I should have kneed the cheese just a bit more, so that it was a touch smoother per the recipe.. but having said that, it turned out awesome, I was able to grate myself some wonderful mozza cheese, and when I melted some over eggs, and gave a melted bit a pull, I was able to get at least a four inch string before it broke apart.. it’s tasty, it grates, its melty and gooey, a total success..
Now I am not saying that I don’t thrill at the idea of making cheese’s that take months to be ready, and I will be more then happy to do those when I have lots and lots of milk from my sweet girl, but right now, I pretty much am milking one sheep which produces around a pint per milking, that means that she does about 7 quarts per week, or in canadian terms, right around 7 liters, she gives less milk on her evening milking but more cream, and she gives more milk with less cream on her morning milking..
The link above is a cute little clip I did of my milking her, I do it a bit different when I have two free hands but overall, it turned out not bad all things considered.
Back to my cheese, so out of that milk coming in the house, I have fresh milk drinking, cooking and baking milk taken out of that, but none the less every three to five days I have enough sitting to make a batch of cheese and to have a big old jar of whey to use up, I find I am using the whey more and more in the baking, in place of the milk itself. This appears to be working well with my lower gluten flours, as it reacts very well with baking powder/or baking soda to help create lift.
So I don’t tend to use any milk that is fresher then two days, so while it has been chilled quickly, most of the time the milk used to make this cheese is seven to five days old, I will skim off any thick heavy cream and set it to be made into butter or used as cream.
Then I take all the milk in a half gallon jar and pour it all together, put cheesecloth on top and put it in the deyhrator at the yogurt setting, and leave it alone for 12 to 16 hours, I tend to do it in the evening, leave it overnight and its ready to make cheese in the morning..
In the morning, i just dump the heavy clumps of raw cheese along with the whey into a pot, add one tbsp of salt (canning salt) and bring to just a gentle simmer..
Now at this point, I have a number of fun things to do, the biggest cheese clumb, gets scooped out and put into cheese cloth and pressed to make a awesome firm white, tangy slightly sweet cheese, its excellent with a bit more salt mixed in, herbs mixed in, or rolled in herbs. Or I can continue to heat the cheese and let it get to a boil, and you check it with the spoon, when it hits the right level, you scoop it out, and pull and roll, and voila, instant mozza, (its not really mozza but it acts just like it)
What is left now is perfect for making roccotta and I do that sometimes, but most of the time, I just pour it back into clean half gallon jars, and let it cool and settle, the top will split from the whey at the bottom, and I skim it out with a one cup with handle, and that becomes a perfert cooking milk, and the whey is wonderful for the baking..
What I love about this is so many things, its super simple to make, it gives me so many uses from the same thing, it really only takes me less then 20 min from start to finish, love love this cheese.. its my go to cheese..
O ya, after its been pressed, you can cube it up, allow it to dry for a day in the fridge and then put it into a salt brine and have mock feta in a matter of a couple days.. (I have I said, how much I love how easy this cheese is to do different things with)
Now when I am feeling all spendy, I love to order deep fried salt and pepper pork, but over the years, I find myself ordering less at meals and so the app’s tend to either become the meal or don’t get ordered.
Add in the fact that one of the few things I don’t have in the house is a deep fryer and that I tend to bake most things for a healthier version and I rarely deep fry anything..
BUT, and this is a BIG But.. I have a craving.. I mean it was crazy, I would have taken chips, or fries or KFC chicken in a heartbeat.. but I had a) told myself not extra spending and b) no leaving the farm today , at least anywhere not within walking distant..
Then a friend said, going skating and beaver tails added to the craving, cinnamon/sugar beaver tails..
O my god, it just got worse, and I caved.. not in the sense of breaking my own rules but.. I made a very small batch ( 6 in total) of yeasty doughnuts and for supper, well I took out a small pork roast I had cut to make a canadian bacon out of at a later date and I cubed it up, in a bowl, I added in cornflour, and corn meal and Jerky seasoning and I coated those peices and deep fried them.. they were perfect, crunchy, slightly sweet because it was the same oil that had done the donut mid-afternoon treat (don’t worry we didn’t go crazy, we have one for this evening and one for breakfast as well).. to make that donut even more amazing, I drizzled it with sheep’s cream and it melted into the sugar and created a kind of icing on it.. heavenly.
It hit the spot, it was awesome! I can’t say that I would add these to the homestead menu on a regular bases but for a extra special treat, I would do this again for sure..
Love how the chocolate icing layer turned out, the colors were good, but the swirls are a work in progres, still it was so exciting to get to cut into this, each bar was its own..
Ok, I am going to try this again.. I tried this once and got overwhelmed and lost.. so lets see if I can make this work better for 2013..
In general for health, and for ease of rounding out.. DH and I need 5000 calories per day, 365 days in a year and we need 182, 5000 in calories.. While it would be hard to grow everything we need on the farm, my question is more along the lines of in 2013, regardless if its balanced, did we grow/raise those calories on the farm? If not, what percent can we do so..
Jan
Lamb Meat Imputes: 223020
Pork Meat Imputes: 231000
Beef Imputes; 226800
Milk – 6480
Eggs- 7200
Jan imputes : 694500 which means that in the single month of Jan, we had a major meat overload and over half of the years needed calories provided but lets face it, you can not live on meat, milk and eggs alone..
So simple, so easy, one of those things that takes no time at all to make but takes time to be ready to be used.. did a total of three 8 oz jars with different mix’s, this is, the one of the udder balm, it has elderflower, pepperment, plantain and nettles in it.. they were all done with sweet almond oil, some will be used in salves and others in soap making, as most recipes I have tend to call for 4oz of almond oil, three full jars are enough to make use in six batches, I had to make the call on cold infused vs hot infused and for these are going cold.. I will do a heat one for one of the salves, but will do its own post for that..
Well, I am on the hunt today for a new udder balm recipe for the deep cold, my regular balm is good and works well most of the time but does not seem quite enough for when I get really cold..
Now a few things I found interesting, one of which is that for the milking critter, if they start getting chapped skin, that its a sign of lack of vit a, and this can be fixed with adding some chopped carrots into their feed, and so I will start doing this with my little DF sheepy, and see if that makes a difference.
Having said that, I also need a now fix, so I am going to melt down one of my done healing salves from my cottonwood buds, that is to thick and I am going to add a freshly done infused almond oil with pepperment/elderflower/nettle and make it soft enough that it can be more easily spread on the teats.
While I am not sure that I want the cooling effects that pepperment brings, I have heard that its very good for first timer’s and so for girl that’s a very good thing.
If this weather ever clears up, and I need track down the different photos over the past two years, I want to do a post on the development of her bag, it seems to be darn near changing weekly at this point in her pregancy.
I also need to make a number of herb infused oils for planned coming soaps, I will do my best to keep notes and be able to post detailed recipes for you to go with the soaps..
While its fine to be a bit of this and that for baking/cooking, when it comes to soap making, it needs to be very detailed to make sure it works out correctly..
So anyone else make their own homemade udder salve for cows? Sheep? Goats? and if so, would you be willing to share your recipe?
I tell ya, that big girl gave me a run for my money this week, you see she had been on “holiday” I mean come on, the whole farm is covered in ice, the cold has been so bitter on certain days that it has required three days before the winter gear goes on and there has been more snow shoveling then i want to admit..
Between milking, hauling, butchering and everything else that has been going on in the past few weeks, my BrandyGirl has been on a winter rest, she has a few jobs, be herd boss, eat lots of hay, drink warm water, get a cookie now and again and follow us around while we do the barn/pasture chores and her biggest job at the moment, DO NOT STEP on a lamb!
So I changed out the calander and forgot to write down the ferrier visit, OPPS, lets just say, that she would not even come to the gate for me, I had to go get her, then she didn’t want her halter on, and it just went down hill from there.. I finally broke down and let her chew on a pan of feed just to keep her in place so we could get the last two legs done..
Honestly, you would think that those hours I had spent training had never happened, you would think that those moments of moving feet/lines for driving had never happened, you would think this is not the same horse that was tied up and had a sheep on a lead go under her and wrap itself around her legs and stood there ever so kindly while we untangled that mess..
So you can imagine my scowl and then my smile and finally my laughing when yesterday when she meet me at the gate first thing in the morning, and was all, are we working today mom, and I am like, no I am hauling water, and have things to do, she follows along, finally stealing my hat and stands there with it in her mouth till I take it back, then she try’s to give me the over the shoulder hug, or the I’m really tall horse, you little women, I put head over your shoulder and go.. “Watcha doin?”
So I come back thought the gate and she put her head over it and “wait for it” puts her face into her hanging halter and bangs it and then looks at me..
I know that look, its the , are we going to work today? I would like to do something, anything.. what do you have in mind.. I can’t wait for a bit more spring like weather or safer footing.
So here is my question, if you don’t have a heated indoor area to work in or even just a covered indoor area to work in, how much do you work your horse in winter? Do they get a few weeks or a month or so off in the worst/hardest part of winter, and if so, do you fine they backslide?
This is as simple as can be.. simmer up one cup blueberry/One cup of Red Onion with a tsp of salt, 2 heaping tbsp of sugar or honey, half a tsp of ginger, and cracked black pepper.. Place half under the steak and half on top, that is the amount per big steak, works for pork or beef or lamb.. heck it works for pretty much any kind of meat, even good on chicken or turkey breast..
Just another Day on the Farm 