Friday, October 26, 2012

No Whey - We Made Cheese!

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I will admit, my title made me laugh which means you now know my big secret - I'm pretty lame :)
But I am getting  off topic, so we had quite the adventure the other day: early Christmas present, delicious food and intriguing spreads! Liang came over bringing her surprise which turned out to be the neatest thing - a cheese making kit. Not only was it a magical dairy transformer package, but it was a MEGA magical transformer kit because it lets you make several different kinds of cheeses! But Liang had more in store for me because she pulled out 2 quarts (her purse was like Mary Poppin's bag I swear) of goat milk and a huge grin on her face when she informed me that we were going to make cheese! Yum. Again she reached into her purse and pulled out 2 more goodies, a fig butter and an olive tapenade that would pair wonderfully with the cheese. I kid you not, I was drooling.

We set to work sterilizing everything, heating up the milk and adding the citric acid when needed, cheese salt, and brought everything to temperature. The only time we faltered was when  we were ready for the curds but we weren't sure how fine was okay to work with. Needless to say a few extra pinches of citric acid later we decided to take our chances and let it drain through the cheesecloth and see what we got. It was a bit tricky lining the colander with the cheesecloth and pouring in the curds and whey but we managed it - slowly! After draining we put it in the little draining mold the kit came with and placed the sack-o-cheese curds we had created into it and topped it with a can of pinto beans to weight it. Finally after 30 excruciatingly difficult 30 minutes we were able to unveil our creation. We peeled off the cheesecloth from the sides and revealed a beautiful and perfect 1/2 lb goat cheese.

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You can be sure that we savored this little white block of heaven with the tasty fig butter and olive tapenade. I know I definitely ate more than I should have, but I figure dairy is good for me because it helps ward off osteoporosis - so I was really investing in my future by indulging in this delightful treat hehe. YES I am aware that I'm deluding myself but I am perfectly okay with that :) That is my story and I am sticking to it (besides, that's why we run during the week, right?) Now don't get carried away, we didn't eat the WHOLE 1/2 lb of cheese (geez!) Most of it is saved for David's party this weekend, so maybe you'll get a chance to try it!

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