Foodie Wednesday: Farmers Cheese

Something super easy today. Not something you would want to make all the time, but it is nice to say you made your own cheese at least once in your life. ;)

Ingredients
3 cups Whole Milk
Lemon and/or vinegar
Cheese Cloth


Take you milk and slowly heat it up to about 175 degrees or when bubbles start to form around the edge of the pot and its all steamy. Then take the pot off the heat.

Show love for the piggie spatula

Then juice half your lemon and add it to the pot of milk. Stir slowly for a minute. You will see the crud separate from the whey. Trust me when I say. For some people this part will look gross but it's a good gross.

Then just let it sit in the pot for about 10 minutes.

Now take a stainer and some cheesecloth. About four layers worth. Slowly pour your cheese in.
Make sure you drain it in a pot to keep the whey.

Now from this point you can do a few things.

There cheese in that. Hmm.

You can let the cheese lightly drain til it becomes more or less like the consistency of cottage cheese.

You can also tie the cheesecloth over and let it hang over your pot for about a half hour and it will be thick like cream cheese. If you want it to be a lil' thinner like a ricotta cheese just add a few spoon fulls of whey back to the crud and mix til you get what you like.

Now the cheese will taste flat if you don't add salt. So add salt to taste. From that point on you can add what you like. Different herbs and spices.

I like making my cheese thicker and cooling it in a ramekin. When I serve it I add pepper and olive oil over it. It's nice with toast or crackers.
If you make it more like ricotta you can use it in pasta dishes and the like.
Basically you can use it anyway you use any other cheese.


*Tips
If you don't have a lemon you can use vinegar.
To give your cheese a tangy flavor you can add an additional cup of buttermilk at the beginning.
If your milk doesn't curdle right away add additional lemon or vinegar.

The cost to make this cheese pretty much equals out to the price of buying similar already made cheese. However you should say at least once you made cheese. Ha.

Have a nice Wednesday.

Soon Back to the Daily Grind

Tonight shift is my first shift of the week. My weekend was an up and down of stress for me because I stress about everything. Ha ha. I don't like going to work sometimes but working makes me not think of things as much as I do. Not that I am mindless or anything. Well maybe I am.

Went to the Asian groceries yesterday and found many things that I needed. They didn't have any miso right now. Which was super sad, I have to wait two weeks. What can ya do?

I'm really starting to think about converting to a highly Asian influenced diet with fish, noodles and veggies. The bus outside my apartment goes straight to the Asian shops so its not hard to buy groceries.

Most of the Asian food I enjoy is very healthy and I really enjoy the flavors, like soy and dashi and such. When with the traditional North American fair I enjoy, cheese and bread and such.

It's a lil out of balanced when I favorite cuisines are Asian (more so Japanese) and Southern United States. With there delicious pan fried chicken and corn bread. Damn.+

Also I didn't post Haul Monday. because I didn't have anything to haul. Ha ha. I wasn't going to show you my groceries. Ha.

Have a nice Tuesday.

Weekend Fun: Bits and Pieces

Had a hard day at work Saturday. Was not a fun time. I feel when I go in on Tuesday shits going to hit the fan like always. Anyway...

NOTD
Icings "Peel Me an Orange"



I'm tired and my brain is fried.
Sometimes I wish things were different.

However tomorrow the DH and myself are going to a sushi restaurant and then to the Asian grocery store to get some yummy things.

Also made some individual mac and cheese with maple bacon. YumYum.