Farmhouse Cheddar

Well the cheese press came, sat and waited. I needed a stock pot that could hold 2 Gallons of milk, sadly I didn't have one. But after all the searching I have one. Plus it works with my giant pressure canner as a double boiler. WOO HOO! Double boilers are expensive. I digress, yesterday cheese making commenced! I opted on Farm House Cheddar which according to the home cheese making book is a good easy first hard cheese.

All went according to plan, it is a long process of waiting. Add this, let it sit for 45 minutes now add that and let it sit for another 45 minutes. Not too time consuming but definitely have a good book on hand or do something else in the kitchen like.... make tortillas, a whole other post all together.

I only took two pictures of the entire process because I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out. So I have the cheese being pressed and then this morning after it pressed all night.

I promise you it is cheddar. I know it's not orange! They dye cheddar.... ummm cows milk is white. Yeah, I never thought I was ingesting dye either. I was kinda shocked to find that out. I guess as the story goes cows milk has carotene in it which will make it a slightly yellow color. But it mostly depends on how much butterfat is in the milk, so cheese makers of old found they could use inferior butterfat milk add dye to it and charge a higher price for the cheese! HA HA! Us consumer suckers have been duped! I found it highly funny. So my cheese is a creamy white, no dye in that beautiful baby!

Seasoning the Cast Iron Pans

I bought and was gifted two new cast iron pans. One a chicken fryer and the other a dutch oven! How cool is that?! Anyway I have to season them in order to get the "non stick" benefits of the cast iron. If you've never heard the benefits of cast iron here is a great article about it from the New York Times. When properly seasoned they are the original non stick and the heat transfer is unbeatable just to name a few! However they do need some care, not much but just to show you how easy it is I thought I would post about it.



First heat up the oven to between 300-350*. Next put the pan on the stove and heat it up with some high heat oils in it like Safflower or Canola. I actually use Spectrum Shortening, only a teaspoon +/ - a little. I don't measure I just stick my finger in and scoop out a glob. Make sure it coats the whole bottom and the sides, not dripping with oil just well coated. I use my silicone pastry brush and spread the oil around the bottom of the pan and sides. Keep the heat on low/medium, if it starts to smoke it's too hot take it off and wipe out the oil left over and start again. If it smokes you have reached the "volatile" stage for that oil and it won't do your pan any good. I keep the spreading coat up for about 10 minutes. Just long enough for the pan to get warm and the thin oil coat well spread and soaked into the pan. Essentially you are making the pan expand and fill with the oil, thus making it non stick. Ok so that parts done, take that pan off the heat and wipe out any extra oil with a paper towel, toilet paper or whatever. Then place it in the oven cooking side down.



Sorry about that last pic, my camera was having a hard time with the dark pans and dark interior of the oven. Cook it for an hour. Voila done! I have had to get a good season on several of my pans since I bought them used and rather abused. However it is really easy to fix... see above. I have purchased all my pans at a thrift store or an antique store.

Here is a good video for anyone who needs a visual. I am a vegetarian so I didn't use "meat fat" to season my pans. As long as the oil you use is for high heat.



I also don't wash my pans with soap. If they need a little I usually just dip the sponge in the soapy water. But mostly I just use really hot water and a light scrubby brush. The more you scrub and use soap the more you will have to season your pan. So I guess it's up to you how much effort you want to put into it.

Shopping In Bulk

I recently as in earlier this year, discovered the wows of the bulk foods section. I shop at a locally owned store called Huckleberries that gets mostly organic foods and local if it can. I got the idea of having my containers weighed from It's Easy Being Green by Crissy Trask. So I took my containers in with a bit of masking tape on top to have them weighed. To get an accurate measurement the containers must be clean and empty! Otherwise you will be paying for the weight of the container you bring in. I store my organic almonds in a glass sealed jar that is REALLY heavy. I of course don't want to pay each time for the weight of the container. Thus bringing it in empty. Now the first time I did this I had bowls and Tupperware's all on the counter at home, of dried fruits, oats, flour etc. that lined the bottom of the container. It does take some planing in order to have the empty container weighed. But it's worth it!

On the pictures that follow, the .63T is the tare or weight of the container. At the checkout the cashier weights the entire thing and then subtracts the tare from the total weight. In this picture is my containers for maple syrup, olive oil, oats, mung beans, rolled oats, almonds, walnuts, 2 kinds of Dr. Bronners, brown bag for mushrooms (used many many times). Containers not pictured: tofu, Braggs amino acids, raisins, blue berries, navy beans, black beans, flax seeds.... ok ok you get the idea.


















Now some shots of the Huckleberries bulk foods section itself.


The dried fruits, nuts, beans and cereal.


















Mom rocking the tea and bulk spices wall.


















And the anything and everything liquid.














I have found buying in bulk does save some money. Organic bulk is still expensive but I do feel better about not using so much waste just to grocery shop. I would always recycle the containers before. But now it is kinda fun to just reuse them over and over again. Recycling in many forms.

First attempt at Cheese making

I have been thinking about it for a while now. I really want to make my own cheese. I like the idea that I can make cheese from the organic cows that live about 10 miles from my house. The gal at The Country Market, sells 1/2 gallons of Raw Milk for $5. They are not certified organic but she follows a strict organic practice. They grow all the grain/feed for there chickens, cattle, cows, and pigs. I digress.

I purchased 2 kits, and an instructional DVD to try my hand at cheese making. One is the mozzarella/ricotta and the other is the hard cheese from CheeseMaking.com. I am following along with Ricki Carroll's book Home Cheese Making, which I've had for a while but not gotten around to purchasing the necessities.

The kits and DVD arrived, I watched and decided to give it a go! We made 2 cheeses, Mozzarella and Whey Ricotta. All from one gallon of milk. I won't go into the how too, because for that you really need the book plus I am still not sure what I am doing.

Anyhow, some videos of 2 of the steps.

Mom is stirring the cut curds while we bring them up to temp. Then we will scoop them out and start the stretching process.



Now in order for the Mozzarella to get that smooth shinny, elastic look it must be stretched. But it has to be at 135 degrees or hotter in order to do that, hence the gloves. We used the "water bath" method to keep the cheese hot, you can also use the microwave. I didn't place the cheese in a bowl and use a spoon to add the salt, I will do that next time because our salt wasn't evenly distributed through out the cheese.





We are in the discussion process of the cheese press. It is quite a bit of money up front in order to have accurate documented results. We would like to make sure we can duplicate our cheese results (for gift giving purposes) and the wood block with several pans stacked on top of the cheese just doesn't seem very accurate. I am thinking we will just spend the money on it, and think of it as an organic cheese investment. Since most of the cheese we currently eat isn't organic. We did a cost evaluation of home cheese making, our home made organic cheese would cost slightly more than a Tillamook baby loaf. But the effort of course would be much more. The cost would be about $13 for a 2 lb. loaf where Tillamook is around $9 for a 2 lb. loaf. To purchase organic cheese is about $21 for a 2 lb. loaf. So we will be saving money in the long run but there will be a bit more cost up front. Of course these are "guestimates," we aren't sure how much of a yield we will get. The directions say 2 gallons = 2 lbs of cheese but that could be more/less.

A work in progress. It was a ton of fun to make the mozzarella and a very cool feeling to make something from a gallon of milk!