A Fabulous, Fresh Christmas Present!

A fresh present!

When we went to Brambles Nubian Goat Farm to pick up our buckling, Rebecca gave us an awesome present: fresh goat milk!  I've never had fresh milk and it is beautiful: creamy, mild and a wee bit sweet.  Like so many things - blows away the stuff in the stores!  I can hardly wait until we have our own steady supply (Go, Buckling, Go!).  What to do with fresh goat milk a couple of days before Christmas?  Make cheese, of course!  And maybe a little soap.....

Heat until steamy and frothy, not boiling!

The tiny curds draining.

We've made cheese before; we acquired a great starter cheese kit on Etsy from Urban Cheesecraft, which has everything you need.  Making simple, soft cheese is really quite easy.  The milk goes into a heavy, stainless pot and is heated to 180 - 190 degrees Fahrenheit, until it's steaming and frothy but not boiling, stirring regularly.    Then, you add in citric acid dissolved in water.  Curds start to form almost right away - for our goat cheeses the curds have always been tiny.  Stir for a few minutes off the heat, then pour into a cheesecloth lined colander.  We capture the whey, the yellow liquid, because it's great for the chickens or in place of stock in soups and stews.  The cats quite like it, too!

Packing the curds into the mold.

The curds are left to drain for ten minutes, then kosher salt is stirred in.  Then, the curds are placed in a mold, or for a casual ball, you can just leave them in the cheesecloth.  We weighted down the curds for a firmer set, we put plastic wrap over the top of the mold and popped on a jar of jam.  After refrigerating for an hour, we have a nice, soft goat cheese!  And sooooo tasty!

The finished product!

Homemade Cheese! Well, Pudding.....

In our quest to be a little more self-sufficient and to eat more locally, we tried to make cheese! Now, we're on top of the bread (check it out here) - I'm onto my second batch of bread dough from 'Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day', and we're about to eat our tenth loaf and we're very much enjoying it! We're going to try some of the other recipes next - we'll let you know how it goes. But I saw, on Etsy, a great kit for cheese making. It's from the Etsy shop Urban Cheesecraft we got the deluxe kit for $50 US, it has everything needed to make different cheeses including paneer, queso blanco, firm and soft goat cheese, ricotta and mozzarella. The kit includes molds, a thermometer, fine cheese cloth, citric acid, cheese salt, rennet and complete instructions for all the cheeses. So, last night, off we go! I love goat cheese, and I can source goat milk quite easily so that's where we started. It's quite simple, really; mix the citric acid in water, add to milk, heat without boiling, pour into a colander lined with the cheese cloth, pack the captured curds into a mold and let set up. Really! It's that simple. We were aiming for the soft goat cheese, problem was I didn't see any curds forming. I re-heated, still no curds. I read the instructions again and then went to the Urban Cheesecraft's website where I found the goat milk has teeny tiny curds so I poured my mixture into the colander. An upside here is that chickens and pigs love the whey that we collected under the colander. After letting it drain for half an hour, there was something sort of solid there, so I packed it into a mold, where it continued to 'weep' moisture. Left it there for longer than the instructions said, and then gently tapped it out onto a plate. Looking good! We have a soft goat cheese! However, within fifteen minutes if had rather melted, so we have awesome goat cheese pudding! It's really very tasty. Referring back to Urban Cheesemaking's website, I may have stirred too much, or I may have skimped a bit on the citric acid. But this stuff is tasty!! And my cracker doesn't care how solid the goat cheese is! We'll definitely do this again - there's enough stuff in the kit for lots more batches. Maybe queso blanco next. I can hardly wait for fresh mozzarella to go with fresh tomatoes!! But I do think Farmer Man, who is of Danish parentage, will have to wait awhile before I get around to havarti!