Cooking With Ideas

Lively Run OR Cheesy Adventures Again

 

For years, we have been driving past signs that said Lively Run and buying Lively Run cheese various places. For years, we have been saying, let's stop by Lively Run. And, we finally did, as you can see above. 

It was a blast. 

First, we saw horses, goats and a rooster. The goats were a hoot, and loved seeing a dog. The rooster, not so much - and he eventually aggressively flew at the dog. We exited quietly! And, as a side note, there were kids. Somehow goats seem to be trendy right now - and frankly, I don't get the notion of goat yoga (which Lively Run does do) but I can buy that goats are cute. 

Second, we went to the store - and purchased two cheese tastings for $6 each. Wow was it worth it - because each of us got 6 or 7 goat cheeses, 6 or 7 cow milk cheeses, rice crackers, a bit of hot pepper jam, a bit of lamb sausage, some local honey, and . . . all on a lovely tray. We tasted while sitting outside at a picnic table - and truly took our time savoring the various tastes, some of which we knew and some of which were new to us.

A few details:

1. I love blue cheese and there is both a lovely goat blue and a lovely cow blue available from Lively Run Neither is harsh and both are relatively creamy, with the cow's milk one edging out the Cayuga Blue slightly for creaminess. 
2. There were several versions of gouda style cheese, aged differently and, in one case, involving beer. All were tasty - and though not my favorites we did buy some because my partner loved them. 
3. We did get a Sheldrake Moon, which is their brie style cheese. I think I would like it a bit better if it were riper, but it holds up well.
4. And, I absolutely love feta. This was the best feta I have had in a long time - right texture, taste and saltiness. I have to go back for more. 

We also bought some salami - uncured pork - from the same company that was represented on the cheese tasting board by the lamb. (I bought the sausage before I tasted the lamb sausage - and avoided the lamb thinking I might not like it. I was wrong!) We got the belgian ale and lemon zest and a mezcal and lime uncured pork. They are from Brooklyn Cured in. . . Brooklyn. 

I did not buy but do recommend the Hedonist Chocolates available at the Farm Store. We have been fans since the days of encountering the folks from Hedonist at farmer's markets. 

For Lively Run's role in the time of COVID, click here or here. And, likely you can imagine, they have won awards - see, for example, here. 

Location: 

8978 County Road 142,
Interlaken, NY 14847
Phone: (607)532-4647

 

Cherry Granita

I have to admit I love granita. I have made it fairly frequently, including rhubarb strawberry (ince and mentioned here) and have, over the years, been a bit stuck on a recipe for blueberry granita (which involves ginger). I love it. But I cannot find any record that I wrote about it here on the blog! How odd? 

In any case, I digress. Here I am writing about cherry granita - an enterprise encouraged by (to be honest) over-buying cherries when they were available around here. I had eliminated anything that was time consuming - as I was just kind of starting to revisit the idea of cooking - and so looked for a cherry granita on line. (Yes, some criticize exclusive devotion to googling recipes, but there are distinct advantages on more than one occasion.) 

The recipe I chose was (a) simple; (b) required few ingredients; and (c) turned out to be delightfully delicious (though that may be mainly about the cherries). 

It came from, to my shame, Martha Stewart. And here it is. I used a food processor rather than a blender (largely because I am never certain our blender will not leak) - and my guess is that my granita was chunkier than some. It tasted great - and I love the feeling of accomplishment when one does the fork thing to stir the granita to the right texture. 

 

 

Cheesy is not Always a Criticism: Cheese Adventures

Somehow, since returning to the Finger Lakes, I have been a cheesy kind of mind. We have driven to a cheese place. (This is the start of a trend initiated by my partner who has been wanting to do this for a very long time.) I ordered and used a cheese making kit, And, all this led to other thoughts. 

The first step in all of this was I had a shopping spasm and ordered a cheesemaking kit from Williams Sonoma. Yep. I bought to have researched and ordered directly from the firm but I did not. I indulged myself and I am glad I did. The kit is from urbancheesecraft and the most critical inclusion for me is the recipe pamphlet. The notion of a kit made me feel more secure - and the recipe pamphlet is very straightforward. 

Challenge #1 was to get the right kind of milk. And we did by going to Jersey Bell Farm in Waterloo, NY - where you pay on an honor system, including a deposit for the jar, and get milk that is 100% grass fed and no hormones or antibiotics are used. And, to be honest, I loved the huge jar the milk came in. And, I felt victorious when I left with the milk!

This same day we wandered off on an adventure which was a trip to nearby Muranda Farms - because we saw the sign and it said 1.6 miles to Muranda Farms. Since we wanted to go to cheese places, well, we just went - together with our dog. And, we truly enjoyed the cheese tasting we did. (Ok, the dog was enthralled by the sight of cows and we were thrilled that she was well enough behaved to be allowed into the tasting room.) We had the tasting of 13 cheeses and then sat on the back porch for a bit staring off into the fields. A reminder of how beautiful the Finger Lakes can be even when the lakes are not the center of your visual field! In any case, we bought three cheese, all of which tasted much better than I have been imagining in my head when I see Muranda cheeses in the store!

What did we get and how did it taste? 

Blue Cheese: soft, not too in your face, flavorful and salty. 

Red Rover: a red pepper hot cheese which turns out to be really swell on corn chips, broiled, which we claim are nachos. 

Farmhouse Parmesan: not quite gourmet but it shreds well, has a distinctive taste and made us happy. 

We used up all the cheese very quickly which was unexpected! 

And, back to the beginning - making cheese. I did it the next day. It turns out a gallon of milk makes about a pound of quest blanco which - also - is the same thing as quest fresco. Basically the issue is heating the milk to the right temperature (190 degrees), adding citric acid and eventually flake salt. The sight of curds and whey was fascinating - especially the color involved (yellow).

Here's what the cheese looks like shredded!

And, what I made was not perfect but certainly tasty cooked into various things including some poblano peppers with corn, chicken and. . . quest blanco. We used up all the cheese fairly quickly (it holds forum to 5 days) and so I felt victorious. 

More on cheesemaking, possibly, later! You never know.