Rosemary Castille Soap (by Kat)

Alright, I've pretty much given up on my first batch of soap. The dendrochro-soap still site on my desk, but I'm ignoring it. I don't know, for instance, that the centers are still squishy, the outsides are crumbly, and that the bars lost their citrus fragrance and instead smell kinda like supermarket birthday cake frosting. I don't know none of that, ya' hear?

So, it was a leap of faith last night when I decided to do another batch of soap. I knew that my second batch would be a castile soap--I'm drawn to the simplicity of the recipe, the hardness of the soaps, and the gentle nature of the finished product. True Castile soap only comes from the Castile region in what is now Spain, and is made from 100% olive oil. Today, the term castile seems to apply to ANY soap with olive oil in it, no matter how small the percentage of the total fats the olive oil comprises. I've even heard Palm-Olive referred to as a castile soap, even though it's no longer manufactured with palm and olive oils, nor is it even a true soap any more, but rather a detergent.

Tangentville, there, eh? I'm still working on mu first cup of coffee...

My biggest concern about making a castile soap was the length of the cure--several weeks to a few months longer than typical soap recipes. But you know what? The time I spent worrying about that was time that the cure would take. Yeah. Duh. So, last night I jumped in.

This recipe, like the last, comes from Little House in the Suburbs. I cut the recipe in half, which can be iffy in the world of soap making, but I couldn't' bring myself to commit to such a large batch. Because soap relies on extremely careful measurement, a smaller batch will be more significantly effected by a miscalculation than a large batch will. I deal with this in my lab at work as well, and have page after page in my lab's procedural notebook describing remediation for this problem. We don't need that detail here, but just realize that bigger batches are safer and smaller batches are more fragile.

Instead of heating the fats on the stove, I simply stuck my large bowl of olive oil in the microwave. A few minutes was all it took to bring the temperature up to about 100 degrees F. I'm not going to tell you how much of the warm oil I spilled on the floor. And really, don't handle lye with an oily floor underfoot...

So, after mixing the warmed oil and lye (bringing to trace), adding a few drops of rosemary essential oil, and slipping around a bit on the floor (oh right, I'm not mentioning that), I poured the mess into my very fancy soap mold--a converse shoebox lined with plastic wrap! Wrapped up in towels for insulation, the baby soap slept in its cradle overnight on the kitchen counter...


...until I unceremoniously dumped it on its head this morning and sliced it up. I'm cruel before coffee.


And here they are--18 bars of olive oil rosemary soap. They smell so tasty, and I can't wait for them to grace my kitchen sink.

Italian dinner (by Kat)

When someone mentions Italian food, do you think of tomatoes and mozzarella?

I do. But I should know better. My favorite Italian food has neither. And as much as I love making and eating cheese, I stand by my comment.

Tonight's dinner was broiled lamb ribs, olive oil rolls, and red potatoes from the garden.

I don't make olive oil rolls very frequently because I can't stop eating them. It's an addiction stronger than fudge, or caramel, or even cheeeeeese.

The rolls come from this book, "The Italian Farmhouse Cookbook" by Susan Herrmann Loomis.

I just noticed that I've talked about two cookbooks on our little website so far, and both books have bright cheery orange covers. Hmmmm. Do I judge cookbooks by their cover? Am I that shallow?



My favorite recipe from this book, by far, is for olive oil rolls. So it's fortuitous that they're sooooo easy to make!

In a bowl, whisk together 1 1/3 cups of warm water, 2 teaspoons yeast,
1/2 cup olive oil, and 1 tablespoon salt.
Add flour, about one cup at a time, for an approximate total of 4 1/2 cups of flour.

Stir as much of the four in as you can, and then plop it onto your counter
and knead briefly, about 4 minutes.

Ta-da!

While the bread dough rises, open your package of lamb ribs.
Mine was about 2 pounds.

Inspect the meat, cutting off any excess fat, and rinsing the meat
if that's the kind of thing you do.

I don't bother.

Gather some fresh rosemary from the garden, or dried rosemary
if you have that instead.
Grind the salt and rosemary in the mortar with the pestle until fine.

Next, coat the ribs with olive oil, and sprinkle liberally
with the salt and rosemary.
Check out this garlic from the farmers' market.
Pretty!
Mash it up, and rub that onto the meat as well.

See the salt crystals, the rosemary needles, and the garlic?
To me, it looks like candy.
This is true food porn!

Ok, let the meat sit on the counter and do it's thing while you go back to work on the bread.

When the bread dough has doubled in size, punch it down and let it rest for a few minutes on the counter. Tear off about an ounce at a time and roll into a snake.

Roll one end of the snake toward you, the other away from you, and then pick up the ends and move toward each other.

The dough will twist into a cute little spiral. Pinch the ends, and place on a sil-pat or parchment paper-lined cookie sheet to rise.

Bake at 350F for 25 minutes. Don't let them get too brown, just a teensy bit tan.

As soon as you remove them from the oven, brush with a little olive oil and sprinkle with coarse salt.

Can you handle a close-up shot?

Are you drooling? I am, and I already ate about a dozen of these guys!

When the bread comes out, crank the oven up to broil.
See the salt crystals on the meat below?
Nope! They've been dissolved and absorbed.
The rosemary still sits on the surface, as does the garlic, but their
flavor has infused the ribs throughout.
See how juicy that meat is now?

So, when the broiler has come up to temperature,
put the ribs in the oven and watch closely.
Test the rolls to make sure you've put on *just* the right amount of salt.
Flip the ribs over after 10 minutes, and wait for the other side to crackle and crisp.
Test a few more rolls for texture, for flavor, or for whatever you reason you can think of.

Done!

We ate our ribs and (more) rolls with fresh new red potatoes from the garden. This is a very traditional northern Italian meal, and perfect for a cold almost-winter dinner.

Excuse me now while I go eat another half-dozen rolls!