Cheese!

The rain that has been falling relentlessly let up today after church!  My friend Pam called me yesterday in a desperate state.  Her girls were suffering from some serious cabin fever.  She suggested a social after Sunday School so the kids could run off some of their energy in the gym at church.  Well the minute we got done playing in the  gym, the sun came out!  I was able to play out in my garden today.  I planted a package and a half of green beans, some leeks, and some cumin.  I ran out of room in the raised beds and planted some green beans right next to the house just outside of the back door.  I've done it again this year.  Planted way too many things.  I hope we continue to get just the right amount of rain so I don't have to use supplemental water too often.

So virtual friend, I must tell you of the coolest self-sufficient thing I've done in a really long time.  I made CHEESE!  Any of you who know me know that I could live on cheese alone.  It is pretty much my favorite food of all time.  Husband and I went to Austin Homebrew Supply

www.austinhomebrew.com

Friday morning to find out what else we needed to be able to brew our own beer.  Brother-in-law jumped on the wagon and gave us all of his homebrew stuff several months ago.  It has been hibernating in the attic ever since.  Since we went there without knowing what we already had, the guy there suggested taking an inventory of what we had before returning to purchase the rest of the needed supplies.  While we were in the store I noticed that they had cheese making kits for not a whole lot of money.  I purchased a 4 batch mozzarella kit for $4.99.  The guy said that raw milk would work best so we drove all the way to my favorite Dairy in the whole world

www.dyerdairy.com

to get our precious raw milk.  When we got home, I watched the youtube video produced by AHS and noticed that they used HEB milk.  So instead of using an $8 gallon of milk for my first cheese making attempt, I used HEB milk.  The process was incredibly easy.  Kid #2 helped.

First you heat the milk to 55 degrees.  Add calcium chloride and citric acid.  Heat to 88 degrees.  Add the rennet.  Then it looked like this.  Curds and whey!  

 Heat it to 104 then take it off the heat and let it sit for 20 minutes.  Squeeze as much whey out of the curds then microwave for a minute.  Drain the whey then fold and press the cheese until it reaches the desired consistency.  The whole process took about 45 minutes.

Delicious!  Now if I can only figure out what to do with the 3 quarts of whey I have left over...

Tonight for dinner we had a cornucopia from the garden and freezer.  Kid #1 made his famous sausage/carrot/herb/greens stir fry.  I finally pulled up some of the fennel from the herb garden and made caramelized fennel bulb and onions.  And I tried to make cilantro lime rice but next time I need to make a few changes.  1.  Use limes, not lemon juice.  2.  Measure the lemon (lime) juice instead of accidentally pouring way too much in there.  3.  Use white rice not brown.  We also had some of the sauerkraut I just got done fermenting.

I need to ferment it longer next time and make sure it has enough liquid.  But it wasn't bad for my first try.  It tasted so much better than the stuff you get at the store.  But doesn't everything homemade?

And today's highlights:  We saw a monarch!  Spring is here.  And Kid #1 brought a whole bag of wild onions back from the duck pond.  He loves to forage.