Got Mozzarella!

I've got mozzarella made with dry milk powder! Now it doesn't taste exactly like the mozzarella you buy at the store, but it is mozzarella. A little rubbery and I think I heated it up too long in the stretching phase. I gave Sadie a bite and she spit it out. Jeff wasn't quite so rude. He didn't spit it out, but I noticed he didn't eat but two pieces of my mozzarella balls rolled in basil and olive oil. It looks like more practice is needed, but at least after yesterday's disaster I have cheese!

Disastrous Mozzarella!

Well the first attempt at homemade mozzarella appears to be a disaster. The instructions say you can use store bought milk. So I tried it with Wal-Mart's Great Value brand. I ended up with something that looked like Ricotta and made my kitchen, towels and hands smell like sour milk. Yuck! The instructions also say that you cannot use ultra-pasteurized milk. The milk jug doesn't say ultra-pasteurized, but I have noticed in the last year or so that all the cream, half-and-half and organic milk cartons in the grocery store are labeled ultra-pasteurized.

I'm not going to give up yet, the instructions say if you have trouble with store bought milk to make a gallon using dry milk powder. I don't know how I got so lucky to marry a man who supports all my crazy schemes, but he just ran off to the store to get some dry milk powder while I clean up this mess I have in the kitchen!

Great Birthday Present

I didn't get a goat for my birthday, but this cute little thing is one of the goats at Heidi's place in Maienfeld Switzerland. It was taken on our trip there in May of 2006.

Jeff with Heidi's goats.

I don't know why I exactly got interested in cheesemaking, but I remember reading Heidi when I was a little girl. I think the description of her sitting on a rock with her goats overlooking the Swiss mountains drinking her warm milk and eating her cheese curds left an image on me. Or maybe it was all the stories my Grandma Wagenknecht told me about her goats. Uncle Emery had an ulcer and the recommended treatment at the time was to drink goat milk. Johnny and Edna had the land so they bought some goats and milked them for Emery. I don't know if she ever made cheese, but she sure had some memorable moments with her goats.

When I was in my twenties I bought a book about cheesemaking. At that time there was no Internet and trying to find a place to buy cultures and rennet, building a press and getting cheese molds must have seemed near impossible. And I remember the book suggested making yogurt cheese as the first step. Yogurt cheese didn't sound all that good to me and the whole book sounded like a lot of work. So it ended up on a shelf. I wish I could find it now, but I imagine it got sold or lost along the way leading up to my 47th birthday.

I was reading a magazine a few weeks ago and the feature article was about home cheesemaking. The article described the explosive growth in artesian cheesemaking in the United States, it included a few recipes and a table describing the various types of cheeses (cow, goat and sheep), their characteristics and differences. And there at the end of the article was a web site that sold "cheesemaking kits" for the beginner. Jeff's comment was, "Don't you think that sounds like something you should try after you retire?"

I was totally surprised when my birthday present was a Mozzarella Cheesemaking Kit. So here's to you Heidi!

Me and Heidi's Goats