No matter how much I may be trying to shed a few of the pounds I have added over the last year and half I will still eat cheese. It is my opinion that food altered to be low fat food is not real, and that if you are trying to eat low fat then you should eat items that are naturally low fat. Fruits and veggies to be specific. I'm a "all in moderation" kind of person. So, we eat cheese.
This is an easy way to start making cheese. A simple cheese that you can easily flavor to lend it to the dish you are making. I love to cook chopped onions, garlic and spinach and mix them in with the cheese. You can then use it has a filling for stuffed shells, lasagna, a pizza pocket, etc.
Here is what you will need:
- 1 gallon of milk. Want to make cheese on a budget? Take a look to see if there are any gallons of organic/hormone free milk on sale because their expiration date is coming up soon. Make a batch when you get home and have lasagna for dinner.
- 1 cup white vinegar
- 2-3t sea salt
- Thermometer
- Colander
- Cheese cloth
This may be the easiest recipe of all time. Start of by pouring the milk into a large pot. I have only ever done this in a stainless steel pot, so that is what I recommend. Add the salt and stir. You can start with just 2t of salt and add more when flavoring the cheese later. Mix the salt well and put the pot on a burner set to medium heat.
When you make a little mess and spill salt while pouring it to measure make sure that you throw a bit of it over your left shoulder before you clean it up:
Heat the milk to 190 degrees, but do so with some patience. You don't want to burn the milk.
Once the milk hits 190 scoot the pot over to the next burner to take it off the heat. Stir in the vinegar and keep stirring until the curds start to separate.
The milk will separate into curds and whey. The curds are the milk solids, the whey is the liquid. The whey will be yellow, don't let that freak you out. Now walk away from the pot for 25-30 minutes. I know, I know - you want to go and stir it and see the magic happen. So do I, and I did the first few times I made it. It didn't cause any ill effects, except that I lost those 25 minutes to looking at a pot of curds and whey :) While you are waiting line a colander with cheesecloth.
After 25 minutes take the colander and put it over a bowl. This is so that when you dump the curds and whey in it the whey will be caught in the bowl. Save the whey for future use in a glass jar. After the majority of the whey has drained off it will look like this:
You can see that there is still whey in there. Pull up the corners of the cheese cloth together and give it a good squeeze. Then hang it from a wooden spoon placed across your pot or from your faucet to let the rest of the whey drip out. It usually takes 20-30 minutes.
I tie mine to my faucet with one knot and then put the ends into a chip clip to keep it from slipping.
After you have let all of the whey drip away you will have a ball of cheese.
Now throw it into a container and stick it in the fridge for eating later. Or, go ahead and mix things into it. Honey and nuts, roasted garlic, mushrooms... really anything goes here.
No comments:
Post a Comment