Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Easy Cheesy


Starting new things in the fall seems to be a pattern in my life. I took my first belly dancing class last week and I just finished making cheese for the first time. I was surprised at how easy it was to do. I used a recipe called '30 Minute Mozzarella' that I found the Barbara Kingsolver's new book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

I had ordered a cheese making kit last year and because it was on back order and took a long time to get to me, I was out of the mood to try it by the time it arrived. All the recipes in it look pretty complicated anyway. Because I had purchased the kit, I already had the rennet and a cheese thermometer. I had citric acid because I make soap and got some to give lotions a try which I have yet to do.

The recipe really did take only 3o minutes. I now have just over 17 ounces of yummy mozzarella made from regional organic milk. This is despite the fact that I screwed up one step of the recipe and added the citric acid directly to the milk before it started to get warm. I then added a fourth cup of water just to get the liquid level right. Also, I have rennet tablets rather than liquid rennet and had to look up the conversion online.

I also have a large amount of whey left in the pot on my stove. Tomorrow I will try making ricotta with it.

I think I will have to get my sour dough going again so that I can make a great pizza dough. If the ricotta turns out, cheesecake or lasagna may be in my future.

If anyone is interested, I got the kit from The Cheese People. As I said, it took a long time to get to me. You might want to try else where.

The citric acid and other soap supplies, including the best quality and lowest priced essential oils ever, usually come from Texas Natural Supply.

Soundtrack for this post: Anything by String Cheese Incident since most of their songs are about 30 minutes long.

3 comments:

Little Wing said...

Sounds yummy!!!!
I love ALL cheese!
I took belly dancing classes for 3 days on my cruise to Hawaii this summer, so much fun!

The Minstrel Boy said...

by the way, have you figured out that while the moz is still mostly warm you can shape it into little cylinders to make your very own string cheese sticks?

my niece figured this out all by herself.

homemade moz, and ricotta are both wonderful things. i'm also planning to do some experimenting with some goat cheeses this winter. next door guy has goats, and i have been a yoghurt making machine for over a year, time to stir the pot some more.

Angela said...

YAY! I want to belly dance, too! :)