Thursday, June 11, 2009

Cheese Making

Here is a picture of my very enthusiastic friend Nikol, holding a cheese making book. Can you guess why she's so excited?
Because we made cheese, Yo!
First we read the instructions. They were awesome, if not completely forthcoming -more on this later-- notice the almost completely non-sequiter goat in cap and gown. It made my year.
Next we had to heat the milk to 90 degrees. (Was it 90 degrees? I can't remember, anyway...) That's my hand giving the thumbs up, I helped, in my own way. --methinks someone should have cut her nails before cheesemaking night. That's not right.
The milk started to curdle. We got very excited.
It continued curdling...
...and our anticipation and excitement grew with each passing moment.
Then it started to look -and smell- like vomit and we became slightly less enthusiastic. But we remained undeterred!
We separated the curd from the whey. The cheese's likeness to vomit continued, on a thicker level. My good friend Siobhan considered saving the whey for pizza dough (who knew?) but ultimately she poured it down the drain, we didn't fight her on it.
Ingrid was skeptical that the cheese would turn out.
After heating the curd in the microwave to an unholy temperature it had to be pulled and coerced into cheeselike form. The instructions recommended wearing rubber gloves. The cheesemaking kit included latex gloves. We used them, despite our misgivings that they might give the cheese an unpalatable flavor. Rookie mistake.
We continued pulling the cheese, unwittingly...
It was starting to look cheesy.
We formed it into logs and chilled it.
The cheese worked out! Even Ingrid couldn't deny it.
But I'll be honest, and tell you, it did not taste good. Our downfall was the latex gloves. Next time we'll be sure to use utensils to pull the lava cheese. The other girls were champs and ate all of their cheese. I couldn't stomach it. Wimp.

Some of us had a little too much fun making cheese.

5 comments:

Siobhán said...

i was going to balk at the second picture ofme, but then i saw ingrid's pictures. i ain't got NOTHIN' to complain about! :D

Kristina P. said...

This looks awesome! I have never made cheese.

Amanda said...

The goat...he has a cap and gown because he graduated from cheese-making school! I can't believe you didn't get that ;) I haven't been on blogger in a long time due to the shameful neglect of my garden. Boo! I took on too many gardening projects at once, didn't plan well, and let gophers discourage me too much. Alas...your page has re-inspired me! Once I finish the daunting project of organizing my house, I'm going to make some huge adjustments and preparations for next season. Thanks for inadvertently getting me back on the track of ridicoulous optimism :) Keep writing!

NIKOL said...

Hooray for cheesemaking! We need to give it a try again soon. Also, we want to learn to crochet and thought you could teach us, Cassie. You up for that?

Clong said...

Uh, yeah Siobhan, did you see me with the crazy frizzy hair and tired eyes. I'm so gorgeous. Seriously why didn't you ladies tell me my hair looked like that?!

Amanda, I'm so dumb! Of course it's because he graduated from cheese making school! DUH! Glad I could inspire you the way you inspire me! :)

Heck yes I'm up for teaching crochet! I am the crochet queen. What should we make? I recently came upon a free wash cloth pattern. I think they would be pretty easy for newbies and practical. Sound good?