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OK...I hate cliche's. Those terms and expressions that have been so overused that they lost meaning.
As I tried to write this blog entry, I found myself using more and more of them. That's not creative, that's not even that interesting. There is absolutely no reason that I should be boring myself...AND I AM THE FREAKING AUTHOR!
The problem is that Susan and I got into a little bit of discussion the other day. It was over my current hobby of making cheese. I was planning on making an Amish cheese that required the buttermilk to basically "spoil" before using it. The correct way to do this is to use uncultured buttermilk and "culture" for 24 hours before making the cheese. I let me "cultured" buttermilk sit on the kitchen counter for about 22 hours before I started making the cheese.
I understand her concerns. Her background is in the culinary field and every fiber of her being is saying "DON'T LET MILK SPOIL!!!". I'm letting the milk spoil. I trust the recipe and know that I will be bringing up the temperature in the milk enough to kill the germs...although it doesn't tell me how long to hold it at the temperature, and I be lying to say I wasn't concerned about that.
This wasn't really a fight or anything. It's just a difference in opinion. I want the experience of trying something different, I want the experience of actually making something different than what I'm used to. Or doing something different.
For me, given the chance to feed my next door neighbors horse or chop wood or hand feed a bunch of chickens and ducks; I'm going to do that. It's an experience that I rarely or never had. It's personal growth for me (Hey! Cliche # 1).
Yesterday, after taking Susan and her daughter out for breakfast, we came back only to find a bunch of her neighbor's chickens and ducks had wandered over into her yard. She's been feeding them so of course they now wander over. I keep dropping hints that would be willing to buy eggs and milk from her neighbors (they have goats as well). Now I've fed ducks before at parks. I've feed pigeons and sea gulls at parks and beaches. I've even hand feed a squirrel at Happy Valley. Of course, that was before they got famous.
I wanted to feed them and after doing so I felt a great contentment. I found it pretty cool. It a an old cliche but the older I get the more content I am with these "simple things" (Cliche # 2 if your keeping count at home).
This is where I could rant about society forgetting how to do things. Or how I'm tying to save the Earth just a little bit by recycling more, using less and blah, blah, blah. All freaking cliche's.
Now I'm not going to lie. A lot of this is personal for me. It really is doing something that I've not done before. Part of it is altruism, because I've had to use food pantries and other resources at one time in my life...and I want to give back to them the fresh healthy food produced by my own hands. Plus, and this is Cliche # 3 for those playing at home, I want to reduce my expenses if I can. Of course, it depends on the costs in your area and how you calculate something out if it's "worth it."
Let's throw in Cliche # 4 right here. For me, the experience is "worth it." And that really is all that matters.
As for the cheese? Well...
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| Look at those lovely curds! |
I have to admit that I didn't think the milk smelled like it had soured, it was cultured buttermilk and the recipe called raw uncultured buttermilk. I absolutely loved the curds it created.
As for the rest of the cheese? Well once it went into the double broiler to melt, I expected it to take on a fondue like quality. Instead it all sort of clumped together. It ended up as more of a semi soft cheese than a spread.
According to the picture on the recipe this should be a creamy cheese...not a gloop. Either my double broiler set up was wrong in some way, or the milk that I used really did need to be fresh and not cultured. So since I doubt that I'm going to find that anytime in the near future...my Amish cheese recipes may be put on the side burner for now so to speak.
However out of everything I've made so far, cheese or otherwise, this is my first "miss" in the kitchen. So I'm going to take that as a win and move on. We learn as much from our failure as we do our success. Hey Cliche number 5!
Although there is a large part of me that wants to try this again, it's a rather simple recipe and I'm not sure exactly what went wrong. Although I have my ideas. I have some rennet and culture on the way for other experiments in the kitchen. I'm not done yet.
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