Tag: cheese

homesteading, in the kitchen

Elsewhere…

 

There was a spell a few years back where I got into cheese-making. There were several batches of mozzarella, mascarpone and cream cheese, and a gouda, a Monterey Jack , and a traditional cheddar. Equipment was acquired, including a small fridge that is supposed to pretend it’s a cave. I didn’t make cheese at all last year. I still make yogurt once or twice a month, but that’s about it. It’s not that cheese is difficult to make, exactly, but it is time-consuming. The hard cheeses didn’t quite come out the way I wanted, probably due to cheese’s sensitivity to …

homesteading, Introspection

Why I Do It

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Three cheers for all the urban homesteading bloggers more dedicated to the lifestyle than I. I’m so very grateful for their posts about their challenges: the bugs, the rats, the lice on the goats, the chickens with infected feet. I might sigh over fresh eggs or get starry eyed over fresh goat milk, but then I find pictures like this one and I’m suddenly a lot less romantic about backyard livestock. I just don’t think I’m cut out for the go-to veterinary stuff that goes with having lots of animals. Heck, I can’t even clean out the trap full of …

homesteading, in the kitchen, Seasons
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Back in the spring, I spent a Saturday making Traditional Cheddar. Apparently, I didn’t document the experience, and I don’t seem to have a clear memory about it. It took all day, but most hard cheeses do. Six months later, I opened it up for tacos last week and discovered My Best Hard Cheese Yet. The other cheeses, the gouda, the jack, the colby – they each came out ok, if harder and drier and sharper than expected. But the cheddar Actually Tastes Like Cheddar! I’m rather pleased about that. So the plan for next spring is to make as …

in the kitchen
 

I opened up one of the half-rounds of the Monterey Jack cheese I made in March. It doesn’t taste anything like Monterey Jack cheese. It’s not bad, just dry and crumbly and on the extra-sharp side. And it’s only been aging a month. I don’t know if I over-heated, or heated too fast, or over-handled the curds. It could also be the effect of letting it sit in the press three extra hours, but I doubt it. I seem to remember thinking that it was pretty dry when it went into the press. Also, there was some mold on the …

homesteading, in the kitchen
 

Today’s results: yogurt, Irish potato brown bread, an almost-spanikopita (to be completed tomorrow), and Monterey Jack cheese. We should have made this cheese for our first hard cheese instead of the gouda we made last November. This was easy, if hugely time consuming. There’s a lot of waiting that happens in cheese-making. Bring the milk to temperature, add something, wait, repeat. Cut curds, wait, repeat. Curds and whey. Drained and salted curds. We got 6 quarts and 3 pints of whey out of this. (Local people: want some?) And this is where it’s at right now, pressing at 10 lbs, …

homesteading
 

We opened up the first cheese last night. A gouda. Not quite two months old. It tastes like cheese, and although it’s not quite like gouda, it’s surprisingly yummy. It’s soft and creamy still in the center, which makes it hard to plane for sandwiches. If I’d left it to age for another month or so, perhaps that would be different. But, it’s HOMEMADE CHEESE! Save