Goat cheese Cheesecake with Apple compote & Cajeta

I'm lucky enough to have friend that raises goats who will trade fresh goat milk for my backyard chicken eggs. I use the milk to make my own chevre (very easy - I just follow the instructions on the culture package I get here), cajeta, ricotta...

This Thanksgiving dessert is rich, not too sweet, and oh so wonderful.

Crust:
9 whole graham crackers
1 cup pecans
2 rounded tablespoons rapadura sugar
6 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Place the graham crackers, pecans and sugar in a food processor and process until finely ground. With the motor running, add the butter through the feed tube and process until the mixture just comes together. Butter the bottom and side of the pan. Pat the mixture evenly into the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan, and bake until lightly golden brown and just set, about 8 minutes.

Filling:
12 oz cream cheese, at room temperature

15 oz chevre, at room temperature
1 cup evaporated cane sugar
4 extra large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 large vanilla bean, seeds scraped
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup heavy cream

Place the cheeses in the bowl of a stand fixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes.  Add the sugar and beat until the sugar is incorporated and the mixture is light and fluffy.  Add the eggs, 1 at a time and mix until just incorporated, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl.  Add the vanilla seeds, vanilla extract, salt and heavy cream and mix until just combined.

Scrape the mixture into the prepared pan.  Place the cake pan in a large roasting pan. Pour hot tap water into the roasting pan until the water is about halfway up the sides of the cheesecake pan; the foil will keep the water from seeping into the cheesecake.  Bake until the sides of the cake are slightly puffed and set and the center still jiggles, about 55 minutes (40 for convection).

Turn the heat off and prop the door open with a wooden spoon and allow the cake to cook in the water bath for 1 hour.  Remove the cake to a baking rack and allow to cool to room temperature for 2 hours.  Cover the cake and refrigerate for at least 4 hours and up to 24 hours until chilled through.

Serve with apple compote, drizzle with the cajeta and sprinkle with the remaining toasted pecans.

Apple Compote:
1 cup apple cider from Smit Farms
1/4 cup rapadura sugar
1 tablespoon butter from Spring Hill
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

6 Smit Farms apples (granny smith, pink lady & fuji), peeled, cored, halved and thinly sliced

Bring cider and sugar to a boil in a large saute pan over high heat and cook until slightly thickened and reduced to 1/2 cup. Stir in the butter until melted. Add the apples, vanilla, and cinnamon and cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly caramelized and just soft.

November in my garden

In San Diego, November is really my month to transition the garden from summer to fall. My tomatoes and passion fruit are still flowering and fruiting.

The chickens are molting and haven't been laying for weeks. Fire season is over (hopefully) and so far it's getting cooler. Will this month be hot or will it start raining? While we don't know yet, here are my gardening plans for this month:

Plan

Visit botanical gardens for ideas and research before planting.

Prep

Sharpen & oil tools.

Compost fallen fruit (or better yet, preserve it before it feeds the rats).
Rake out old mulch & dead leaves around non-native bushes and shrubs. Spread compost, keeping it away from the trunks.

Plant (as long as it's cooled down)
My hugelkultur beds are spent from tomatoes so I'll be sure to rotate in some nitrogen fixers and leafy crops:

artichokes (already came back from last year's plant), asparagus (maybe next year), beets, broccoli (definitely - I had broccoli for 6 months last year), brussels, cabbage, carrots, celery, cilantro, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, peas, potatoes, radish, parsnips, garlic, wildflower seeds, natives, perennial herbs

Fertilize
Feed roses low-nitrogen fertilizer. (I've got a climber here I've been trying to rehab since roses are edible)

Water

Make sure garden receives an inch of rain (or make up the difference – water in morning). I'll also blast my fruit trees with water a couple times this month to help control ants, aphids, white fly & scale.

Prune

Lightly prune rose. Cut back blackberries. Trim back mulberry, guava and pepper tree. Now is the time before the birdies start to build their nests.

Harvest

guavas, passion fruit, pomegranates, calamondins, tomatoes, winter squash, basil, parsley, thyme, chives, lavender, lemon grass, rose geranium leaves

POG juice & passion fruit superbloom

Wow, my passion fruit is prolific! After not getting any fruit the first year I planted it, this summer we hand-pollinated all the flowers, which bloomed all of May and June.

It wasn't too daunting a task as there were only a handful of flowers a day, 12 at the most. We started reaping the bountiful harvest in early August. After a heat wave and then a touch of rain, here we are in early in September, the plant is covered in ripening fruit, and now has 30-50 flowers a day!

Passion fruit is a heavy feeder (I fertilize it every month that it's flowering/fruiting) and drinker (but hey, what am storing this rainwater for?).  It felt like the fruit would never ripen - but of course it did; they fall off the vine when they're ready - how convenient! Thanks, Mother Nature!

Juicing the fruit is pretty easy: cut in half, scoop out the flesh into a mesh stainer, and use a rubber spatula to stir and press the juice out (this process is faster than it sounds).

I planted passion fruit because I wanted to make POG - passion orange guava juice. I use a 1:1:1 ratio of oranges to passion fruit to small guavas. For the guava, I peel and seed the fruit and blend it with the passion and orange juice.

Summer Garden Enchiladas

When corn and tomatoes and summer squash are all in season together - the height of the summer harvest - I make a lot of calabacitas. But when the tomatillos ripen, time for enchiladas!

1/4 red onion, thinly sliced
a few baby summer squash with blossoms, sliced
a cob of sweet corn, kernels sliced off
sunflower oil
sea salt
2 1/2 cups roasted tomatillo-tomato salsa
corn tortillas
1/2 pound jack cheese, grated

Saute the onion in the oil with a bit of salt on medium-high heat until they start to soften, stirring constantly. Add in the squash, again cooking until slightly soft; then add the corn and blossoms and turn off the heat.

In a casserole dish, spread a thin layer (about 1/2 cup) of the sauce. Add a layer of tortillas, then layer all the veggies, then 1/3 of the cheese and another 1/2 cup of sauce. Add another layer of torillas, pour on the rest of the sauce and top with the rest of the cheese. Bake at 350 degrees until the cheese melts, then broil until golden and bubbly.

Serve with black or pinto beans, garnish with avocado, salsa fresca & hot sauce.

Salsa Fresca
Mix together:

several small tomatoes, chopped

1/8 red onion, diced

a handful of cilantro, chopped

a chile of your choice, finely diced

a few pinches of sea salt

a splash of apple cider vinegar

Homegrown Roasted Tomatillo-Tomato Salsa

My first time successfully growing tomatillos! Along with my homegrown tomatoes, garlic and cilantro, it's so satisfying to grow almost all the ingredients in this salsa! Now if I can just get my chile plants to produce...

1 1/2 pounds of tomatillos, peeled
several blue beauty tomatoes
1 large head garlic cloves, peeled
2 poblano chiles from Schaner Farm
1 bunch fresh cilantro, including stems
1/2 tsp sea salt, more or less to taste

Roast tomatillos, tomatoes, garlic and chiles on a baking sheet under a 400 degree broiler until blistered and soft (10-20 minutes), turning chiles as needed. Cool & peel tomatoes and chiles. Transfer to blender, including juice, and add cilantro and salt. Blend to a course puree.

Makes about 4 cups - if this is too much, freeze or can some of the puree for later.

This is a great sauce for enchiladas!

Almond Milk

"The hardest part about being vegan is having to wake up at 5am to milk all the almonds."

There's a lot of basic almond recipes out there and this is the version I make for my spouse. He loves cereal but his tummy can't handle processed dairy milk. And I'm quite happy to help us decrease our dairy intake.

1 cup raw unpasteurized almonds from Terra Bella Farm
spring water
2 1/2 medjool dates (or to taste)
a goodly pinch of sea salt
1/2 inch vanilla bean pod or a teaspoon of vanilla extract

Soak almonds in spring water for 12-24 hours (this makes the milk creamier).

In a blender, add almonds and enough water to measure 4 cups. Add dates and salt. Blend on high for 2 minutes. Strain with cheesecloth, or better yet, a linen napkin (this part takes forever because I want to squeeze all the liquid I can out of the cheesecloth - save that almond paste for other recipes). Scrape vanilla bean seeds into the milk and shake to combine.

Makes about 3 1/2 cups. Lasts about 3 days.

Organic Almond Sauce

Looking for uses for leftover almond meal from making almond milk, I did a little research into recreating a certain farmers market sauce with organic ingredients:

2/3 cup spring water
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2  cup leftover almond meal (real raw almonds from Terra Bella Farm)
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice, from my tree
3 tablespoon nutritional yeast
2 cloves garlic, from Schaner Farm
2 teaspoons bragg liquid aminos
1/2 dried new mexican chile
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon coriander
1/4 teaspoon paprika

Place all ingredients in a quality blender. Slowly blend for one minute, then blend on high for another minute for a smooth and creamy consistency. Store in the refrigerator.

Makes about 2 cups

Great for dippin' raw veggies and tortilla chips, or use 3/4 cup water for a thiner salad dressing.