Mae slept all night in her own bed and Marilyn blessed us with a beautiful amount of milk last night to make cheese today!
On that note we figured we would share how we make soft farm cheese, which can be made with cows milk from the store too. Seriously though who wants store bought milk when you can have fresh goats milk to use?
Recipe
We put 1qt of fresh raw goats milk in a large sauce pan on medium heat, stirring frequently and checking the temperature often.
Once the milk reaches a temperature of 185 we take it off of the heat and mix in 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar and let it sit for at least 10 minutes stirring gently once in a while. Note that you can also substitute lemon juice for the apple cider vinegar, however for whatever reason we think the vinegar yields a little more cheese curds.
At this point we prepare a bowl with a colander on top of it lined with two layers of cheese cloth with plenty of extra on all sides (never thought you'd buy cheese cloth right? Lol). Pour contents of the pan into your prepared cheese cloth, tie edges together and hang above the bowl to let it strain (I hang it for about an hour).
Once the cheese is drained well, take down and use a spoon to scrape all of the cheese off of the cloth and mash a little with a fork to separate some of the curds. We let the cheese cool in the fridge for a while and then season with salt to preference and flavor. Our favorite is to also use scallions from the garden! This is an easy way to make a soft cracker cheese but there are obviously other tasty and complex ways. This is just the quickest easiest way to make it while keeping an eye on Mae.
Now that Mae and I have made a disaster of the kitchen we are going to light our Lavender Lemonade candle (which has a light zen-ish scent) and rock some baby yoga to work on Mae's balance.
-Beth