"Farmers" goat cheese

With our plethora of milk that we had last summer, this is the basic recipe we like in our house.

1 - 2 gallons of milk
Heat to hot, ~180F (some say to boil, doesn’t really seem to matter)

Stir to keep from scalding milk.
Turn off heat.

Add 1/4 white vinegar per gallon. Stir and let sit 5 minutes.
Pour curds & whey into a colander lined with a fine mesh linen, thin dishtowel, doubled up cheese cloth, muslin, thin pillow case, etc.

(I put another pot under the colander to collect the whey for the chickens.)
Drain, stir in salt to taste. Fresh or dry herbs to your liking.
Can either twist cloth around and hang up to drip dry for the day. (This usually makes a spreadable cheese.)

...or we made a make-shift cheese press and press it into a rectangle mold in the refrigerator. (this makes for a cheese you can cut into pieces.)
Wrap up and refrigerate that night if drip dried.
 or if put it to press in the fridge, cut into chunks and wrap blocks the next day.

My favorite way to eat this is plain cheese on crackers with a piece of smoked salmon. Delish!

FETA update

So happy to announce two out of the three fetas turned out great!  We did a taste test (well the men that were here) and liked them very much.  The kids then did their own and also liked them very much.  I'm a happy cooker.  The one I liked best was the easies to make.  It simply takes our "farmers cheese" we make regularly and then you heavy brine it (salting it) and then pickle brine it for a week.  Could not be easier!  Now we'll see how they are after 2 weeks, etc.  I kind of want to try some other feta recipes now that I've watched more YouTube videos on it, I like the idea of using the whey (with added salt) as a brine for the feta, seems less wasteful.  The cheese book we have is great but I really want to strangle the author sometimes...he makes things much harder than they need to be.

Yesterday I made cottage cheese and today I made mozzarella...guess what I'm making tomorrow?  (Hint:  It includes moose burger and spaghetti sauce and layers...yum)

FETA

It's silly that we have not made feta before, but today was the day!  I'm doing 2 different recipes with the same brine method to see which one turns out best...they are both draining now and will 'till tomorrow.  Then onto the salty brine 'till tomorrow night, then into the "regular" brine for a week.

I can't wait to try them!

Feta hanging overnight.

Farmers Cheese & Chocolate Custard Icecream

Wednesdays at our house are typically vegan, so it's a painful day to make such delights but very needed as we had 4+ gallons of milk in one of our extra fridges. 

I hadn't been planing on making them, but after a root canal re-do, I felt like it...go figure. I took 2 containers of lentil soup and one "mystery" soup out of the freezer and put them out to thaw.  There was dinner for later. Time to make the cheese.

Farmers Goat Cheese aka Chevre

2 gallons of milk into a pot, very full, bring up to a boil or just under (when frothy).  Remove from heat.
1/2 c. white vinegar, mix in slowly to hot milk so it's very well combined, will separate, let sit about 10 min.

Prepare a colander with a cheese cloth/thin dish towel liner.  I prefer to put a bucket or pot underneath and collect the whey, our chickens love it.

Pour curds and whey into cloth. 

Add kosher or sea salt, I used about 2 Tbs today, taste it to see.  Let the curds drain for a bit. The cheese absorbs the saltiness so it typically needs more than you may feel comfortable putting it. Taste again to be sure you don't need more before you hang it.

At this point we put them into our little homemade cheese press and press it in the fridge overnight with a couple boxes of soda pop.

This makes a nice firm cheese, not super dry, just holds together nicely.  We cut it into quarters and vacuum seal it then put in fridge, it keeps a long time in the vacuum seal.  Otherwise you can freeze it. It's nice to slice and put on crackers this way.

Instead of pressing the cheese you can simply tie the cheese inside the cloth and drain it for a few hours and then eat, or overnight in the fridge.  Once I just put it into a round Tupperware container and used it as a spread for crackers the next day, then added smoked salmon.  Heavenly.  You can make this recipe as big or small as you like, just keep proportions mostly the same with the vinegar to milk. 

This is my fastest easiest method to use up extra milk. Our favorite cheese recipe are the squeaky cheese curds, but that takes 3-4 times as long to make. I like the non-goatiness of this particular cheese, people at church love it as well, it is very very mild. It also will not melt, you can fry up squares of it in a pan for Indian dishes that call for paneer. It's basically the same recipe. 

Goat Milk Chocolate Custard Ice Cream

I combined Rachael Ray's technique (mix all in a blender) with the Ben and Jerry recipe, then added in my own need to use up a ton of goats milk, and this is what I made:

Their recipe, like most icecream recipes, called for 1 1/2 c. milk and 1 c. cream, but separating goats milk is such a pain in the, so I decided to condense my own milk and try that and replace the milk and cream.

I made 4 batches of the custard because we had so much. It will keep nicely in the fridge until I'm ready to turn it into ice cream.

Prepare condensed milk (a couple of hours letting the milk evaporate on the stove using a heavy bottom pot, stirring often 'cause the darn skin keeps forming), I took about 8 c. milk and it made about 6 1/2 c. condensed milk.

2 eggs in blender, blend for a minute or so.
1 c. sugar and 1/3 c. cocoa powder mixed, pour in about 1/2 and blend
1/3 c. chocolate chips, I only had semi-sweet, blend
1 1/2 c. hot condensed milk, pour in a bit of a time to blend as to not hard cook the eggs but to melt the chips
1 tsp vanilla
pinch salt
add any sugar and cocoa powder you still have out.
fill the blender up to the 4 cup line with regular milk...about 1/2 or 3/4 cups.

Pour into cups or into a qt jar to use later in the ice cream maker. Chill for a couple hours. Then use in your icecream maker, follow the instructions on your machine.

Beautiful pic of some paneer with herbs added along with the salt. (not mine)

My witts end.

I have come to this place many many times in my life. At least once per month I'm sure. Today I was there, again...

The garden is over run with weeds, slugs and vegetables that need to be put up. This is the first year that I have planted a "real" garden and REALLY tried to grow what I can freeze or process for the winter. I have had gardens for the last 12 years or so, but to varying degrees of sizes and success. Normally I'm overrun with zucchini, this year we got one. (thanks rain) But I also realized how much my girls love broccoli so there is a LOT of that growing, and after you pick it and blanch it and freeze it, a few days later there is more to pick and blanch and freeze. Not to mention the beets and beet greens...those babies GREW! I'm glad really, we all love pickled beets and borscht too, and you need lots for that. This is the first year I'm blanching and freezing the greens. The last 2 or 3 years we have not gotten beets for one reason or another.

So I'm feeling overwhelmed with my plethora of veggies that I have to "do" something with, not to mention the goats milk that just does not quit...we have to make cheese about every 3 days to keep up with it all. That is quite the process too. I have started making back to back batches of cheese if the kitchen is already messed.

I have to keep in mind what I've already done in the last week or two...Picked and froze 2-3 gallons of raspberries. Picked and froze blueberries, made raspberry and blueberry jams. Made 2 kinds of relishes and some zucchini pickles (my neighbor's greehouse has blessed this neck of the woods with zucchini). Blanched about 15 qt size bags of broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, green beans (neighbor) and beet greens. Made a huge batch of borsht and froze some. Made about 6 batches of cheese. Gotten sick wich took me out for a couple of days. Sold some mailboxes, rented mailboxes, screwed up mailboxes, changed locks on mailboxes, refunded mailboxes and billed out renters for mailboxes. Taken my kids to hither and yon. Homeschooled them (a little). Made ice cream. Met with a guy who will hopefully paint my house with the "new" yellow color I decided on. Gave back the treasurer work for my oldest's shot gun club.

It's been a busy 2 weeks and will be a busy next 2 while we try to finish putting up the garden. Perhaps I will be able to make a dinner in there somewhere too, I have failed miserably at that lately.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, I'm not going to lie...when it was raining for 32 days straight we booked our honeymoon (14 year anniversary) trip to Hawaii and so by September 17th I want to be DONE so we can have a nice quiet time away in some warmth before winter hits. I love September and don't like to be gone, but hey, I'm not complaining.

Fun day today.

Today was going to be a busy day. Then I decided to go to Anchorage because the busy day I had planned would not be busy enough.

Hubby left for his hunting trip around 9:30am, and the sun was shining. It has not shined for 31 days. I only know that because we broke a record of rain and everyone is talking about it and it almost drove me literally insane.

I had to get out of the house, BAD! I tried to get some peeps to go blueberry picking with me, but we're doing that tomorrow. So I loaded our 6 perfect angels into the van and we headed to the big city of Anchorage. We stopped at one of our favorite mouth watering holes, Donut King. The kids were beside themselves at "having" to pick out 2 donuts each.

I don't normally take the kids with me when I go all the way there. I like to shop in peace and so I usually leave some home with Papa while he's working and then a couple more at my mom's. But today I kept my munchkins in the van with me, ran a couple of errands, took them to Subway for dinner (where 2 of them now want to work) and then back out of the city.

I've wanted to go to Thunderbird Falls with them for quite some time. We have not gone at all since K was very little and I don't remember if we had any others yet. This, after all, was the place my husband proposed 14 + years ago....and we don't go there, we're not...how do you say? Outdoorsy people. Well, suffice to say, my kids aren't very "outdoorsy" either. At least not the 4 and 6-year-old girls. The others were great and had a blast....the 4-yr-old held my hand the whole time and cried most of the way to the look out "I wanna go back into the car!" and the 6-yr-old generally complained and whined and claimed that she would NOT go berry picking tomorrow. I obviously need to take them into the woods more often. Living with no trees on our property has made them very soft indeed. The 2-yr-old did wonderfully except those times where she was looking backwards and walking straight for the cliffs edge, but there were enough older siblings to save her life, fortunately. We got to the look out and it was very anti-climactic for the oldest 2, they thought they had been here and in a picture they were in front of a HUGE waterfall and this one was very small... That would be Multnomah Falls, WA in that picture. Poor kids, yes they were there when they were little and this clearly is not that same one.
This is also where while sitting peacefully fondly remembering old teenage memories that Fran told me that she had to pee. Great, no problem, there's an outhouse back at the PARKING LOT! I've only walked a good 1/2 mile with 6 small kids up and down and up and down a muddy mountain side in my hard plastic orthodics on my feet, we'll just jog straight back, no big deal. (I know, I'm such a whiner!) Needless to say, on the way back, I made a break for it when I realized there was no one around and she peed like a perfect princess by the tree off the side of the path and after that? "Oh mama! Look the sun is out!!! Mama, It's so pretty here!" See what a full bladder does to one's outlook on things?

On the way home we took the scenic route via the Old Glenn Hwy where I never allow myself to go because it adds an extra 15 beautiful exciting minutes to the drive...so worth it and the kids loved it.

We got home around 8:45, I realized I'm really unsure about my new house color and I'm now thinking about going back to green. K went out to milk the goats (she does morning and night) I got the others to do some of their other chores. Em was crying in the bathroom for the next hour with constipation (I know you needed to know that) and I decided not to worry about the house paint and to get on some cheese making since I had about 5 gallons of milk in the dairy fridge. I started around 9:30 with 2 gallons in one pot for our regular "farmers" cheese aka paneer, or any other variety of names for the cheese coagulated with vinegar that Stud usually makes and now the kids have gotten used to this cheese. The other pot was filled with one gallon for the squeaky cheese curds that I've been craving this week. The recipe takes 4 hours. I was in for the long haul.

Kids went to bed after finishing chores and having some of their ice cream that we made last week and I am finally finished with the cheese curds at 2am. They are beautiful and squeaky...I realized all the delicious cheese curds we have bought at the store made locally don't even have the squeak...which I guess really only comes that day or the day after. Very tasty...but I think I need to find a recipe that does not take that full 4 hours, that is really not worth the effort.

Something I did discover as I was waiting during one of the waiting stages was that that farmers cheese that we are used to eating now fries up like a dream. I knew this but hadn't tried it. I guess because of the way it's made it simply doesn't melt...so I heated some oil in the skillet and threw on a few chunks of the cheese we had been eating for our 2nd dinner after we got home. It was, how do you say? Out-of-this-world! Wow. I can't wait till Stud comes home so he can try too. That cheese recipe is so easy, now I know what a VERY yummy snack is...fry up some cheese baby and let's have a party! That will have to be our new appetizer when people come over...I even started dreaming about opening up a food booth with fried goat cheese kabobs *with no MSG added* for the fair....oh silly me. Aid could not get enough of them himself, and I even fried up a pickle to try with it, since my friend told me about eating one at a neighbors house. Pretty good mix of flavors if you ask me. Those southern-ers know a thing or three, about food.

I'm looking forward to my Rubbermaid totes full of caribou to come home with hubby in 10 days or so, but tonight he told me that the caribou herd is not near the town, so they will have to hike over to the other side of the island (only 14 miles) in order to find their game. I doubt we'll get as much as last year if that is the case, but I'll be thankful for some. And I guess the ptarmigan are plentiful there and they already got 4 today, so at least we'll have plenty of bird in the freezer this year.

I blew off the other 3 things that I had planned today, a play date for Fran down the street, a potluck with old friends who are up for a visit, and K's shotgun club where I'm now the brand new treasurer, but I'm glad we had our adventure. The kids were shocked with how much fun they had with me and with out papa (see he's the fun one, not me.) So I was pleased with myself and I think they were too. Life is more fun when Papa's home, but a few days are fun when he's gone too.