For those of you who have no idea where the quote I used for the title of this blog came from, the following link is for you.
And for those of you who would like to watch it for the first time or again, this one is for you! ;)
Today’s project started last Tuesday, when I got the mail. I received the usual advertisements and, not wanting to pass up saving a few cents, I dutifully looked through the coupons and found one for Reynolds new wrap that has foil on one side and parchment paper on the other. It suggested the best use for their new product was baking dish lining and generously included a recipe for lasagna. Mmm lasagna… I tossed the ad in the “clip” pile to cut out the recipe so I could try it at some point. The lasagna was forgotten until the next day when Jason and I had agreed to have a “family meeting” and talk about our “family values”—incidentally, we didn’t get very far in developing our family values because we both got very distracted talking about self-sufficiency and how totally dependent we are on the grocery store and working power lines.
Jason and I have been talking about self-sufficiency for years. College obviously wasn’t exactly the ideal place to work on trying to make things yourself, instead of buying them, since half of one’s time is taken up slaving over homework and the other half is taken up trying to forget about the torture of said homework. But Jason and I still wished we could make things ourselves, hence our small collection of books on the subject.
While we were talking about self-sufficiency, I was flipping through Homesteading and came across the recipe for ricotta cheese on page 178. And so begins the following cheese adventure…
Part 1 of My Cheese Adventure
Ricotta Cheese
Equipment
- Large pot with lid
- Spoon
- Colander
- Cheese cloth
- Thermometer
- Measuring cups and spoons (not in photo)
Ingredients
- 1 gal milk (I used 2%)
- 1/3 cup plus 1 tsp white vinegar
- ¼ tsp salt
Instructions
Step 1: Pour milk into pot.
Step 3: Heat slowly until temperature reaches 180 degrees F. Stir constantly! It took me 25 minutes to heat my milk at level 6 on my electric stove.
Step 4: Remove from heat.
Step 5: Add vinegar and stir for 1 minute. You should see curds begin to form.
Step 6: Cover and let it sit undisturbed for 2 hours.
Step 7: Pour into a cheesecloth lined colander and let curds drain for 2 hours. I found that the colander I was using wasn’t letting all the whey through, so I got creative.
Step 8: Enjoy! The recipe says that it keeps for a week in a sealed container in the fridge but since I used mine later that day I can’t verify that.
Wohoo! Ricotta cheese for my homemade lasagna! I just wish I wasn’t cheating with the box of noodles, cans of sauce, bag of pre-shredded mozzarella, and plastic tube of ground turkey. Someday, I will be able to say, “I made and grew this whole thing from scratch” but today is not that day.
But now the age old question: what do I do with all the whey?
Simple solution: make more cheese!!!
I read up online there are loads of things you can do with whey. Here are some good ones: use it in place of milk, broth, or water when you make biscuits, bread, smoothies, potatoes au gratin, and boiled rice.
I, however, chose to make a Norwegian classic—brunost. Translated it means brown cheese and is made by reducing whey, processing it, and removing excess liquid until desired texture is reached, and cooling the cheese quickly in an ice bath. It is usually referred to as gjetost (pronounced “yet-hos”) because its make with goat milk whey. I only used cow’s milk so my cheese is just brunost.
Since there wasn’t a recipe in the homesteading book I used to help me make the ricotta, I had to go looking for one online. I ended up combining the instructions of these two sites.
Part 2 of My Cheese Adventure
Brunost
Equipment
- Large pot
- Small pot (optional)
- Spoon
- Spatula
- Whisk
- Food processor
- Bowl of cold water (for ice bath)
- Ice (for ice bath)
Ingredients
- Whey
Instructions
Step 1: Heat whey to boiling. Be careful of over boil. It won’t hurt the cheese but it makes a mess! You can see my evidence of spillage.
Step 2: Reduce to medium heat and simmer stirring occasionally.
Step 3: When reduced to ¼ of original amount begin stirring more frequently and watch texture closely. It took my batch about 1.5 hours to reduce that far.
Step 4: When texture resembles very thin gravy or light corn syrup, put into food processor and process for 45 seconds.
Step 5: Put smoothed whey into a small pot (or return to the large pot). I think it would have been easier for me if I had used a smaller pot for this stage.
Step 6: Stirring constantly, reduce whey over low heat until desired texture is reached. The longer you heat the whey the firmer the cheese.
Step 7: When desired texture is reached put pot in ice bath. Since I wanted a firm cheese I put my ball of cheese into a plastic baggie, instead of leaving it in the pot, and then I put it into the ice bath. I think I went a little too far with mine. I should have iced it when it looked more like the photo in the previous step.
Step 8: Enjoy with crackers and fruit!
Part 3 of My Cheese Adventure
After finishing my brunost, I really wanted to try some but discovered that I had no crackers in the apartment. So, I made some crackers from scratch—which, by the way, were delicious!
Here is my early dinner snack. I had teriyaki turkey jerky, a pear, homemade crackers, and homemade brunost with a cup of Green Earl Gray tea lightly sweetened with honey.
The brunost was very sharp. I also think that I cooked out too much water. Apparently, the stuff hardens more after you ice bath it… Oh well, lesson learned for next time. I don’t really know if there will be a next time though. I could only handle less than ¼ teaspoon on a cracker with half a slice of pear it was so strong tasting. I will have to wait for Jason’s review before I decided to throw it out though.
Part 4 of My Cheese Adventure
Before I made the lasagna, I had to try a crumble of the ricotta. It was excellent!!! I definitely plan on doing that again! I was able to get about 3 cups of ricotta from the gallon of milk—fluffed up it was more like 4 cups.
After destroying my kitchen to make the lasagna and cleaning it up for probably at least the third time today, my masterpiece is complete!
And it was amazing.
“I just hi-fived myself with the oven mitt!” –Mr. Daddystars (aka Jason)
