Cheese

Anyone that’s met me can attest to my love of all things cheese. Well, except for faux cheeses such as American or Cheez Whiz (or however it’s spelled). Casey and I found out that Austin Home Brew sells a kit to make your own mozzarella a few months ago and I’ve been thinking about it since. Our Mother’s Day after dining plans put us just blocks from the source of cheese making kits and we decided to stop by. I waited until Brady’s nap time yesterday (Wednesday – two whole days) before I tried anything. After opening the plastic bag of all the ingredients (minus the gallon of whole [organic] milk) there was a lone list of instructions. I did a quick read through and assumed that we’d be set to go. After prepping water and getting necessary equipment out, I realized that our thermometer (that I’ve been using for yogurt making) did not go below 100. Oops! Fortunately for us, we have friends that live close by that have a sub-zero thermometer and were willing to let us borrow it. We ended up with 3/4 of a pound of fresh organic mozzarella – ingredients: organic whole milk, sodium chloride, cheese salt, and a 1/2 a renet tablet. I can actually pronounce and identify all the ingredients in the cheese my family is eating! I ended up under salting the cheese a little (personally like a lot of salt, but maybe not such a bad thing). The cheese turned out really really good and there’s not much left. So when you make cheese you boil milk and the curds and whey separate – the curds make the cheese (in our case mozzarella) and the whey and smaller curds make ricotta. Well my ricotta making did not turn out after several adjustments. I’m quite happy with my return on investment (cheese making kit = $14.99 for (20) 3/4 pound batches of cheese + $5.99/gal. organic milk) but would have been even happier had I’ve had some ricotta to boot as well. Maybe less straining of the cheese or less stirring once I’m trying to get the whey to reform? I don’t know!

Let me know if anyone’s interested in this cheese making recipe and I’ll type it up. It’s pretty easy, although a little time consuming. But there is peace of mind in knowing what you’re eating. I’m pretty sure I could assemble the necessary resources together for less now that I have the recipe but we’ll see how batch two goes. I’m just giving myself a pat on the back for not scorching the milk!  I posted some pics of the cheese making on Facebook and I’ll upload next time I do pics.  For now, I bid you goodnight!