

...Bread and butter cucumbers. Again my first effort at pickling cukes! I'm not a big pickle fan, but they smelt good enough to eat ;-)

...Red Onion jam. Mmmmmm. So I don't have to keep caramalising the onions every time I want them for a pizza.

...30-minute mozzarella. This time I used all organic non-homogenised milk, but I had the same problem as last time, in that it didn't set very hard? I kneaded it heaps more this time, and it was very stretchy at the end, but wouldn't stay in nice little balls. Perhaps this is a feature of the quick mozzarella rather than the traditional recipe? Still tastes really good though, so not a loss in that department.

...Failing once again to make ricotta :-( I have no idea what I did, or didn't do this time. I used fresh whey, straight after making the mozzarella and followed the directions to the letter, but the curds didn't come together properly again. I am wondering if perhaps the organic milk I used is too highly pasteurised which is affecting the quality of the cheese?? Next time I will use conventional milk I think and see if that makes a difference?

Dinner: Homemade pizza.

Reading: Home Cheesemaking, Neil and Carole Willman.

Contemplating: Making wholemilk ricotta rather than using whey.