Cheesy Pictures

I normally wouldn't take up two days' worth of posts for one subject, but we got such cool pictures that I had to share them.  And I'm still completely amazed at how easy the whole project was.

We started off by breaking down two heads of garlic into individual cloves...

Then it was a family effort to peel all of the cloves...

Asset ended up chewing on her clove, so we left that one out of this beautiful bowl...

RockCrawlinChef put them in a pan of vegetable oil and set them on the stove to simmer and roast...

We opened our big block of curd...

Got our ice bath ready for the completed bococini (also very handy for cooling off burning hands - the gloves only protect from so much heat)...

We broke down the curd from the big block to little manageable curd and mixed in some coarse salt...

Added some hot water and began working the curds...

And if, say Nebalee GunDiva someone was to screw up, it was easy enough to pull the curd out of the hot water, pack it onto a plate, strain the water and have another go at it...

A quick check on the roasting garlic...

Finally, the curd begins to cook in the scalding water (along with our fingers) and becomes workable cheese...

Pulling the cheese is a lot like pulling taffy...

A small bit of cheese is squeezed and twisted off of the cheese to form the bococini...

And then it's immediately dumped in the ice bath to help firm it up...



Our not-so-perfectly-round bococinis all nestled in a zip-lock to await their final packaging...

The garlic's all roasted and ready to be strained...



We poured the oil, sans garlic, back into the jug with the other oil so the flavor could infuse throughout and let it sit for a few hours.  The cheese got packed in water in the fridge to chill and finish firming up.

To package them as gifts, I put three in each jar...



Added the roasted garlic and thyme...



And a pinch of red pepper flakes...

Added the garlic-infused oil...

Capped them and voila! Christmas gifts for my co-workers...